Well, ‘tis yet another eve of departure: the destination, this time, being Eastern Europe. Please keep our evangelism team and the upcoming work in your prayers over the coming weeks. On Wednesday (January 7), I will leave for Romania and Moldova where we will be witnessing on the streets and conducting several martial arts demonstrations as an avenue to preach repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21).

This commentary about the recent arrest of my brother and me in Hickory, NC should be a boisterous alarm to all Bible-believing Christians in America who still think we live in a land of freedom. Articles in the news media and recent public statements by City Officials demand a response.

On a day marking the celebration of our nation’s Independence, I preached in the open air concerning deteriorating religious freedom in America, the biblical principles upon which the United States was founded, the Law of God as written on the conscience of every man, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the command upon all Christians to preach the Gospel message even if it means persecution, imprisonment, and death (Mark 16:15; Acts 5:29).

First, I want to express my deepest gratitude for all the encouraging emails and spiritual support we have received since last weekend’s arrest for the sake of the Gospel. The Hickory Police Department and the Jaycees have been flooded with emails and telephone calls, and certain wheels are now in motion. It is Wednesday, and the charges still have not been dropped; but, I am confident this will soon happen.

It is truly a sad day in America, the supposed "Land of the Free." Last night, my brother (Matthew) and I were arrested for "tresspassing on public property" simply because we were distributing Gospel tracts freely at a free public access event on the town square in Hickory, NC.

In the past weeks, we have assumed a little bit different of an approach for taking the Gospel to our “Jerusalem and Judea” (i.e. our local area--see Acts 1:8). Going to the loitering kids in Hickory on the weekends got old, and we grew weary of dealing with the same blasphemers and haters of God. Matthew 7:6 was ever before our minds. Therefore, we set a goal of hitting the central district of ever single town or community, fanning out from Hickory, NC, even if the so-called town was nothing more than an intersection with a post office.

In South Asia, from the Fall of 2006 to the Summer of 2007, FPGM aimed to assist, supplement, and partner with national believers and the existing work of long-term church-planters by boldly proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, printing and publishing the Word of God, and saturating hitherto unreached areas with the Word of God.

Because of crazy restrictions, we had little carry-on baggage, so we basically have no clothes, no gear, and most tragically, no tracts and Bibles. All I have is a small stack of Hindi tracts, and they are almost gone. You could literally stand on these streets and hand out tracts 24-7. Despite our current situation, the Word has gone out in several instances today.

In February of 2006, Full Proof Gospel Ministries visited the wind-swept regions of Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia with the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ. The FPGM team took Bibles and Gospel tracts into places like Rio Gallegos, El Calafate, El Chalten, Ushuaia (the world's southernmost city), and backcountry border areas on the Chilean frontier (i.e. hitherto unplowed ground). Numerous locals and foreign trekkers were confronted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.