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FORESTBURG—Latasha Hicks was one of those people who didn’t consider herself a church person. Used God as a crutch at times, she admitted, but never was sincerely interested in a heart change. The bounce houses for her 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter were the draw. The free food and festive atmosphere didn’t hurt either.
The church had a magician in the auditorium entertaining a group of kids mostly, and sharing the gospel.
Across the highway under a big tent, Lastasha and her husband, Joe, stayed for the revival service. “I was stuck,” she recalled. Kentucky pastor Garry Mitchell, a friend of Bill Kimbley, the host church pastor at Forestburg Baptist in Forestburg, preached the tent meeting Sept. 16-22.
When the invitation was given that first night, Latasha Hicks, 32 weeks pregnant, her marriage on the rocks, was the first one down the aisle to make a profession of faith.
Joe was close behind. They were both baptized in a trough that week along with 46 others in a community that numbers around 300 people. Today, she said, their marriage is improving and for the first time she is genuinely interested in the Bible, not merely looking for ways for God to get her out of trouble. At 7 a.m. on Sundays, she’s springing out of bed. Can’t wait for church.
Their 7-year-old daughter, Courtney, attended the church’s Vacation Bible School last summer and made a profession of faith, but she didn’t tell her parents because “you and Daddy don’t do church stuff,” she told her mother. She will be baptized soon, Latasha Hicks said.
Shelle Balthrop, the church secretary, saw some long-held bitterness her husband had toward church removed. “After the revival, he’s just a different person. His demeanor is different,” she said.
Steve Sandusky, a lifelong Forestburg resident and a teacher and coach there, admitted being skeptical of the tent revival concept. Once he saw the quality of the music and the first-rate way it was conducted, his barriers went down.
“Within minutes you could feel the Spirit,” Sandusky said. Sandusky, his wife Julie, and his oldest son had all been baptized several years ago but were still seeking what he called a “spiritual home.” He was raised Methodist. When his youngest son, who had never followed in believer’s baptism, said he wanted to do that, the whole family went under again to show their support for the youngest.
“I have never seen kids—my birth kids and the school kids—so excited about a church service. … We had a cross country meet on Wednesday, and the main thing was we all wanted to get back for the revival,” Sandusky said.
There was the teenager who 30 minutes before the service told someone he didn’t even believe in God. He made a profession of faith the same night, heaving in tears on Kimbley’s shoulder.
“That kid had never felt love before,” Kimbley remarked.
Mitchell, the preacher for the revival, told Kimbley before the meeting that he believed a “different voice” would be his role in the services. He described himself as a conversational preacher who doesn’t stand behind a pulpit, and not an evangelist but someone “with an evangelistic heart.”
He knew Bill Kimbley’s heart and his preparation in prayer, but he was surprised by the openness to the gospel exhibited in Forestburg, he said.
In 33 years of ministry, “That was actually my first tent revival. I had preached outside before for a service, but never that before.”
He said he believes God rewarded the church’s spiritual trustworthiness by delivering a harvest of souls.
Of the 48 who were baptized, Kimbley said he only counted eight who are what he calls spiritual orphans—those going back into a home where no other Christians reside. That will be an advantage in the discipleship process, he said. Some of the decisions involved entire families.
Kimbley said, “From now on I won’t be satisfied with business as usual. I can’t.”
