In Puerto Rico, you can see beauty all around—aquamarine-blue water, white sandy beaches surrounded by high cliffs and breathtaking mountains.
“Puerto Rico is the pearl of the Caribbean,” Franklin Graham told the enthusiastic crowd gathered for the first day of the Festival de Esperanza (Festival of Hope), noting the warmth of its people.
But beauty is pointless if you don’t have hope, and that’s what Franklin Graham offered islanders through Jesus Christ at Friday’s Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico. An estimated 11,000 people gathered and another 3,700 watched a live stream of the event online.
Under cloudy skies in the open air Hiram Bithorn Stadium, Franklin Graham offered Puerto Ricans the same Gospel message his father, Billy Graham, shared there in 1967 and again in 1995 at the San Juan Global Mission.
“We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen,” he encouraged them from God’s Word.
For most of his life, 30-year-old Christian, who was in the audience, had not seen or heard from God. But in the last month, Christian said God has been working in his life. He has started attending church with his wife and said he felt God calling him, drawing him closer.
Then about a week ago, he got a Facebook message out of the blue—from an old friend—who simply said God told him to share this—“believe, have faith.”
Christian felt convicted on Friday night as Franklin Graham asked him and the rest of the crowd, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
For the last month, Christian said he waited for a sign from God, who he couldn’t see but felt was calling him. He wanted so badly this faith his wife and friend had.
Christian came to the stadium with a new awareness of God, but no expectations. He only had guilt over his struggle with sin.
When Franklin Graham invited people to come forward and accept Jesus Christ, Christian felt he got his God signal as suddenly his burden of sin lifted off. “I felt, like, a dizzy happiness. All the stress went away.”
Many volunteers at the Festival de Esperanza were at Billy Graham’s 1995 Crusade and consider it an honor to serve at another Graham event.
Over 1,300 churches came together to train and serve in preparation for this weekend’s harvest. Many have fasted, and thousands of counselors and volunteers have prayed leading up to the Festival. Hundreds came to a prayer dedication service on Thursday night.
And that, says Franklin Graham, is why the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association came back to Puerto Rico. Friday morning, hours before the Festival opened, Franklin Graham shared his hope that “there will be people who want to run forward and give their lives to Christ.”
Christian was among those who did just that Friday night. He said he found beauty in what he couldn’t see, but knew to be true.
In his newfound faith, he told God, “Here’s my puzzle. You put it together.”
You can find the same hope in Christ. Take the step now.
