When Paul Detwiler received the special edition Great Controversy mailing this past April, he read it, and requested the free DVD and Bible studies. Church members followed up with personal visits. During the recent four-week evangelistic series, he was one of 46 new members baptized.

“The Holy Spirit is on the move here in San Francisco,” says David Hudgens, pastor of San Francisco’s Philadelphian and Rainbow churches. He is passionate about the church’s job: “Evangelism! That is what the church is about. The mission is letting this earth know what God is all about.”

Both churches hosted simultaneous evangelistic meetings Sept. 8 to Oct. 7, 2006. Though only a few miles apart, they are in very different neighborhoods. The Philadelphian church is located in a business area mingled with single family homes and apartments. The Rainbow church, located in Bayview Hunters Point, is a residential area in need of an economic uplift.

Evangelist Ron Williams II was the guest speaker at the YMCA in Hunters Point, and Hudgens preached at the Philadelphian church. Both meetings were supported by a team of nine seminary students from Andrews University, eight Bible workers and the Conference Urban Youth Evangelism Team led by David Dean.

The Beginning

A massive outreach to San Francisco began more than a year ago as members of the city’s 14 churches began to regularly meet and pray together, seeking God’s direction. A prayer chain began with someone praying every 10 minutes, 16 hours every day. With the 100-year anniversary of the April 1906 earthquake approaching, all agreed that this was the perfect time to touch every household.

A special edition of Great Controversy, with the last 11 chapters, a Golden Gate Bridge cover and an insert for free DVDs, literature and Bible studies inside, was mailed to every residence — 440,000 of them — in April 2006.(Funding for the mailing came from San Francisco church members, the Camp Meeting Evangelism Offering and the Pacific Union Conference Evangelism Endowment.)

God’s Perfect Timing

Lillian Garner, a World Savings Bank employee, had just moved into her new house when the invitation to the meetings arrived. “I’ve always believed in God, always gone to church, but was never satisfied,” she says. When she made her decision to be baptized, she took the brochure to her manager and explained the Sabbath. She was assured there would be no problem adjusting her hours to accommodate sundown on Fridays.

Joey Ozan stopped in San Francisco to see his father while moving from Las Vegas, Nev., to Portland, Ore. It was his first visit home in 12 years. He’d been raised in the Adventist church and schools but, as a young adult, had chosen his own agenda. “I wanted to become successful in my own mind, pursuing the intellectual,” he says.

Ozan joined his dad for an evening meeting and never left. He was re-baptized and is staying in San Francisco. And he’s volunteered to be the church’s webmaster. “Those things don’t really matter, they have no substance,” he says of his former life. “I’ve learned to build a relationship with Jesus and I’m growing in leaps and bounds.”

The Dream

Mildred and Martha Evans discovered the Rays of Hope flyer while standing in line in the wrong office building. “We really wanted a new church to attend,” Mildred says. They were frustrated as they searched for deeper teaching. “We’d been praying and waiting for God’s leading.”

The identical twins have always dedicated their lives to praying for their neighbors and bringing people to Jesus — something they learned from their mother. “Our homes are a prayer shield where people come and we share the Word of God with them,” she explains about their Hunters Point personal ministries.

“The teachings were so profound. We were in the Word! ” Martha says about the seminar. A church member visited regularly, giving Bible studies. But they remained resistant to joining the Adventist church. Then Martha had a dream where she saw a baptism and the face of a pastor.

The following week when Hudgens came to assist with baptisms at the Rainbow church, Martha saw the face in her dream. “God had shown me it was OK to be baptized,” she exudes. “I was so tickled!”

Nurture and Outreach

At the Philadelphian church, the pastor’s class for new believers is filled. New members are bringing their family members and friends. Gym night on Thursdays brings youth and young adults together from both churches. A joint New Year’s Eve candlelight communion service brought both church families together.

At the Rainbow church, the Urban Youth Evangelism Team continued with outreach meetings for youth and young adults through December. Pastoral couple Steve and Linda Mackey began to serve the church full-time on Dec. 1. The Evans sisters, joined by church members, lead a 5 a.m. prayer time, fives days a week at the church. And one of their friends has already been baptized.

“It’s going to get bigger,” says Martha. “When God starts dealing with your heart, things will happen. We’re just obeying God!”