End of World begins May 21
Posted by JAC on 3/6/2011, 8:41 am
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/03/06/judgment.day.caravan/index.html?hpt=C1






From Jacksonville to Tampa, Florida (CNN)

If you thought you had less than three perfectly healthy months to live, what would you do? Would you travel? Spend time with loved ones? Appreciate the joy life has given you?

Or would you ditch your kids and grandkids, join strangers in a caravan of RVs and travel the country warning people about the end of the world?

If you're Sheila Jonas, that's exactly what you'd do.

"This is so serious, I can't believe I'm here," says Jonas, who's been on the road since fall. Like her cohorts, she's "in it 'til the end," which she believes is coming in May.

She won't talk about her past because, "There is no other story. ... We are to warn the people. Nothing else matters."

Such faith and concern drove her and nine others, all loyal listeners of the Christian broadcasting ministry Family Radio, to join the radio station's first "Project Caravan" team.

They walked away from work, families and communities in places as far-flung as California, Kansas, Utah and New Jersey. Among them are an electrician, a TV satellite dish installer, a former chef, an international IT consultant and a man who had worked with the developmentally disabled.

They gave away cars, pets, music collections and more to relatives, friends and neighbors. Some items they kicked to the curb. In homes that weren't emptied, clothes are still hanging in closets, and dishes, books and furniture -- including one man's antique collection -- are gathering dust. Unless, of course, they've been claimed by others. If you believe it's all going to be over soon, why would it matter if you close the front door, much less lock it, when you walk away?

It's a mid-winter morning in Jacksonville, Florida, when CNN joins this faithful caravan. The "ambassadors," as they call themselves, are easy to spot. They are the 10 people milling about in an RV park drawing stares, eye rolls, under-the-breath mutters and, at times, words of support.

They're wearing sweatshirts and other clothing announcing the "Awesome News," that Judgment Day is coming on May 21. On that day, people who will be saved will be raptured up to heaven. The rest will endure exactly 153 days of death and horror before the world ends on October 21. That message is splashed across their five sleek, vinyl-wrapped RVs, bearing this promise: "The Bible guarantees it!"

Maneuvering onto the road with such a serious statement takes time and patience.

The five vehicles in this caravan are numbered 11 through 15, and the ambassadors line them up in numerical order before hitting the road. They work hard to stay in one lane and keep other cars from breaking into the convoy. That's the best way to be noticed, they say.

The drivers, their vehicles spread out in a parking lot, spend about 10 minutes doing a choreographed RV dance to get in proper formation.

From the back of No. 14, we hold tight to our equipment, and our seats, as the jerking around begins.

Reverse. Forward. Turn to the left.

"Eleven, 15, go back please," a voice crackles over the walkie-talkies.

Spin around. Veer right. Stop. Wait.

"Is everyone in order and ready to come out of there?" Crackle, crackle. "13?"

"Ten-four."

"I hope the Rapture is smoother than this," one driver says.

Since this inaugural caravan team embarked on this doomsday journey, two other teams have set out elsewhere -- one is in Pennsylvania, another in Texas. A fourth and final group will soon follow.

They have been chosen by God to spread the news few understand, the ambassadors say. They liken themselves to biblical figures, including Jonah, who God commanded to warn the people of Nineveh of their city's destruction.

They say their work comes with ample precedence, that the God they believe in would never bring judgment on his people without warning them first. Their job is to "sound the alarm," they say, pointing to Ezekiel 33. Just by being out in their RVs, wearing their T-shirts, jackets and caps, and passing out their pamphlets -- which they call tracts -- they are fulfilling a mission.

The RVs pulled out of the Oakland, California, Family Radio headquarters in late October. The odometers are nearing 30,000 miles as this team, which first traversed the Pacific Northwest before weaving its way through the South, heads toward its next destination: Tampa, Florida.

But avast, ye scurvy readers, this isn't just any time in Tampa. Awaiting the ambassadors are, by some estimates, 400,000 people gathering for the Gasparilla Pirate Fest -- a Mardi Gras, of sorts, for throngs of drunken buccaneers.

Blanketing the world with doom


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