Post by messengermicah on Mar 28, 2006 19:52:48 GMT -5
Saturday March 11, 2006-South Beach: I talked to Ruben on the phone in the morning and we devised a plan to avoid further problems with the police until we get our criminal charges dropped. We decided to leave to the beach earlier, preach to the spring breakers near the beach area, leave the beach earlier and avoid the homosexually infested area of Lincoln Road.
Joining me were my wife Elizabeth, Doug, and Doug Jr., Doug?s son. Doug Jr. was assigned to keep some distance and film us. We left earlier but did not arrive on the beach until about 3:40 PM. I started preaching on the step-up platform to the people gathered around the shower area by the wall across from Wet Willie?s.
The crowd eventually built up to about 60-70 with many hecklers, accusers, and questions (see pictures at www.pbase.com/lautermilch/spsb). The crowd was predominantly African American and a hot topic was ?Why does will listening to ganster rap send you to hell?? Several angry, profanity using, professing Christian women started dancing lewdly around me. John and Onica arrived in the middle of the preaching and also brought a video camera. After preaching about an hour I turned it over to Onica. I told some of the women who were heckling me that I was going to watch and see if they give Onica a hard time and if they did not I was going to call Jesse Jackson because they were discriminating against me.
After Onica finished preaching Doug and John both took a turn preaching from off the coral wall. The crowd was not as large or rowdy during this time but there were still about 30-40 listeners at times.
There were several African American men who were Christians from the COGIC (Church of God in Christ), who seemed to be supportive of us. They were watching and listening to us for several hours. They asked us if they could pray a prayer over the crowd on a bullhorn. Since I saw some of our group members talking with them I agreed. The guy got on the bullhorn and went on and on about how they weren?t there to scold anyone, they just wanted everyone to know that Jesus loved them, etc. Finally they prayed a prayer like they had agreed and stopped. After they prayed and continued watching us preach they remained supportive. I told them why it was not good to tell careless sinners Jesus loves them.
After the prayer, Doug got up on the wall to resume the preaching. I walked to the bathroom while Doug was preaching. When I came back John was preaching and had a very large, unruly crowd of about 120 to 130. I watched John preach for about 10 minutes and then he handed the pulpit over to me.
I set the step-up platform right in front of the wall and began preaching at about 6:10 PM. As the day wore on the crowd became more drunk, angry, and hostile. They kept telling me to get off the black part of the beach (?). They asked me several times why I was preaching over on their part of the beach. The crowd had dissipated some when I started but it quickly built back up to around 80 to 90. John said it was around 110-115, but I do not know. I was surrounded by a rowdy, unruly bunch and was effectively preaching, refuting their excuses, and answering their questions (most were insincere). Much of the time I did not focus on the loud mouthed hecklers but on the many who were watching and listening.
It was now getting dark outside and I was getting ready to stop because the area was not lit up, when an officer drove up on a 4 wheel motorcycle. I stepped down and the officer asked me if I thought the crowd was under control. I thought he was going to give me a hard time. I did not want another arrest and was getting ready to stop anyway, since it was getting dark. I told him it probably was a good time to stop.
After the officer moved away from me and I stepped down from the platform, Doug asked him, ?Officer, can I ask you why you asked him to stop?? The officer replied, ?I did not tell him to stop. I asked him if he needed help controlling the crowd. I cannot stop you guys. You have freedom of speech.?
We finished talking and having conversations with some of the people who came to us to ask questions or dispute for another 20 minutes while the officers looked on. We left the beach around 7:00 PM, and on the way back to the car we saw Brother Barker the street preacher from Boston that we saw at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival.
Sunday March 12, 2006-Calle Ocho: In the morning I went on the computer and saw that today was the day of Calle Ocho. This is a Hispanic celebration in Miami that is said to be the largest block party in the world. I mentioned to Elizabeth that we should go. A few hours later I got a phone call from Brother John asking me if I wanted to go. Brother John said he planned to go there with his wife to preach and wanted to borrow the bullhorn, banners, etc. I told him I already knew about it and we were already talking about going. We called Doug and saw Emmanuel at church and they all agreed to go. Praise God we had the whole crew going!
The whole crew left my house a little after 2:00 PM. We arrived and walked onto 8th Street in the heart of one of Miami?s Hispanic communities to see hundreds of thousands of people, vendors, and many live bands, etc. We walked in with banners and bullhorns and found a spot on the side of the street to preach at.
This event definitely seems to appeal to the lower socioeconomic class, as evidenced by the gold teeth, tattoos, gangster attire and lingo.
Doug began preaching on the step-up platform, followed by John. There were hundreds of people passing by and we had a few people stop and listen, but you could see that even though it was only around 4:00 PM, much of the crowd was already pretty drunk, and we knew things could potentially get out of hand.
Emmanuel preached after John finished, and got some hecklers and a very hostile group of about 20 to 25 were stopping to listen, mock, heckle, accuse, etc. We then put Onica up to get things calmed down.
While Onica was preaching several City of Miami officers came up to us and told us we needed a permit to stay in one spot, but we could preach if we kept on moving. We knew this was not really true, but with Elizabeth and I both facing criminal charges and having a good case against the city of Miami Beach (different than City of Miami officers) we did not want to complicate things so we complied with the officers unlawful request. Oh, how I hated to do this!
At this point they gave me the bullhorn and we walked down 8th Street preaching, wearing sandwich board signs, and holding banners. As we were walking, we were stopped by other officers, and told we had to put away the banners. We again complied. We stayed in one intersection preaching and moving back and forth to the hundreds of revelers passing by on the bullhorn.
We again ran into the Boston street preacher Brother Barker with his sandwich board sign, handing out tracts. May God bless that man!
John and Onica took the other bullhorn and preached all the way back to the car to put the banners away, while Doug, Emmanuel, Elizabeth, and myself found another spot on the side of the road to set up to preach. I got on the step-up platform and continued preaching. I was getting some people to stop and listen but then several more officers came up and told me I could not say some of the things I was saying (the more controversial things that get people?s attention), because there are children around. This was totally ridiculous with all the drunken revelry going on, the profane vulgar language on the clothing and shirts of the people, the lewd, filthy language spewing forth from the speakers of the many bands all over the area, the men and women running around almost naked, yet I could not say certain things when I was preaching because there are children around (?)
I went back to preaching straight scriptures, but again I started getting hecklers asking questions and making accusations, and as I interacted with them and refuted their arguments, again the officers came up and told me, ?Get out of this area, I am tired of hearing you, and I have a headache!? I asked him exactly what I was doing that was unlawful, to which he made it clear he just wanted me to leave the area where he did not have to hear me. As I tried to get a reasonable explanation, he asked me, ?Does that mean you aren?t going to comply?? He then asked my wife to stop filming. We are beginning to wonder if they are required to say that so they can graduate from the Police Academy. We objected at first, but I could see a repeat of last week was possible so my wife turned off the camera, and we moved down the street.
We found another good spot and we set up and Doug began preaching on the step-up platform. As Doug was preaching we heard someone else preaching on a bullhorn. It was John and Onica coming up the street again towards us.
It was now after 6:00 PM and the event was to end around 7:00 PM so we started heading back towards the car. Emmanuel preached on the bullhorn as we walked back to the car.
I believe if we had planned ahead more for this event we could have been much better prepared and had a greater impact.
Elizabeth and Onica are both fluent in Spanish, but do not know how to preach in Spanish, although Elizabeth did do some preaching on the way back to the car in Spanish and Onica thought she sounded good.
Emmanuel is also of Hispanic descent but does not speak much Spanish. We only had one Spanish sandwich board sign and no Spanish banners, or t-shirts. Lord of the harvest we ask you to send forth laborers into the harvest field.
We will be prepared next year.