Pastor Raul Ries Testimony - Cont.

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The next day, I went to a Christian bookstore, and I bought a Bible. Now, I didn’t know anything about Bibles. There were little Bibles, big Bibles, you know, huge Bibles.  So I got the biggest Bible I could, cause I wanted to be a Christian.  I got this big family Bible.  At that time, the hippies had these fishes that had the Greek writing: Jesus Christ, God, Son and Savior. They had little ones, medium ones and then they had these big sharks.  I got the biggest one I could find, with a leather cord, and I put it on.  I didn’t even care; I just wanted everyone to know I was a Christian.  Can you imagine a big Bible and a big fish walking around?

So, I began to read the bible.  I started going to Chuck Smith’s church, Calvary Chapel.  I went down there and I began to get rooted and grounded in the Word.  I would go down there on Thursday nights and Saturdays with a van full of people to hear the Word of God.  And then the Lord called me, it was weird, I didn’t hear His voice, but I was sitting there reading my Bible and praying and I had a vision.  I had never had a vision in my life.  I don’t even know what it was, but I saw myself awake and half-asleep, and I saw my old high school.  I saw my principal and my vice-principal and I saw all these hundreds of kids.  The Lord told me, “I want you to go back to your old high school.”  I said, “Okay!”  So I waited and I prayed.  Then I went to Baldwin Park High School, I remember, it was 1972.

I walked on the campus, Dr. Hollenbeck and Barnholdt, the Assistant Principal, were there.  Mr. Barnholdt had been my baseball coach.  I remember walking up; I had my fish, “the tuna”, and my Bible.  The next thing I knew, the police were escorting me off campus because they thought I was nuts.  They didn’t want me on campus.  So, I went home totally bummed out, thinking, “ Aw, man, what’s going to happen now?”  I went home, and God spoke to me again, “Go back to Baldwin Park High School.”  I said, “ Oh Lord, they just kicked me out.  They called the police, and the police told me if I come back again, they’re going to put me in jail.”  Once more, God said, “Go back to Baldwin Park High School.”  So I said, “Okay, I’m gonna go back.”  I went back the following week, and Mr. Barnholt and Mr. Hollenbeck took me into their office and they talked to me.  They gave me permission to be on campus, check this out, to be on campus, and to go into the classrooms and in the mall area, and I could talk to people about Jesus Christ.

So I started at lunchtime.  I would sit out on the grass area and all these kids would look at me, with my fish and my Bible, and they hated me.  I would just sit there.  I didn’t go up to them or talk to them.  I was waiting for the right time, because I didn’t know anything about the Lord, I was just learning myself.  I mean, what could I give them that I didn’t even have. I just knew Jesus loved me and he cared about them, and all of a sudden man, in coming missiles; cake, milk, they were bombarding me with stuff.  I just said, “Lord give me five minutes and I’ll kill everyone of these kids.  Believe me God.”  I was so mad.  I said, “Lord I don’t need this stuff.  I don’t even want to be here.”  But the Lord told me to stay there.

So, a couple of weeks went by, and a couple of months went by, and I stood there faithfully every day.  All of a sudden, the Lord began to open the doors.  Kids began to come and talk to me, and I talked to them.  Then one day, in the mall area at Baldwin Park High School, the Lord spoke to me at lunch-time: “Get up on this picnic bench, I want you to talk to them about me.”  You know how lunch times are at a high school, everybody is doing their own thing: we had no PA and I’m not a screamer.  So I got up there and started, “Hey, for God so loved the world man, that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever would give…” this whole thing.  And as I was talking, making a fool of myself, I thought, the Holy Spirit was zapping people.  The Holy Spirit fell on that school so heavily, all of a sudden, as I looked out, there were about 1800 kids sitting on the grass listening.

And what blew me away, is I didn’t expect God to use my life: cause who was I?  I mean, I barely graduated from high school and I could hardly read.  I was asking the Lord, “ Lord, what am I going to do now?”    As I began to just share God’s love with them, I said, “Anyone here want to accept Jesus Christ?”  Five hundred kids came up and got on their knees, and gave their lives to Jesus Christ.  The school was totally blown away. Then Gladstone High School opened up, Azusa High School opened up, Charter Oak High School opened up, Glendora High School opened up, Bassett High School opened up, and soon, I was visiting eight high schools a week.  I was just going out on the streets; that’s how my ministry started.  I had a bible fellowship in my Kung Fu Studio at night, but during the day I would go to the schools and work with the kids.  That was my heart, my life: that kids would come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior.

I never thought, I never expected that God would do such a tremendous work as He has done over the last 28 years.  I never dreamed that God would do such a thing. .  He has not only blessed my life personally, but the ministry he has given me.  He took me from my Kung Fu Studio, to pastoring a church of over 12,000 people on 28 acres.  Along with teaching, He has opened up the doors for us to have a Bible School and Pastoral Program.  With these programs, we have been able to spread the Word to Central and South America.

Our Missions Ministry has exploded with several churches throughout South America. We have established churches in Chile, from top to bottom, and are starting a Bible School to train the Nationals.  We also have churches and Bible Schools in Columbia.  In Villevicenzio, in the heart of guerilla activity, we have one school, and the other Bible School, El Secreto, is in the jungle.  These schools are turning out dozens of pastors and leaders every year.

My vision is to reach all of Central and South America with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Through the work being done at these schools and a team of pastors from the United States, our goal is to take the Word of God and establish churches in every major city in South America.

In the early 80’s, I began broadcasting on the radio.  Today, our Somebody Loves You Radio program, which is nationally syndicated, is heard daily on stations in the United States and Central America.

Soon after we started the radio program, we began the Exit Festivals, which gave birth to the Somebody Loves You Crusades.  God has used the crusades tremendously, with thousands of people coming to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  From the beginning of my ministry, at the high schools, God put a burden on my heart for the youth, and I have been able to reach the kids, still today, through the crusades.

Looking back on all the things God has allowed me to do, I am still amazed that God chose to use me.  My desire, my heart, is to finish the race and to do it well.  It is important that we not only run the race, but we finish well.