to this particular page since February 1, 1998.Greetings in the name of Jesus! Compiled here is the journal that went out on electronic mail during the expedition.
HOW MANY PRAYED?
Thank you so much for praying! We distributed nearly 3000 prayer journals to allow people to "walk" with the team in prayer along the trail. With these journals being photocopied and used by prayer groups of 2-200, we conservatively estimate that as many as people have prayed every day for OPERATION RESTORATION.
OCTOBER 1-2
Our team's orientation at Mt. Paran Safe House Ministries downtown Atlanta was much better than anyone expected. Team bonding and unity were evident from the beginning. I was very pleased with the bonding of the team, the maturity in intercession, the sensitivity to the Spirit, and the athletic stamina. After a very successful two-day orientation time for the team in Atlanta, the OPERATION RESTORATION team began walking south along the route that Sherman's right wing took in the fall of 1864 during its infamous March to the Sea.
Prayer time at the State Capitol was a classic example of identificational repentance as Linda Fulmer, cousin of WT Sherman, repented for the burning of Atlanta on the spot where eviction orders had gone out to the citizens of the city in 1864. Native son of Georgia, Henry Redding, forgave and repented for the bitterness and hatred Georgians have felt for the destruction of their state by federal armies. At the Capitol's cornerstone, Frank Seignious, rector of Christ Church Episcopal in Mt. Pleasant, SC, dropped to his knees in repentance and weeping as the team gathered around him. Frank was repenting for the dedication of the capitol and its legislature to freemasonry. Afterward, the team blessed the state of Georgia and its people with revival and salvation.
The orientation ended late Tuesday afternoon with communion, a foot washing, and a lot of tears and laughter.
OCTOBER 3
The first full day of walking took the team to Stockbridge, GA, and gave everyone a taste of what the trip would be like. The day was walked off easily with little soreness and only a few wrong turns! Everyone ended the day with exuberant praise at Stockbridge's city hall.
OCTOBER 4
A longer day, 27 miles, put some fatigue on the team, but not anything like what was expected. Energy levels continued high, and the team's first real prayer on the road began. We took communion and had protracted prayer at Shingle Roof Campground, a Methodist camp meeting site that dates from the Second Great Awakening. Repentance poured from the team members for division in the Body of Christ, and prayers for unity soon followed, ending with a joyous petition to the Lord to renew this nation in a new Great Awakening.
Continuing on to Indian Springs where whites in 1821 bribed a half-breed Creek chief to sign away all the Creek lands in Georgia, Christian Bass, a native of Savannah, Georgia, identificationally repented to Linda Graham, a federally registered Muskogee Creek, for the act. Linda, who is a mixed blood, then repented to full-blood Cree Native Fern Noble (our team pastor), for cheating other natives and giving up their birthright for a bribe. Then we asked the Lord to reassign the desolate inheritances (Isaiah 49:8-9)in that place.
Despite a last minute loss of housing at Indian Springs State Park, the Lord opened a doorway of hospitality through a nonChristian older man across from the park who invited the team to an evening meal and housing! Not desiring to impose, half the team drove to Macon to stay with team member Henry Redding, but the remainder made a lonely elderly man happy by staying at his home.
OCTOBER 5
While the day was easy mile-wise (only 17 miles), the team was taxed spiritually as we walked into Monticello, GA, a town where reportedly 99% of the white males are Masons. Offering only prayers of blessing and protection, Ron Campbell led the team in prayer for the release of the captives.
From there, we piled into vehicles to Eatonton, GA, where the team found the Rock Eagle effigy mound a puzzle. Older than the pyramids of Egypt, the pile of rocks in the shape of a bird with a 120 feet wing span seemed to be a situation the Lord was not calling the team to engage, so we moved on to our housing in Greensboro, GA.
There, the Lord had planned a prayer meeting with Pastor Sherwin Finch of Wesley Chapel Wesleyan Church. First he took us to the Prayer Rock to which women came to pray as far back as a century ago. Next the team moved to the place where the pastor has envisioned a new worship center reaching out to the community. Greensboro has seen a high incidence of teen suicide and fatherless homes, both being seen in Sherwin's own church. In repentance, restoration of the land, and reassignment of the desolate inheritances (see our assignment Isaiah 49:8-9), we anointed the land for the Lord's work as Ron Campbell, a father of five, identificationally repented to Pastor Sherwin Finch, himself an adopted child. This was a powerful time of prayer.
OCTOBER 6
Today's rest day has been enjoyed together as a team. After five days of togetherness, the team has not grown tired of being together so much, but gathered at Pastor Sherwin's home for lunch and to talk, later dispersing to homes to rest and read. Fern Noble, Gene Brooks, Christian Bass, and David Kim scouted out the old gaol here in Greensboro for prayer tomorrow morning. It proves to be a heavy time of prayer since the jail was a place of torture and hangings. It gave me (Gene) a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The team has received over 20 words of a prophetic nature of joy and rejoicing and laughter being the team's strength, and this has actually been the case when often our joy and laughter overcome our meal times, prayer times, strategy gatherings, and personal interactions. Keep praying joy into our team as this is the best remedy for the grief we sense in the land through which we are traveling.
I have been very pleased at the unity and teamwork among our team members. They are diligent not to let little things let the sun go down on them. After six days of togetherness, the team was enjoying one another, and it made my heart glad. At 6pm the Sunday evening church service at Wesley Chapel Wesleyan Church included a short explanation of identificational repentance followed by team testimonies. Then a surprise. When Barbara Gard got up to repent for her grandfather's participation in Sherman's march, we got a church member whose grandmother had had two cows and a mule stolen. It was a powerful and emotional time of identificational repentance that no one expected.
OCTOBER 7
An early morning of 6:15am with a long day of rain ahead of us, our team prayed at the Greensboro, GA, gaol which was historically a torture chamber and execution site. Then we walked it off easily in joy despite the steady rain of Tropical Storm Josephine. In answer to many prayers, a cold wind came out of nowhere and blew the storm away to the north. Excited pastors from Milledgeville stopped us twice as we came into town, and we prayed there at the Old Civil War Capitol of Georgia before housing in Macon with generous hosts.
OCTOBER 8
The morning was spent praying in Macon with local pastors and other Christians. Macon is laid out according to the city plans of Babylon, some prayed at the four corners of this city plan, then circled the Grand Lodge of Georgia in prayer, followed by prayer at Fort Hawkins (once the southwestern boundary of the United States) on the Ocmulgee River. Then the team and Macon Christians and pastors moved on to the Ocmulgee National Monument--Mississippian Indian Mounds at a religious center of the Southeast dating back some 10,000 years.
The afternoon was spent in Milledgeville with several local pastors,
doing identificational repentance at Georgia's Civil War capitol in tearers of Northern war atrocities, Southern bitterness, selling slaves, and idolatrous worship of Native Americans. The Old Capitol in Milledgeville is built on top of an ancient Creek ceremonial site. Later we took communion with a Foursquare and a Southern Baptist pastor and did identificational repentance at the site of the Trans-Ogeechee Indian treaty of 1792 when the Creeks were forced under duress to give up the lands between the Ogeechee and Ocmulgee Rivers in return for peace. The treaty site is on the property of Georgia's State Mental Hospital.
OCTOBER 9
On a beautifully sunny day, the team marched through Georgia pines to Sandersville where only the Masonic lodge which was a replica of the temple to Athena was left standing when Sherman passed through. The lodge, built by slaves, was not burned at the request of two Methodist ministers. Since a United Methodist pastor was our coordinator who understands well the ideas of identificational repentance, he stood in the gap in intercession for the sin of two Methodist pastors who defended an idolatrous temple instead of their own churches. Later Barbara Gard repented to this native son and local pastor of Georgia for the rape of the state by her ancestors.
As we prayed, a local radio reporter noticed our team, talked with Wayne Graham, and then took Wayne into the courthouse to meet the probate judge. A few minutes later we had an invitation from the probate judge to come in and pray with her. She took us into the records vault where we laid hands on documents that evaded Sherman's torch (because they had been hidden in a Mason's home) and prayed blessing on the county, the judge, and asked forgiveness for the scourge of Sherman in Sandersville. The probate judge with tears in her eyes, suddenly said, "I forgive you; I love you. In the name of the county, in the name of this city, for my family, I forgive you. In the name of Jesus, I forgive you." Ron Campbell later said, "Now we have the keys to the city to pray as God leads us."
OCTOBER 10
Hosea 2-3. In the early morning in Sandersville, we prayed in Deepstep Road, an area of many car accidents, a hair salon where we were invited to pray, and another salon which was downstairs from the Masonic Lodge. It was not enjoyable prayer, but Ron Campbell led us in repentance for the worship of Egyptian deities. After a strong walk to Louisville, GA, we took communion at the 1757 slave market at the center of town with a Pentecostal prayer group which we happened upon. After praying at Old Towne Plantation, the site of still-standing chimneys of a home Sherman burned and also an early Indian trading site, we returned to the Slave Market to join in a community-wide prayer. God provided a 90+ year old African-American strong Christian woman of great integrity (Mrs. Mollie) and a black elder from a local church to stand in the place of slavery's descendants and forgive as Wayne Graham and Pastor John Eubanks led in identificational repentance as about 30 from the community joined in prayer.
On this day our team felt (and we received confirmations from all over the country) that we had moved into a new dimension, intensity, and authority in intercession with the attendant resistance. As a result, many of the team came under physical illness or physical stress.
OCTOBER 11
The team marched off its mileage quickly and prayed at Magnolia Springs State Park, at one time the site of a Confederate POW camp which caught overflow from Andersonville. It was at the time the largest prison in the world. There we had prayer and joined the chairman of the board of deacons of the local Southern Baptist Church for a meal at the state park followed by a prayer meeting in which a black pastor participated.
OCTOBER 12
Tired, but still going, the team continued marching. It took until the 9th to walk the first 100 miles, but the team had made its 200th mile by this day, the 12th, ending the most physically grueling full week of the whole trip. There are other long days of marching, but none so many in a row!
The team then drove out to the site of one of the burned churches--Gays Hill Baptist Church--burned March 27, 1996. Nothing was left except the front steps and ashes, and we buried a gold chain in the ground (gold being a Biblical symbol of glory) and asked the Lord to return in glory to this place and let his glory rest upon that land. After repentance at the railroad depot which Sherman destroyed in Millen, the team moved south toward Statesboro, and miraculously did over 30 miles in three hours!
OCTOBER 13
We stayed on Sunday at state park cabins west of Statesboro in the quiet of the country and ate and fellowshiped and rested together.
OCTOBER 14
Today the team prayed at Ebenezer Creek outside Springfield, the site where United States troops pulled a pontoon bridge and left several thousand slaves on the other side, many of whom drowned trying to cross the swollen river. There was repentance there for slavery, the Northern army's pulling the bridge, and called for obedience in that place.
The team also prayed at the nearby Ebenezer Sulzberger Church, established 1734, the oldest, continuously meeting local church in North America. In the park, a print read, "On October 31, 1731, the edict of expulsion required all unpropertied Protestants to leave the country within eight days, taking only what they could carry on their backs. Expelled just as winter was beginning, many of these wretched died as they marched poorly clad and barely fed through the dense snow and icy blast." This church's name is the Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church, and just as the team arrived there, a man drove up on a motorcycle and offered to open the church for us to pray inside.
Isaiah 25:7: "On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; 8-He will swallow up Death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from All faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken."
OCTOBER 15
On this Tuesday the team moved on from the country community of Blichton to just inside the Savannah city limits. Christian Revival Center, a predominantly African-American church pastored by Freddie Hebron helped us with local coordination while we were in Savannah. Linda Fulmer, descendant of the oldest families in South Carolina and cousin of WT Sherman, arrived from Lindale, Texas, to join the team.
OCTOBER 16
We moved on into downtown Savannah to Christian Revival Center, right on our route, on 37th and Bull Streets where we served lunch in their homeless ministry as a prophetic act from Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58 parallels our assignment in Isaiah 49:8-9 very closely. Our service to the downtrodden we believed also would enhance our intercession later in the afternoon. Gene and Fern led one man to Christ just after lunch that day.
In the afternoon we moved out as a team along Bull Street praying in the squares along the way. We took communion at the fountain in Forsyth Park which is a replica of the one in the Plaza de Concorde in Paris. At Wright Square the Lord gave us words to pray regarding justice and righteous judgements. Soon we found we were on the courthouse square.
Later we arrived at the site where Mico (King) Tomochichi gave the land for Savannah. There we had identificational repentance where Christian Bass, a Savannian, and Linda Graham, a Muskogee Creek (a cultural-linguistic relative of the Yamacraw people), led in prayer. Christian asked forgiveness for whites' taking advantage of the generosity of the first peoples and under duress forcing the giving up of more land toward taking the whole state of Georgia away from the Muskogee. Christian and Linda found themselves very tired after that short time of prayer. As we entered the city hall to pray around the indoor fountain, someone in a passing car shouted, "I curse you!" very loudly. We immediately asked God to break that curse and continued on in prayer.
Our team then proceeded to the oldest, continuous Masonic lodge in the Western Hemisphere, Solomon's Lodge #1, where a local pastor and former Savannah freemason identificationally repented in quiet prayer in front of the building. Next we moved out to Savannah's Waving Girl, a statue of the city legend of a girl who went to the docks every day to wave in her long-lost lover from sea. He never returned. We prayed that Jesus, the Son of God, would be the beau that Savannah so desperately desires and return to the lovelorn city of Savannah as its Bridegroom and satisfy the longing with awakening and revival. We spoke prophetically, "Look! See your Bridegroom comes in the clouds! Turn and receive the Lord!"
During the evening service at Christian Revival Center, Ron Campbell presented some of his research into the spiritual dynamics behind freemasonry. During the service Frank Seignious, rector of Christ Church Episcopal in Mt. Pleasant, SC, arrived ready and excited to join our team in intercession.
OCTOBER 17
Gathering later than usual since everyone was so drained from the intercession of the day before, and after a team meeting, we served lunch to homeless at Christ Church Episcopal in Savannah. After testimonies and one-on-one ministry with these men and women, we gained entrance to pray in Christ Church, the mother church of Georgia where both John Wesley and George White field served as rectors. There Gene Brooks read a sober passage, Ezekiel 8, and Frank Seignious stood in the gap in repentance for many things connected with the body of Christ and freemasonry, contention, and Native American issues.
Afterward the team moved to the John Wesley monument, worshiped and prayed, and took communion there. At this place, Frank again identificationally repented for Anglican John Wesley's curse of Savannah when he left the city in 1737 and asked the Lord to remove it. Communion followed. Then we moved to the Salzberger Reconciliation Stone given by Salzburg, Austria, in 1994 in hopes of reconciling with the Salzburger Protestants who were forced to leave Austria under persecution. There we prayed that this city that received these Salzburgers would send fresh waves of missionaries worldwide.
That missionary-sending prayer continued as the team moved to First African Baptist Church, organized 1773, under freed slave James Leile. This church sent the first missionaries from America. James Leile planted First Baptist in Kingston, Jamaica, and a woman went as a missionary to Surinam years before Adoniram Judson went to Burma.
We then ended the day at Fort Pulaski, the fortress that Savannah was so proud of, which fell after only a few days bombardment early in the War Between the States. Mary Consolacion, a picket from San Rafael, CA, pointed us to the fort as a gate to the city, and we asked that God's glory would fill this fortress--that Savannah's fortress may indeed be God and His glory.
OCTOBER 18
On this day the team crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina. This area of South Carolina was the hardest hit by Sherman's forces, and earlier the hardest hit by the British, and earlier hit hard in the Yamassee War of 1713-15, where SC forces obliterated the Yamassee people in numerous massacres.
Though the mileage to Hardeeville, SC, was easy, we found quickly the great wound in this area, and it made us much more tired than walking a 35 mile day. At the end of the walk, we ate lunch at a restaurant owned by an African-American woman and circled up with her in her restaurant and prayed blessing on her, her employees, the town of Hardeeville, and her restaurant. Smiles, hugs, kisses, and tears were the results.
After lunch we drove to Robertville, SC (of the ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER family), which had been totally dismantled by Sherman's troops, and we repented at one of the few buildings there still today (moved there from somewhere else) the Robertville Baptist Church, and later took communion there.
OCTOBER 19
Easy mileage to Ridgeland, SC, was followed by our happening on an African-American-owned new Christian bookstore. We prayed blessing on Ridgeland and the future of the store, and then joined an outreach to the community of Bluffton, SC, with the African-American church The Word is Alive, which is planting a church in Bluffton.
OCTOBER 20
Today the team gathered with 40 local people at the Sheldon Church Ruins to have an Anglican Eucharist. It was a surprise to have so many interested people come and worship. Old Sheldon Anglican Church today is a ruin. Built only a few hundred yards from a massacre site of the Yamassee people, the church was built by slave (African and Indian) labor, burned by the British in 1779, and again by Sherman in 1865 when it was left a ruin. The commander of the army which destroyed the Yamassees is buried where the altar was, and Linda Fulmer on our team is a direct descendant of that man. We used an Anglican service that would have been used in 1865, and the days' selection just happened to be on repentance, reconciliation to Christ, and removal of past sins. Frank Seignious, rector of Christ Church, Mt. Pleasant, SC, led in Holy Eucharist on a most beautiful day. Following the service the team gathered for identificational repentance in the ruins. Linda Fulmer, descendant of the family that led the Yamassee War, built Sheldon Church, and owned 144,000 acres in the area during the colonial period, repented on numerous levels.
OCTOBER 21
The team walked easily from Ridgeland to Yemassee, SC, in the heart of the old Yamassee Nation until 1715 when white settlers ethnically cleansed the area in order to open it for settlement. Later Sherman's vengeance was meted out with similar severity in the same places. In the afternoon the team drove to Estill, SC, to get a history lesson from a Southern viewpoint on Sherman's march through SC. The jovial Lawton O'Cain, like many Southerners, still suffers from the bitterness of the atrocities of 1865. She took us to the grandiose steps of a plantation home that was burned by Sherman's troops. Covered in vines, the steps and the live oak avenues were relics of worldly sorrow to be sure.
OCTOBER 22
RESTORATION DAY During the day we completed prayer at 10 Yamassee Massacre Sites and at several sites in Beaufort including Parris Island Marine Recruitment Depot where the second oldest settlement (after St. Augustine) was made by the Spanish in 1519, just shortly after Columbus. After returning to Beaufort, the team enjoyed Low Country Boil, a local dish of corn on the cob, shrimp, whole potatoes, and sausage boiled together in a pot and served separately; and then listened to a presentation by an expert with a Ph.D. in Sherman's March through South Carolina who heard of our prayerwalk and volunteered to lend his expertise to our effort. Many prophetic words about the release of hospitality which would break the yoke of oppression over the land have been evident. There was more housing available on this night than the team needed.
OCTOBER 23
Up early, the team drove to the small (pop. 250) community of Lobeco, SC, where we met with the students at Spoken Word Outreach Ministries Christian School in an assembly. Frank Seignious demonstrated identificational repentance with an African-American teacher, and Linda Graham demonstrated praying blessing on the land and its peoples. Later in the morning the team stepped off the mileage from Yemassee to Hampton, SC. Having been so worn out from so much intercession during the previous two days, it was good to be back on the road to exercise our legs and rest from the heavy prayer.
Upon arriving in Hampton, we were greeted by several pastors and lay leaders from the little county seat, but one leader in particular stood out--the county auditor was overjoyed to have the team in town. She led the OR team into the courthouse after quitting time and asked us to praise God there which we and the local pastors and other Christians did. Meanwhile the spunky blonde auditor went door to door among the county offices, anointing the doorposts and praying a blessing and dedication to the Lord over each one. Some identificational repentance for the burning of the area, we moved briefly to our host homes. After a covered dish dinner at a church which doubles as a skating rink and is ministering among the children in government housing in Hampton, we went to homes.
OCTOBER 24
Hampton to Ehrhardt, SC. Another heavy prayer assignment was on the docket for this day, as the team met at Rivers Bridge State Park, site of the only pitched battle between Sherman and the Confederates on South Carolina soil. The Southerners massed around a thousand troops along the north bank of the Salkehatchie River swamps and dug in. With 30,000+troops in the immediate area, Sherman did not lose much time overwhelming the Confederate breastworks and outflanking them, but the wounds run deep here. After two hours of prayer at the cemetery where only Confederate soldiers are buried in separate graves, the team moved a mile away to the battle site on the river. Standing in the area between the opposing gun son the quiet, serene riverbank, the descendants of Union soldiers on our team joined hands with the descendants of Confederate soldiers, and offered repentance. Gene Brooks' Confederate ancestor had been in those trenches the day of the battle. Forgiveness and confession flowed like the river where the intercessors stood. Then the team took communion and after the example of Elijah throwing salt to heal the waters, the team cast part of their wine and bread into the river in a prophetic act in symbolism of healing the land to prepare for revival.
That night hospitality flowed again as the team ate at a Mennonite restaurant in Blackville, SC, and the owner was so impressed with the team's mission that he ordered free dessert and extras for everyone before our going to Barnwell State Park for lodging. A local Christian family called and paid for the lodging costs in the park's cabins.
OCTOBER 25
With what turned out to be a free breakfast at the Mennonite restaurant, the team, at the request of the owner, had our meeting and sang praises at the restaurant. In another divine appointment, Deacon Leon Hughes of Shrub Branch Baptist Church, one of the infamous burned Black churches, was eating there. He was excited to take us and the Mennonites to his newly finished brick building which replaced the old church burned three years ago. Though the pews and pulpit had not yet arrived, the carpet and all the extras were in the building with no debt. Here we saw an example of Isaiah 49:8-9's "reassigned desolate inheritances." After identificational repentance for slavery, racism, Ku Klux, church burning, segregation, and bitterness, the OR team planted a seed in the land of $300 to buy a pew in the new structure.
Next the team went to Healing Springs near Barnwell, SC, the site of a mineral spring that dates from the time of the Coosa Indians of the area who brought wounded British soldiers to the waters to experience healing of their wounds. Today several hundred a day come there to take the water to their homes. We prayed there for God's glory and healing to be manifested, and for Christ to be raised up as the Healer. Interestingly, this day was the fourth day in the lunar calendar of the ancient Reconciliation Feast of (especially the Cherokees, but also) the Southeastern Natives in which the Indians, seeking cleansing from the previous years' pollution, went as a tribe to the local water source and bathed or were baptized. We prayed that redemptive gift of God to the natives into the place as well.
After praying at Blackville-Hilda High School, scene of a race-based shooting last year, the team walked its mileage in the afternoon through fields and woods from Ehrhardt to Bamberg, SC. Supper was in a nearby rural community with a lady who fed the team royally. This outbreak of hospitality has seen some team members gain as much as ten pounds since October 1 despite over 400 miles of walking!
OCTOBER 26
The team this morning headed north from Bamberg, SC, after a lengthy prayer meeting at the courthouse. Along the trail there has been a sense of moving into regions which have their own set of spiritual issues. From Atlanta to Sandersville, GA, we were in the Muskogee Creek region of rolling woodlands. Then Sandersville to Millen, GA, was another region which may be called the Yuchi section with a shift in demographics to 70/80% black/20-30% white and flat land with much farming, etc. From Statesboro to Savannah, the Yamacraw area had its own issues. Across the Savannah River into South Carolina, the team noticed that Hardeeville, SC to the Edisto River at Orangeburg, SC, had its own spiritual climate as well. We have called it the Yamassee or Coosa area, after the Indians previously there.
Once into Orangeburg, SC, we knew things had changed again. So far we are unsure of the dynamics, but the team senses a change. Lunch was on the north banks of the North Edisto River at Edisto Memorial Gardens where the team regrouped and moved into prayer in the city. About 30 intercessors, four pastors, and the mayor turned out to greet us at the courthouse, and after prayer for the mayor there, the team and its Orangeburgers walked through town stopping at strategic sites such as the site of the demolished Masonic Temple, the Confederate monument, the boarding house where Sherman slept, the bowling alley where the riot began which ended in the "Orangeburg Massacre," an event in which several black students were gunned down by National Guardsmen in the sixties. Other sites included Sherman's headquarters, the grounds of South Carolina State University (a predominantly African-American university begun by the state during segregation), and The Hill, the worst part of town where murders are more frequent than conversions and crack houses outnumber churches. We prayed on the grounds of an African-American church where drug lords have been assassinated and pellet holes from guns litter the outside walls. The four pastors there made a covenant to work with the pastors at The Hill to advance the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in that place.
OCTOBER 27
Today the team was scattered in four churches ministering. Tonight a white United Methodist and a post-denominational black church Word of Faith, met together in an historic joint service to welcome OPERATION RESTORATION and pray together for their city in St. Matthews, SC.
About dark we arrived at St. Matthews, SC, where a largely African-American contingent joined for prayer at the Calhoun County Courthouse. A few pastors, both black and white were also in attendance. Later we moved to Mt. Zion UMC to an historic meeting between this white church and the African-American Word of Faith church. Some identificational repentance and prayers of blessings were the order of service.
OCTOBER 28
We gathered at the Orangeburg County Courthouse and walked 37 miles to Cayce, SC, the first long mileage for several weeks. One of our pickets from Redlands, CA, Nancy Guiles, had sent in a word by email earlier that there would be a blockade that the enemy would set up to keep us from entering Columbia, and it became reality. For some reason that we cannot explain, the team walked healthy and fast but could not reach the city hall despite the fact that one walking team of the three marched alone half the mileage. Confusion was the order of the day, and prayer at St. John's Baptist Church, a burned church in Dixiana, SC, was dull.
Nancy Guiles had mentioned that the enemy would also attack us in team unity, and some minor tension between two team members was the reality. We are sure the enemy had laid serious plans to break apart the unity of the team before entering the city of Columbia, South Carolina's capital, but the pickets which now number most conservatively at 15,000, held such assignments against the team under control. The next morning this tension was relieved easily through mutual tears, confession, and repentance. This team has got to be one of the best groups of people I have ever dealt with. A coalition of churches and Christians in Columbia headed by Bob Welnick, an engineer at Michelin, handled housing and meals for the team.
OCTOBER 29
The team gathered at the marker showing the spot from which Sherman's cannon shelled the city of Columbia from the south side of the Congaree River, and repented there. With local Southern Baptist pastor Dr. Todd Nelson who blessed the team as a city gatekeeper and gave his authorization for the team to pray in the city of Columbia, the OR team moved across the bridge into Columbia. In 1865 this bridge had been burned by the retreating Confederate army in an effort to slow Sherman, but we walked across the rebuilt bridge as a symbol Christ's death and resurrection giving Columbia the ability to cross over from death to life.
Immediately the team moved to First Baptist Church, Columbia, where the first vote was taken to secede from the Union. The vote that day was 269-0 in favor. We prayed there with a pastor from the church, and Linda Fulmer led in repentance for the pride and act of leaving the Union. From there we moved south to Lexington, SC, to meet Dr. David Finnell, a professor at Columbia International University and Southern Baptist pastor. Only two hours before the team arrived, he received information that an ancient Indian mound was located just southwest of downtown with confirmation from a Cherokee Christian whose first name is Storm (who joined us for prayer) that the natives had cursed the land when they were forced out just after the American Revolution. There at the mound, now in a housing development, the team joined local pastors and Storm to repent for idolatry, for pushing the Indians off their ancestral land, and the team took communion and drove a stake at the mound claiming the area for the Lord Jesus Christ. The Natives in attendance drove the stake at the burial mound.
In the afternoon the team went to the Columbia Prayer Tower, a tenth floor devoted to the Lord in a high rise downtown which overlooks the city. After prayer there, the team gathered at Washington St. Methodist Church, and two team members with Baptist and Methodist backgrounds repented to one another for an event that occurred when Sherman burned the city in 1865. On that fateful night, a squad of Federal soldiers accosted two old men as to the location of the Baptist church where the secession vote was taken, for they wanted to burn it. Being good Baptists, the two old men pointed to the Methodist church across the street! Today the original sanctuary of First Baptist remains, but Washington St. UMC has a post-bellum sanctuary. Then the team moved to the Confederate Relic Room, a virtual shrine to the worldly sorrow of the war, then on to the Horseshoe (the old campus of the University of South Carolina). In the evening the team gathered with Columbians at the Vineyard for worship, testimony, and prayer.
OCTOBER 30
The team gathered for prayer at the State House of South Carolina, which is itself undergoing its first restoration since it was completed in 1900. Lunchtime was at HIS INTERNATIONAL, a ministry to international students at the University of South Carolina. In the afternoon the team prayed at Finlay Park and the Dream House, an area which turned out to be a prophetic type of the raped city of Columbia.
OCTOBER 31
On this day the team walked to Winnsboro, SC, after prayer at the Broad River for sin that had occurred in several wars along the river. After some good Southern BarBQue in Columbia, most of the team moved north to Winnsboro, SC, while Fern Noble, Linda Graham, and Gene Brooks went to the Congaree River to pray and take communion. After much repentance we took communion at the site where the Saluda, Broad, and Congaree Rivers converge, and the site of the crossing of Sherman's army.
In the afternoon there was a small bump-up between one of our vans and another car whose driver was charged. There was little damage, and the team was grateful that this was the only damage sustained on Halloween as covens from over the Southeast were converging that day just 50 miles away for their annual Samhain observance. The prayers of our pickets continued to protect us.
NOVEMBER 1
The team walked major mileage of 37 total miles, pontooned across Lake Wateree, and continued to Hanging Rock near Kershaw, SC. This site was where Sherman camped five days, where the British suffered a terrible defeat in 1780, and where Indians had conducted their ceremonial observances before white settlement. The area reeked of alcohol and urine from ceremonies the night before at the site. Charred remains of what appeared to be a cat were there along with newly spray-painted symbols of the Grateful Dead and disgusting sexual images. Our prayer there of repentance was powerful, and we returned the next morning to finish the work.
NOVEMBER 2
The team pushed forward another 40 miles to Chesterfield, through a desolate area which Federal soldiers in 1865 said was the prettiest, richest area they had seen since Savannah. After Sherman, the land and its people never recovered. Today there are pine barrens and gulleys everywhere. We prayed for restoration of the land and reassignment of the desolate inheritances.
NOVEMBER 3
Today the team rests in Camden, SC, where reenactors nationwide have gathered this weekend for Revolutionary War Days.
On Sunday afternoon the team had the most refreshment it had experienced recently. Revolutionary War Days in Camden, SC, where reenactors in period dress camped and fought mock battles on the field let the team rest and walk and watch the spectacle. Later in the evening the team joined with Terry Dirks of International Renewal Ministries (Joe Aldrich's Pastors' Prayer Summits) and Doug Smalls of Alive Ministries of Kannapolis, NC, to reflect on the macro level on the trip thus far and put in perspective the prayer assignments we had been carrying out for over a month. The time was very beneficial for the team for those reasons.
NOVEMBER 4
In the morning the team drove two hours to Town Creek Mound in Mt. Gilead, NC, a Mississippian era Muskogee Creek ceremonial site which the state of North Carolina has restored. As we entered the mound complex, Fern Noble wailed as at a Native funeral to begin the prayer, and identificational repentance Native to Native and white to Native ensued. >From there the team moved into the restored greater temple and celebrated Jesus in praise, anointing the place with oil in the name of Jesus, and blowing our team's version of a shofar--a cow horn!
Next the team moved back to Chesterfield, SC, to walk 13 miles to Cheraw, SC, arriving at dark and moving directly to Old St. David's Episcopal Church, the first church in that area of South Carolina (1768). Built by slave labor, with the oldest Confederate monument in the South (1867) in the churchyard, the team met the African-American singing group VISION(who will sing at the Bennett Place Nov 16 and have sung on TBN) who came bearing gifts.
Since this day was the first Monday of the month, historically the day on which estate sales and delinquent tax sales were performed by counties, we remembered that at these sales during the antebellum period, slaves would have been sold by the counties as well. Since the county government had no interest except disposing of property to cover the tax debt of delinquents, it was on these days that black families were most often separated. Armed with the Word on Jeremiah 34, the team led by Linda Fulmer and VISION, identificationally repented in regard to these issues.
NOVEMBER 5
Meeting on Election Day at Cheraw, SC, the team remembered that Sherman had arrived in Cheraw the same day Lincoln was inaugurated for his second term in office. Also during Sherman's time the gun which had fired the first shot of the War at Fort Sumter had been removed to Cheraw for safekeeping. We found it important that these historical events coincided.
By midday the team arrived in Bennettsville, SC, near the state line, and prayed at the only Confederate monument on the trail that we have found which offers a possibility of forgiveness: "And the grief which lieth behind/ Let us turn to the grace of forgiving." On this election day the team had walked from Cheraw, SC, home of the oldest Confederate monument in the world, to Bennettsville, SC, home of the only one which offers forgiveness and an outlet from Southern bitterness. The team ended the day by crossing over into North Carolina, where the intercessors unanimously are sending word that this march is not winding down, but instead winding up to a final push for birth of revival in the land.
During the evening our hosts in McColl, SC, on the state line, sensing our need for some recreation, took the team on a hay ride and to a bonfire where we roasted hot dogs and smores in the cool Southern night air followed by an old-fashioned snipe hunt! David Kim, a Korean-American from Springfield, MA, was given the signal honor of being initiated into the Southern Society of Snipe Hunters.
NOVEMBER 6
In the morning the team gathered in McColl, SC, at a local restaurant where again Chuck Pierce's prophetic word that the team would have divine contacts in restaurants was fulfilled. As the eating wound down, I was asked if the team would like to meet the chief of the Pee Dee Indian Nation who had just come in for breakfast. Within minutes the team was praying with him and repenting before him for the treatment of the Pee Dees.
The team walked from Laurinburg, NC, to Raeford, NC, later in the morning, stopping at Bethel Presbyterian Church on the south side of Raeford. When we arrived we found an unprecedented sight: the members of the African-American Full Gospel Temple pastored by our coordinator James Glenn were there at this oldest white church in the county ( with an austere heritage) making the team grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans, rice, slaw, etc. for lunch. After lunch and a history lesson, the team continued its mileage into Raeford and went to Rockfish to meet some Cherokee-Tuscaroras who are attempting to form a reservation there on sixty acres they have bought. We blessed them with gifts and prayers.
In the evening at Full Gospel Temple, the Lord moved mightily as pastors for the first time publicly repented to one another for historical and current sins in the Body of Christ in Raeford. Here Christian Bass once again blew the cow horn as the African American worship leaders led in drums and singing of a song of Going forth into the Harvest field.
NOVEMBER 7
Since the team had so much prayer to do today, we set a power team of three to walk the morning and another the afternoon which covered our mileage allowing the team to cover the prayer sites that were important in Fayetteville. First the team led chapel at the Native American Bible College in Shannon, NC, at the request of John Maracle (Mohawk) who is registrar there. Then the team raced to the Market House in downtown Fayetteville where the Mayor and about ten intercessors were waiting to greet the team. The mayor prayed blessing over the team to pray in Fayetteville. The team did identificational repentance for the selling of slaves at the Market House with sits in the center of the city square of this very racially mixed but volatile city.
Next the team ate lunch at a restaurant where the owner offered free meals to us followed by prayer at the Arsenal, the remains of which are Fayetteville's great wound. Sherman tore down, demolished, destroyed, and then burned the federal arsenal in Fayetteville. Here there was more repentance North and South, and the team with local Fayetteville citizens including a chaplain from nearby Fort Bragg joined in communion (which the chaplain led). From there the team drove to Fort Bragg to pray on the base for revival, etc. The most powerful time of prayer occurred when the military chaplain representing the US government repented to Fern Noble, a full-blood Cree, for the ethnic cleansing of the Natives in the West. WT Sherman was in command in the West during the Indian Wars and defended his program of ethnic cleansing against the criticisms of Eastern newspapers.
Afterward the team moved to Fayetteville Community Church where area pastors attended an invitation only gathering with the team for supper prior to a church service where Wayne Graham did an excellent job in leading the city's pastors in an unprecedented service of washing each others' feet. Many tears and repentance and blessing flowed.
NOVEMBER 8
From Fayetteville, the team marched out to Averasboro to pray at the battlefield where Confederate General Johnston fought a delaying tactic battle to give his forces time to concentrate at Bentonville for an offensive against Sherman. It was the beginning of the last Confederate offensive of the war.
The notable event of the day was the weather. A huge weather system from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico was bringing the warm weather to a close and autumn to a wet start. One to five inches were expected in our area with tornadoes, lightning, and high winds having everyone on high alert. Though there was a tornado warning in a county adjacent to Fayetteville, the team was dry, and the team continued dry as we walked north. With terrible weather all around us, the OR team walked in partly cloudy, mostly sunny skies! Later in the day when we were indoors, the rains came heavy and fierce, but not while any of the team was out of doors!
In the afternoon the team prayed at the Octagon Chapel in Falcon, NC, the origin of Southern Pentecostalism. At the beginning of Sherman's march is a 2nd Great Awakening Methodist camp meeting site in McDonough, GA, south of Atlanta, and here on the other end of Sherman's route, is another revival site. We prayed and repented all afternoon over denominational and church issues, asking God to bless this nation with another Great Awakening.
Later that night we gathered at Manna Church for a private team dinner in Fayetteville, NC. After the meal the pastor, who had just returned from Argentina, told of a prophet there who spoke of a vision of the United States. He said that revival would come out of a city in the North in the Lost Nation, and that the Southeast was a land of Black Fire. Then as he spoke he saw a white line moving across the land of the Southeast, penetrating the Black Fire, and the result being an overcoming of the Black Fire in the Land. The team then prayed over this church which has taken over responsibility for mobilizing 17,390 churches for the 1739 least reached people groups of the Joshua Project of the AD2000 & Beyond Movement.
NOVEMBER 9
The team marched from Averasboro to Bentonville Battlefield where we met Marilyn Thomas of Aglow and the worship team of her church. We had worship there with a full band on the battlefield. They had prepared food for us. Hospitality was breaking the yoke of oppression on the land. The team with these local people moved to the 1992 monument to the Confederate dead to release the bitterness on the land. Wayne Graham, a North Carolinian, Gene Brooks whose ancestor fought in that battle, and a local living historian released forgiveness and our bitterness as representatives of the South.
Then the team moved to the battle lines where the battle started. There the living historian told us of the families who live on the battlefield who have health problems, alcoholism, child abuse, divorce, and other"horrific" problems. I related the story of a woman who told me of her father-in-law who owned land on the battlefield committing suicide, then the woman's husband-heir committing suicide, then the three brother-heirs committing suicide. Linda Graham led in repentance surrounding fear to an African-American (slavery, Klan, Jim Crow), to another Native (raiding warfare), and the North (fear of Sherman). Then the team took communion, declaring the war to be over (which local pastor Jim Pope did). We took communion by lining up South and North over the old breastworks, and then serving one another the wine and bread, some of which we saved to pour out on the ground as a symbol of healing and reconciliation.
NOVEMBER 10
The team rested today at Atlantic Beach, NC. It was good to be together and enjoy one another on this final weekend together.
FERN NOBLE ON SHERMAN'S PATH
Fern Noble is an intercessor and full-blood Cree Native who today lives in Ventura, CA, and is a part of the International Reconciliation Coalition. Fern is OR's team pastor. Below are her observations thus far on the trip:
1-The Heavy Grief across the South. She would not have believed it if she had been told, but now she sees that the whole area is blanketed with grief.
2-The War is not over. The War Between the States is still being fought and on people's minds.
3-The Monuments to worldly sorrow. They call on the reader to gaze on the wound, not just to honor the sacrifice of others.
4-The incredible number of churches on Sherman's path. Not necessarily a sign of spiritual health, but of the disunity of the Body of Christ that there are so many, many small and impotent churches.
NOVEMBER 11
The team left from its weekend at Atlantic Beach, NC, and drove to New Bern, NC, the headquarters of Wicca for the United States. Instead of an unwise confrontation in prayer, the walkers with a worship team led by Marilyn Thomas of NC Aglow used a strategy of cutting their power sources. (As in the Gulf War, three weeks before anything occurred, a special forces team went into Iraq and cut communication lines, damaged the ability of Iraq to move supplies, etc., and then the enemy was significantly weakened for ground troops to move in.) To accomplish this strategy, the team prayed and took communion at the thousand year old bald cypress where many treaties with Native Americans were made as well as important agreements during the American Revolution. There was repentance for rebellion and broken treaties. Then the team moved to encourage the Body of Christ through praying at the first church in the area: Christ Church Episcopal, established by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
After lunch the team drove to the Snow Hill, NC, area to pray at two of the worst Indian massacre sites on the East Coast: Cotechnea and Neoheroka. These were towns of the Tuscaroras who were brutally massacred and the survivors sold into slavery. At Neoheroka, a local Tuscarora pastor-evangelist joined us in the prayer and was significantly moved to forgiveness.
NOVEMBER 12
On Tuesday, the team had its work cut out for it. The team was supposed to have walked 25 miles the day before, but the magnitude of prayer crowded out walking the day before. Having anticipated the situation, Christian Bass, Day Parker, and Henry Redding had volunteered to walk 12 miles on Sunday afternoon. Still, however, the team had more mileage left than it could humanly do. Miraculously, however, the OR team walked all day without fatigue and completed at least 48 miles! Once in Clayton, NC, the team joined an historic cooperation of three churches for a covered dish supper in the team's honor.
NOVEMBER 13
The team trekked into Raleigh, North Carolina's capital city, and with plans to join local people for prayer the next morning, the team continued covering mileage halfway to Durham.
NOVEMBER 14
The team met at 9am with local intercessors at the State Capitol to pray, but within minutes capitol police informed the team that praying on public property in NC was prohibited. We then prayed for another place on the capitol square to pray, and the Lord opened the doors of the First Baptist Church Raleigh with local pastoral blessing where the team had mega-repentance for denominational schisms, freemasonry in the church, and other Body of Christ issues like racism.
In the afternoon the team finished walking its mileage into Durham, NC, and then joined a prayer meeting for Native Americans in the evening. Unfortunately not many Natives showed up, but the team had been informed by intercessors that this was a day of Impartation and prayed into the leader of this Native ministry as much as possible.
NOVEMBER 15
This day had been set aside for de-briefing or leave-taking with the team. During this time each team member reflected on paper about what had happened to her/him personally on this trip and later what OR had accomplished. Then team members shared with the team what they had written. One of the more significant discoveries was that OR was the first full-scale prayer expedition in the USA which has dealt with national issues. It was also the first time that freemasonry was confronted with open repentance. It unified churches and pastors along the trail across denominational and racial lines where it had never happened in the history of the Body of Christ in those areas. It brought repentance and prayer to places (massacre sites, battlefields, etc) which had never seen prayer like this. It mobilized at least 3000 people across the country and on other continents to pray for the United States.
During the day as part of its debriefing, the team walked the last five miles of the expedition from Durham to the Bennett Place, the site of the surrender of Confederate forces to General Sherman, and spent time in thanksgiving to God for giving our team the privilege of walking and completing this trail.
The evening brought an Aglow prayer meeting in which the team thought it would get to enjoy playing second fiddle for a change as someone else led the meeting, but Mary Lance Sisk and Aglow had set up the meeting in honor of OR. Through much praise and worship which was designed to refuel a wearied team, a short teaching on identificational repentance, and a powerful move of the Holy Spirit of impartation to North Carolina of the ministry of reconciliation and repentance which the Lord had given the team permeated the evening. The night was a special gift from the Lord and Aglow.
NOVEMBER 16
The team with just over 100 walkers literally from around the United States joined OR to walk the final four miles to the Bennett Place. As the media buzzed around and we waited on the arrival of our police escort, a local African-American pastor from Durham, Bishop ZD Harris, blessed the gathering, gave permission to pray in his city, and then walked the four miles with us to the Bennett Place.
Once there, the team and its 100+ walkers were amazed to see a rainbow on a clear day just over the Bennett Place. With praise and worship from Marilyn Thomas' worship team and VISION, an African-American vocal group from Hartsville, SC, seen on TBN, the team moved into intercession and identificational repentance which was incredibly powerful. After the repentance and blessing was done on North/South, Korean/US veteran, Native/white, black/white, and freemasonry levels, the team turned to a ceremony in which Day Parker, a descendant of an Union soldier, and Gene Brooks, a descendant of a Confederate soldier who surrendered at Bennett Place, presented and exchanged swords symbolic of surrender. Then the two raised the surrendered swords and offered them for use in the Army of the Lord of Hosts.
Next came the signing of the Bennett Place Declaration, a document of repentance, surrender, and petition for revival to the Lord Jesus Christ followed by communion led by Bishop ZD Harris with corn bread and grape juice in Dixie cups, the idea of our Raleigh coordinator! After communion, the crowd of 500-600 scattered and moved to a hot soup lunch to warm those cold hands and feet!
During the evening the team gathered one last time together to laugh and talk and enjoy one another. They did not want to depart from one another and lingered for hours into the evening. Hallelujah! The Lord on high mightily reigns!
The following statement was adopted by OPERATION RESTORATION and the 300-400 Christians gathered at the Bennett Place in Durham, NC, to celebrate the end of an 800 mile prayer expedition along WT Sherman's path through Georgia and the Carolinas. The Bennett Place is the site where in 1865 WT Sherman received the surrender of all the Confederate armies then in the field.
WHEREAS, We the Body of Christ repent and ask forgiveness for Southern bitterness and resentment about the War, Sherman's March, and Reconstruction, and
WHEREAS, We the Body of Christ repent and ask forgiveness for Northern war atrocities, especially those along Sherman's Path through Georgia and the Carolinas, which sought vengeance and punitive destruction, and
WHEREAS, We the Body of Christ repent and ask forgiveness for slavery, Reconstruction politics which used African-Americans rather than help them get on their feet as citizens, Jim Crow laws, burned churches, segregation, and the rabid racism which pervades our neighborhoods, our churches, and our minds, and
WHEREAS, We the Body of Christ repent and ask forgiveness for the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, the massacre and liquidation of entire nations, the mistreatment of these peoples in breaking covenant through broken treaties, the robbery of ancestral lands to fuel our lust for expansion, and our misappropriation of the essence of the Gospel in their midst, and
WHEREAS, We the Body of Christ repent and ask forgiveness for bowing at the altars of pagan deities in our pre-Columbian past as well as sanctioning and participating in such worship in our own day through New Age philosophy, freemasonry, and witchcraft, and
WHEREAS, We the Body of Christ repent and ask forgiveness for men abdicating their roles of leadership as fathers, husbands, and in our churches, and
WHEREAS, We the Body of Christ repent and ask forgiveness for our mistreatment of women politically, socially, and in the church, and
WHEREAS, we ask that the Lord Jesus Christ cover all the foregoing sins with the Blood He shed on the cross,
NOW THEREFORE, we do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that we do Unconditionally Surrender ourselves and our nation to the Lord Jesus Christ, that the War for the Land is over, and Peace has dawned in this Land.
FURTHER, we ask for blessings on this Land in the name of Jesus Christ of Life, Prosperity, Peace in our homes and in our cities, a New Song of worship, Unity in our churches and our nation, Renewal and Spiritual Awakening in our country, and
FURTHER, we ask the Lord to Restore the Land, to Reassign its Desolate Inheritances, to Call to the captives, "Come forth," and to those in darkness, "Be free!" (Isaiah 49:8-9).
IN AGREEMENT with the foregoing, we do here below Affix our names as a Sign of Covenant and Corporate Repentance before our Lord Jesus Christ this day.
(Several hundred signatures)
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to this particular page since February 1, 1998.