A BEAUTIFUL CAPITOL BUILDING

This Carson City cross walk is the last of eight state capitals and Capitol Malls Jeanette and I brought the ten foot, 60-pound cross to this past July and August and during the second segment of several 8-state cross walks throughout America and our nation’s fifty state capitals and Capitol Malls, which will take place between 2015 and 2020.

This most recent 8-state cross walk took place from July 19 to August 4, 2016. AND, of the eight state cross walks, this one was quite amazing in Christ!

CHURCH IN THE FAST FOOD RESTAURANT

The day we arrived and after checking into our motel room, Jeanette and I drove to a Jack In The Box fast food restaurant, parked in the back next to the drive-up window, walked inside and ordered our meal. As we were eating, a man came up and said, “Excuse me, I am sorry for interrupting your meal…but is that big red truck with the large cross on it and parked outside yours?” Read the rest of this entry »

The Hurt And The Healer
–MercyMe

Why? / the question that is never far away
But healing doesn’t come from the explained
Jesus,  please don’t let this go in vain
You’re all I have / all that remains

I’m alive / even though a part of me has died
Take my heart and breathe it back to life
I fall into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the healer collide

Breathe /  sometimes I feel that’s all that I can do
Pain so deep that I can hardly move
Just keep my eyes completely fixed on You
Lord, take hold and pull me through

It’s the moment when humanity
Is overcome by majesty
When grace is ushered in for good
And all our scars are understood
When mercy takes its rightful place
And all these questions fade away
When out of weakness we must bow
And hear You say, “It’s over now”

Jesus, come and break my fear
Wake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here

When the hurt and the healer collide

San Bernardino is a beautiful southern California city with a population of some 215,000 souls.

Six days after the December 2nd  jihadist terrorist attack on innocent partygoers at the Inland Regional Center (RC) in San Bernardino. I traveled the  165 miles from Bakersfield to this city of some 215,000 souls, checked into my motel room and then unloaded the 60-pound, 10-foot cross from off the go-ye-mobile truck rack and began walking north on Waterman Avenue and toward the large IRC facility.

With the large cross resting on my left shoulder, I walked on the sidewalk and against the flow of traffic, waving and smiling at reach passing vehicle. This is my normal modis operandi, and it has served me well as I’ve walked the cross in some 130 California cities since 2006. From San Ysidro and the Mexican border crossing to San Francisco and the Bay area, response at seeing a now 68 year old street evangelist lugging a large cross on his shoulders and down a busy street has always been so much more positive than negative.

But I really didn’t know how the people of San Bernardino would respond this day.

WALKING THE CROSS IN SAN BERNARDINO IN 2010

Every city I walk the cross at, I bring the large cross to each police station and pray for the safety of its thin blue line.

Five years earlier, I had walked the cross throughout downtown San Bernardino, along with Pasadena, Riverside and two other neighboring cities. But my real destination then was some forty miles away and the small city of Hemet, and especially its police station. My reason to walk the cross in Hemet was because of a short but serious news story I had read in our local paper.

After cracking down on outlaw motorcycle gangs that were engaged in all types of illegal and criminal activities, Hemet police officers became targets of reprisal, including the rerouting of a natural gas pipeline into the headquarters of the county’s gang task force in an attempt to blow up the building and the placement of a crude pipe bomb beneath an unmarked police vehicle as it sat outside a convenience store. Both attempts to kill and harm Hemet’s thin blue line failed, but the threats continued.

After arriving at Hemet, I walked the cross to the police station and, as is my normal method, I hoisted the 10-foot wooden crux upright and began praying loud and long, asking God to protect the city’s thin blue line by surrounding police officers with His thick blue line of angelic protectors. I also asked the God of justice to expose the culprits so they would be arrested.

One week later, Hemet police officers arrested the culprits, and the threat to their safety was totally quashed!

WE ARE SAN BERNARDINO TOUGH!

The names of the fourteen souls slain by the two jihad terrorists.

I thought of Hemet as I walked the cross toward the IRC, and how prayer really does work. Not only in Hemet, but in my hometown of Bakersfield, as well as so many of the other cities I had visited in a ten-year-period of cross walking. But how would the people of San Bernardino respond today after experiencing a totally unexpected terrorist attack on innocent civilians that had left fourteen dead and twenty-one wounded?

My concern was short-lived! As I traveled down the very busy street, car horns sounded, thumbs-up signs were displayed, and “Praise the Lord! shouts rang out loudly from smiling faces inside passing vehicles.

And what really got my attention was the number of people who were wearing long-sleeve tee-shirts that displayed a large arrow head (the symbol of San Bernardino County) with the words SB Strong printed inside the arrow head!

The message was already very clear, a message to all would-be terrorists as well as America and the rest of the world as well: “No force on Earth will keep us down! We are tough. We are San Bernardino Tough!” Read the rest of this entry »

City On Our Knees
–TobyMac

If you gotta start somewhere why not here
If you gotta start sometime why not now
If we gotta start somewhere I say here
If we gotta start sometime I say now
Through the fog there is hope in the distance
From cathedrals to third world missions
Love will fall to the earth like a crashing wave
Tonight’s the night for the sinners and the saints
Two worlds collide in a beautiful display
It’s all love tonight when we step across the line
To a city with one king a city on our knees
A city on our knees Oh oh oh oh oh

GREAT ANTICIPATION OF A VERY SPECIAL CROSS WALK

Oakland is a beautiful city just eight miles form San Francisco via the Bay Bridge.

If the previous day’s great cross walk in San Francisco was any indication of what lie in store for this cross walker as I traveled in the Go-Ye-Mobile-2 truck (GYM-2) from the motel room on the Peninsula and in Belmont (25 miles south of San Francisco) to the East Bay city with a population of some 420,000 souls, then some great and awesome happenings in Christ were definitely going to take place today.

My main destination was Broadway, downtown Oakland’s main street and major hub of activity. The busy street was easy to find. Parking GYM-2 on 7th and Broadway, I sensed a lot of eyes on all my movements as I unstrapped the 10-foot, 60-pound cross from the truck’s rack, hoisted it upon my shoulder and headed north on Broadway and toward City Hall. Read the rest of this entry »

“If you’re going to San Francisco / be sure to wear some flowers in your hair / if you’re going to San Francisco / you’re going to meet some gentle people there…” (San Francisco, written in 1967 by John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas and sung by Scott McKenzie).

In 1978 I did go to San Francisco. Not with flowers in my hair, but with the Gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ in my heart. Accepting the Executive Director position at San Francisco Teen Challenge, my wife and I and our two children moved to the Bay area from Bakersfield after serving as Associate Director of Teen Challenge in that valley city 120 miles north of Los Angeles. I remained Executive Director for 3 1/2 years and some great accomplishments in Christ occurred through the ministry of Teen Challenge and a group of very dedicated staff members during that time.

The Gentle People Of San Francisco And The Bay Area

For the next fourteen years we lived and ministered in the Bay area, sharing God’s love to very receptive souls throughout northern California cities and towns. I was always amazed at just how open the people living there were to God’s Good News.  Our ministry prospered, and  thousands became born-again believers, while hundreds of thousands of youth ages 6-18 made the decison to say no to drugs through our drug prevention campaign, NOPE TO DOPE.

Then, for personal reasons and with God’s blessings, in 1992 we moved back to Bakersfield. And, although I knew we would never live in the Bay area again, I certainly believed we would one day come back to San Francisco and share God’s love in Christ Jesus to both the gentle and not so gentle souls living in the City by the Bay. Read the rest of this entry »

After a special and successful cross walk in San Diego the day before, I drove Go-Ye-Mobile-2 (GYM-2) to the huge Outlets At The Border shopping complex in the border town of San Ysidro and parked just a few feet from the long and tall border fence.  After unstrapping the cross from the truck’s bed rack, I hoisted the cross on my shoulder and walked up the pedestrian walkway on my way to the border check-in station.

From the very start, people passing by on the walkway waved or said, “Praise the Lord,” or looked with awe or puzzlement as to what was going on. The atmosphere was filled with the Holy Spirit’s presence, and I couldn’t help but think how great it was to be able to lug the heavy cross up the walkway and across the I-5 overpass and toward the high border wall separating two countries from each other.

It was drizzling, and the light rain felt good as I made my way to the new pedestrian crossing into Mexico. The San Ysidro/Mexico border crossing is our country’s busiest land border crossing. The new crossing opened in August, 2015, and serves over 22,000 southbound crossers a day into the Mexican city of Tijuana. The area around the pedestrian border crossing is very busy and I was excited that hundreds of Americans and Mexicans would see the large cross.

The pedestrian walkway from where I was parked to the border entrance is slightly uphill and I felt the extra downward pull of gravity as I walked up to the Interstate 5’s overpass and toward the pedestrian crossing. But nothing was going to stop this cross walk! I knew God had some great plans for this day.

AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE BECAUSE OF TAKING CARE OF GOD’S BUSINESS!

As I reached this huge conglomeration of  men, women and children heading into or out of Mexico, I hoisted the 10-foot, 60-pound cross right in the middle of the busy rotunda and prayed for all the people passing by. This is a very security-minded area. Border Patrol agents came up to me and asked what I was doing. After sharing that I was praying for both nations, and for their safety as well, and that I was headed toward the entrance of the pedestrian border crossing, a supervisor shared, “We usually don’t allow anyone to take large objects to the border entrance. But you can go on up this time and take care of God’s business.”

I shook their hands and thanked each one for their service to our country, then continued praying for all the people passing by.

Read the rest of this entry »

San Diego! The nation’s eighth largest city and California’s second biggest, with a population of some 1,300,000 souls. A beautiful city that is about 20 miles from the California/Mexico border.

The economy of San Diego is influenced by its deepwater port, which includes the only major submarine and shipbuilding yards on the West Coast. 

San Diego also hosts the largest naval fleet in the world. About 5 percent of all civilian jobs in the county are military-related, and 15,000 businesses in San Diego County rely on Department of Defense contracts.

Military bases in San Diego include US Navy facilities, Marine Corps bases, and Coast Guard stations. The city is home to the majority of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s surface combatants, all of the Navy’s West Coast amphibious ships and a variety of Coast Guard and Military Sealift Command vessels.

PRAYING FOR GREAT REVIVAL THROUGHOUT SAN DIEGO AND TIJUANA

San Diego is also a strategic city for the Mexican drug cartels to smuggle their narcotics and other mind, body and soul poisons into America. Just a few miles south of San Diego is the busiest border crossing in our country, the San Ysidro/Tijuana border crossing.

Although I would be cross walking at the border the next day, as I parked Go-Ye-Mobile-2 (GYM-2) in a large downtown residential area of San Diego, my thoughts were on these Mexican drug cartels that have found elaborate and elusive ways to smuggle marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin across or even beneath our border with Mexico throughout this border area.

As I unloaded the 10-foot, 60-pound cross, excitement and expectation filled my spirit with great joy and faith. Today I would walk the cross in an area where thousands of residents and tourists would see the cross.

Placing the heavy cross on my right shoulder, I audibly declared to the Lord of the Harvest, “Today, I am Your mule.  As I walk the cross, I ask You to turn it into Your great spiritual plow and break up the hardened, stony and thorny grounds of people’s hearts and expose the good ground so Your Good Seed, the Word of salvation, can be sown, set, germinate and sprout up unto eternal life in the hearts and lives of thousands…for Your glory and honor. Lord, let this take place not only in the lives of the people living in San Diego, but prepare the hearts of those living in Tijuana as well. Let today’s cross walk be for Your glory and honor…and let tomorrow’s cross walk at the border transform the lives of those living in Tijuana as well! In Jesus Name I ask You for all this. Amen!” Read the rest of this entry »

A beautiful city with two major rivers, the American and the Sacramento, flowing through its land.

Sacramento, California. The first of fifty state capitals Street Evangelist Tom Alexander plans to bring the large cross to and pray hard and long for great revival and great godly sorrow to break out among the people of America. Cross Walk America: Pray USA is a five year mission to visit all fifty state capitals and major cities of America. Sacramento is a beautiful city with a population of over 500,000 souls. As California’s state capital, this is where state laws are made, and where revival must begin for the Golden State’s 39,000,000 souls to personally experience salvation in Jesus Christ and to turn back to the living God.

On September 10 I traveled 300 miles north from Bakersfield (my home town) and checked into my motel room in the mid-town area of Sacramento just after noon. After freshening up a bit, I unloaded the 10-foot, 60-pound cross and began cross walking this large residential/mid-town area. As I walked west on N Street,  I audibly put on and took up the complete armor and armaments of God, described in the 6th chapter of Ephesians and then spiritually ate the fruit of the Spirit as described in Galatians 5. Spiritual warfare is very real, and the spiritual panoply and fruit are essential in the battle against the evil one for precious and lost, confused and blinded souls.

GOD’S SPIRITUAL HEARTLIGHT, PORCH LIGHT, TORCHLIGHT, SPOTLIGHT

“Lord, let this fellowship be Your spiritual heartlight, porch light, torchlight and spotlight, attracting and drawing the unsaved to You.”

The response to the large cross was diverse. Walking the cross throughout both residential and business areas, I would stop at street corners, hoist the cross upright and pray for the people living and working in those areas, that they all know who Jesus Christ really is and accept Him as their Savior. People would come up and ask what I was doing. When I shared that I was praying for the people of Sacramento, the majority of these men, women and even children would nod their heads and smile, then thank me.

As is my custom, I also hoist the cross upright at every church I pass and pray that great revival breaks out from inside the fellowship and flows freely and powerfully throughout that neighborhood, and that each fellowship realizes that it is God’s spiritual heartlight, porch light, torchlight and spotlight designed by God to attract and draw people like light attracts flies to a light bulb. And, if the people won’t come to them, then the church must go to them, acting as a torchlight and spotlight in its community. Read the rest of this entry »

This is California’s finest rehabilitation center for all types of physical, mental and neurological disorders and dysfunctions.

This cross walk throughout the city of Downey was a very special Walk The Cross ministry. A dear friend of ours had suffered a severe near-death, two-vehicle collision that had left him in a coma and the other driver paralyzed from the neck down. After more than a month in the Intensive Care and then Direct Observation units at Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, Dave was still in a coma. Much, much on-going prayer continued throughout this ordeal for Dave, his wife Orpha, daughter Paige and young son, Dave Jr.

Slowly but surely, Dave came out of the coma, which was a miracle in itself.

Dave progressed so well that the decision was made to transfer him to California’s finest rehabilitation hospital located in the city of Downey, Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center.

Some special friends of Dave and Orpha asked me to visit Dave at Rancho Los Amigos and also underwrote the traveling and motel costs. I decided to stay two days and also cross walk the city after visiting Dave and Orpha. Read the rest of this entry »

Ojai Avenue is the city’s main street, where tourists and the people of Ojai congregate and visit its sidewalk cafes, museums and gift shops.

Situated 12 miles inland from our favorite beach town, Ventura,  the city of Ojai is populated by just under 8,000 souls. No matter the size, people in every city and town need Jesus!

The first time we cross walked Ventura a couple of years ago and as I walked the cross upon its long and beautiful pier, a man from Ojai approached me. He had a big grin on his face.

“When are you coming to Ojai?” he asked before I could greet him. “I teach a Bible study there, and believe me, Ojai needs to see that cross.” Read the rest of this entry »

Walking the cross on Buck Owens Boulevard. The city sign is Bakersfield’s most familiar and cherished icon.

Bakersfield, California is my hometown. So…naturally, this is the city I have the opportunity to walk the cross at most often. As of 2014, there are some 360,000 souls living in greater Bakersfield, a city that has seven official wards, or areas, supervised by seven elected council members, 7 official police zones, 60 official neighborhoods and 60 parks. And like all California cities, there are gangs. One of my main purposes in walking the large cross throughout Bakersfield and other California cities is to catch the attention of both saved and unsaved individuals, including gangbangers, drug users and other troubled and troubling individuals. Read the rest of this entry »