Hope is what keeps us on the move, reaching for the one thing that will help us overcome our disappointments and our emptiness.
Many ask, “Who can provide such hope?” This is the question I will answer when I make my way to Brazil in May. We will be holding a Crusade in one of the largest cities in that country, Belo Horizonte. The message we preach will center on man’s longing for hope and where it comes from. The Bible says, “Your word [Lord] is my source of hope” (Psalm 119:114, NLT).
My father has said, “For the Christian, hope does not rest in the affairs of this world. It rests in Christ who is coming again.” This is the message I will be preaching not only in Brazil but later this year in Huai’an City, China, the very city where my mother grew up as the daughter of an American missionary doctor.
It is the “hope held out in the gospel” (Colossians 1:23, NIV) that millions of people in dozens of countries have responded to through My Hope–a unique combination of nationwide evangelistic broadcasts and neighbor-to-neighbor personal outreach. In country after country–50 so far–God has used My Hope to call lost people to Himself, while training believers to effectively share their faith.
A Harvest of Hope
As I write, we are receiving wonderful early reports from My Hope in the Dominican Republic, where we prepared three evangelistic TV specials that featured well-known Dominicans “testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24). Two of the specials included evangelistic messages from my father, and a third had my message on the Prodigal Son, all dubbed into Spanish.
In partnership with 3,700 praying churches, we trained more than 40,000 Christian households to serve as My Hope hosts. Each family prayed for unsaved friends and loved ones, then invited them into their homes for a meal and to watch the My Hope telecasts. After the broadcast ended, hosts turned off the TV set, shared their own personal testimony, and invited guests to receive Christ.
Some homes had as many as 25 people watching, and many responded in repentance and faith. The Bible says, “Let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim his praise in the islands” (Isaiah 42:12), and that’s exactly what has happened across this beautiful island nation.
The next My Hope project is just days away, on the island of Puerto Rico. Pray for lost people there, that the Holy Spirit will “open their eyes and turn them … from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith” (Acts 26:18).
A Celebration in Auburn
In Auburn, Alabama, nearly 20,000 people heard the Gospel during a recent BGEA Crusade led by my son Will Graham (he calls them Celebrations).
At the final meeting on the evening of Palm Sunday, crowds overflowed the coliseum’s capacity and some watched on a giant screen outside. The Holy Spirit was clearly at work in many lives–overall, more than 1,400 people made decisions for Christ, many of them young people, including a number who made life-changing spiritual decisions during preliminary events even before the Crusade started.
I recently traveled to western Canada to meet with pastors and Christian leaders in preparation for the next Rock the River Tour. This is our youth-focused evangelistic Crusade–a festive, high-energy, outdoor event where I preach the Gospel several times intermingled with hours of live music. Pray for crucial preparations now under way in cities of western Canada where we will take this evangelistic tour this summer.
Also this week, the Billy Graham Library has just reopened following many upgrades and exciting additions. One special addition is an original mural by Thomas Kinkade–a 32-foot painting of a dramatic, light-filled landscape centered on the empty Cross. We’ve also put my father’s personal library on display, thousands of books from his own lifetime collection.
If you will be anywhere near the Carolinas this spring or summer, come see for yourself. Bring friends or family. You might want to plan a vacation trip that includes a stop in Charlotte.
Reaching lost souls is the heartbeat of BGEA, and I know it is the heartbeat of those who support us in the work. We need your prayers as well as your financial support this month so that we can continue to see people of every age receive “new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).
May God bless you,
Franklin Graham, President
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
We train Christian families–4.3 million in 50 countries so far–to share Christ with their unsaved friends and neighbors during My Hope broadcasts. Many then make witnessing part of their lifestyle. Your gift of $60 helps equip 30 families in countries like Malawi. A gift of $120 or more helps equip at least 60 families.
CRUSADES
Two years ago, more than 53,000 churches across Brazil partnered with BGEA to carry out a nationwide My Hope outreach. Now churches in Brazil’s third-largest city have invited Franklin to hold a Crusade there. Your gift of $40, $75, or more helps us proclaim the Gospel in Brazil or at other Crusades in places like Japan and Latvia.
