Prayer at the Fair

by Darryl Fitzwater

This past week, Sun., Aug. 22 - Sat., Aug. 29, was the annual Jefferson County Fair in West Virginia. It's one of our annual outreach events, since the county fair is a staple event in the area. The first one we attended was in 2017 while we were still launching Church of the Ascension in Kearnesyville, WV. With the exception of two other people who helped a couple hours that week, my kids and I were the prayer staff. We had one tent then. And basically one person (me) working it. In 2018, our team grew. By 2019, we had two tents and our team grew.

This year, since the fair was cancelled last year due to COVID concerns, was our fifth year. We had two tents and over 25 different people working over the course of two different shifts all week. Our teams gave away a lot of Bibles. Since just 2017, we've observed an increased number of people who do not have a Bible at home. We also gave away a few hundred children's books: Bible stories, coloring books, and the like. We purchased a new prayer flag that was visible from as far as the end of the fairground near the arena where the demolition derby took place. 

While Whey Jennings sang, "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" we had families under the tents for prayer and free Bibles. A few people turned in prayer cards, and others took the time to share and receive prayer on the spot. Almost anyone who stops at the prayer tent at an event like this is working through serious challenges or trauma. One woman received prayer for a terrible diagnosis in her family. When she was offered a Bible, she said she had one. An hour later, she came back and was more honest, and took one. The busiest times at the fair are when we give away most of the material, but it's the “off” hours when the crowds aren't large that we have better conversations and prayer times. A number of personal connections were made, along with many, many contact cards with prayer needs we will follow up on this week.

This approach is a way of building face-to-face awareness in our area. Local businesses, bankers, entrepreneurs, farmers, churches, and radio stations are all present. (I even snagged a photo with the local Country Music station mascot). It's been said the colonial Americans knew Francis Asbury, the early Methodist circuit rider, by face more than they did George Washington. So far, we are the only clergy walking the fairgrounds in clerical clothing. We're gaining more of that, so that some of us were admitted to the fair without cost as the staff said, "I recognize you, I see you every year." 

People happily share prayer needs with us and those in the Ascension t-shirts. For a few days, we had a portion of the team take materials out to other booths and visit with people about the fairgrounds to pray and share. When one person stopped by our tent, I offered some material, she said, "Oh, one of your people was already over to our booth and gave us some stuff. We have it set out." 

The fair is one part of our parish's outreach approach: a non-confrontational power encounter evangelism. We ask for their prayer needs, and then follow-up. We had one family stop by the tent on Saturday afternoon, where the mom was raised Pentecostal and the dad was raised Roman Catholic. We invited them to worship, and their family was present that Sunday morning. They are new to the area, pray for them and their integration into the community at Ascension. 

We had a week of wild and wonderful weather as well! This is the first year we did not lose a tent to thunderstorms, thankfully. While the clouds gathered about us and lightning lept from cloud to cloud on Thursday afternoon, the fairgrounds were spared from the local floods that swept across the panhandle (including my own house). On Saturday, we had to close early, which was a first for us. In that hour, 3.25 inches of rain fell just a few miles from the fairgrounds. We had only been there for a few hours, but thankfully, our team was able to load up our things just in time. It was quite a sight, as one overweight priest in a clerical collar and shorts (me) along with two other men were quickly trotting through the fair grounds shouldering a 150-pound tote box as raindrops were beginning! Sorry, no pictures of that one :)

Thank you all for your prayers. Please pray for all the Gospel we sowed this week, for some rest for our teams, and for a yield of 30-, 60-, and 100-fold. 

Grace and peace, 

Darryl+

The Rev. Darryl Fitzwater, Jr is the priest and church planter at Church of the Ascension in Kearneysville, WV.