Franklin Graham and his team ended a nine-day journey of more than 1,700 miles on Sunday night as the sun set on the Decision America Sunshine State Tour. The six-city prayer and evangelism tour stretched from the Florida Panhandle to the Keys, where Graham was greeted by palm trees and protestors.
At the first stop, in Jacksonville Beach on January 11, local media asked Graham about the purpose of his outreach to the people of Florida. “I want them to know God loves them,” he said.
He shared the message of God’s love time and again as he visited Plant City, Panama City Beach, Key West, Boca Raton, and Fort Myers. Five of the six events were held outdoors, and the Sunshine State didn’t disappoint. Gorgeous sunsets and temperatures in the 70s and low-80s characterized each tour stop, making the free events the perfect place for Florida families to spend an evening.
They came by the thousands—a diverse group representing the efforts of more than 1,400 Florida churches that caught the evangelistic vision and ran with it. All told, more than 39,000 people showed up for the tour, which featured music from Jeremy Camp and Dennis Agajanian. Hundreds of thousands of others watched online via Franklin Graham’s Facebook page.
Franklin Graham’s daughter, Cissie Graham Lynch, lives in Fort Myers. She’s traveled all over the world with her father’s ministry. This time, the ministry came to her.
“We think of these events on such a large scale, but when it comes to Fort Myers, it’s personal to me,” Lynch said. “Because I’ve got people that I’ve been praying for that I know are coming. Some I’ve been praying for for years.”
Thousands of Christ-followers across Florida were also praying for friends, neighbors and family members to come to the event and have an encounter with Jesus Christ. Almost 3,000 people completed BGEA’s Christian Life & Witness Course ahead of the tour. The course is designed to help believers grow in their faith and learn how to confidently talk about it with others. Many of those who completed the course volunteered to serve as prayer counselors at the tour events.
The counselors who volunteered in Fort Myers had their hands full. After Franklin Graham presented the Good News of Jesus and invited the crowd to accept God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life, hundreds of people stood up to indicate making a decision for Christ.
Down on the floor of the arena, four teenagers boldly rose to their feet.
Haley recently turned 16 and has been dealing with some pretty heavy stuff for her age. There’s a lot of brokenness in her family, and guilt from a bad decision she made two years ago has been weighing on her.
On Saturday night, when she slept over at her friend Bailey’s house, neither of the girls knew exactly where they were going on Sunday. They just knew Bailey’s mom was taking them to some kind of concert, along with Bailey’s teenage brother and his friend. Then they found out there was a little more to it.
“I was like, ‘Oh, it’s actually a church service,’” Bailey said, “but it turned out to be a lot of fun.”