“No pagan festival or new age guru has ever drawn nearly so large a crowd on South Whidbey. All it took was seven churches getting together to hear a Father’s Day message delivered by one of the world’s leading evangelists.The South Whidbey High School gym was literally packed, with both wings of bleachers filled with the faithful, plus hundreds of folding chairs placed on the gym floor where basketball is normally played. Children dropped off in a nursery were given a number, and if the parents were needed during the service the number appeared in lights on the wall, using the basketball 20-second clock.Widely traveled singer Roby Duke scanned the crowd and stated in mock disbelief, Seven different churches, under one roof, at the same time? In America? His unique version of Amazing Grace was well received, and other music was provided by the combined choirs of the seven churches.Local pastors gave introductory remarks in which they agreed the huge assembly was an answer to their years of prayer. We’ve been praying God would work in this kind of way for 13 years, said Matt Chambers of the Assembly of God.Besides the novelty of worshiping together, the crowd of 2,000 was drawn by 65-year-old evangelist Luis Palau, who combined humor, passion, Bible verses and his own interesting history as a youth in Argentina to describe the characteristics of a good father.Palau has used a friend’s Whidbey Island vacation home for years, but it’s usually to rest rather than preach to another crowd. I always come here to hide, and look at this — look who showed up, he jested. He contrasted the sunny, hot Saturday that had occurred only hours earlier to the rainy Sunday morning and attributed the change to God. The Lord did it, he said. He didn’t want you boating and swimming.Palau read extensively from John 14, in which Jesus describes the Father. Noting the many people who grow up today without a father figure in the home, he suggested reading those verses and a different chapter of Proverbs each day of the month. Then you will know how to be a good father. You’re not an accident, you’re not here by chance, he said. He never leaves us as helpless orphans.As evangelists will do, he ended by urging the crowd to come forward and commit themselves to Jesus Christ. Many did, and then the largest church service in South Whidbey history was over.”