Fast Track

So much is happening so fast that I will record briefly some of the things God is doing here.

Maggie and I have continued to drive in to town to the homeless church in the park Sunday mornings. The church folks who run it are happy to have us come help out.

Tomorrow we are bringing some more workers God has sent our way, who are eager to help out too. This way we can fan out over the park, and with several of us there no one has to "worry about" it being "dangerous."

Speaking of dangerous, tonight the Lancasters had another bbq at their place down in crack alley. Last night we had an all night prayer meeting at their house to prepare for it. At about midnight we went walking the streets to pray and ask God to draw the neighbors in.

That was a blast. We invited whatever thieves and prostitutes and drunks and drug addicts we saw to the "block party." And tonight they came! There must have been 70 people there including the somewhat nervous folks from the methodist and baptist churches who came to help. Bless their hearts, they came...and brought their children!!! The kids took their cues from those who had done this before and ran around playing and loving on everyone, and the big boys played football with the boys and men.

Amy preached the gospel to them and a guy who had done drugs for years and now serves the Lord gave his testimony of how God saved him. One lady of the night who had recently become really hard towards everyone was there and pushing kids on the swing. During the testimony she and I sat together to the side. I asked her in her ear why anyone would sit in their house all day and do crystal meth. She told me she does it to punish herself for being in jail when both her parents died. We discussed how lame that really is when Jesus Christ took all the punishment for every crime in the world already.

Most of the folks took advantage of the clothing and winter jackets and a bag of toiletries. Some just hung around and prayed and talked and joked. Our friend David went and fetched a guy we'd met Friday night, who said he would come but hadn't shown up. He was shy and embarrased because he had been somewhat intoxicated the night before, but was as sweet as anything and so wide eyed when we said we would like to be family to him.

Maggie had prayer this morning at synagogue that God would give her an opportunity to start doing what her heart's desire is, to minister to teenagers. Good thing she had her own car tonight because she and James took some kids home, and on the way stopped for frostees and to toss a football over at the college. One of the kids, Marcel, and James discovered that 16 year old black guys with dew rags are just like white boys with Russian accents. They just like to play ball and laugh.

You Know Better

"What is James doing?" I shouted to Peter.

James was out on the driveway with his mouth to a tube attached to his bike horn. "He's blowing his shofar!" laughed Peter.

Well, not exactly, but I guess it was his way of announcing the biblical Festival of Trumpets this evening! During this feast thousands of shofars the world over will be blasting along with his.

What excitement to think that some year, likely at this same time, the blast of the heavenly shofar will announce the coming of the great King, Messiah Jesus.

"And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other." Matthew 24:31

Well, I really wanted to find a nice movie for the family to watch tonight, and Wal Mart had a great one. It wasn't about the return of the King, but it was definitely 'God-ward'. It is entitled, "Joseph, King of Dreams".

I think I will always remember one of the songs as God's message to us on our first real Bible New Year's Eve. Like Jesus, before He returns as King of Kings, Joseph is brought very low in the Pharaoh's prison.

However he sings through his tears that if he can just release his trust to God who loves him, he will eventually discover that God KNOWS BETTER THAN HE.

I wish you could hear the music. It is still ringing in my heart...

I thought I did what's right.
I thought I had the answers.
I thought I chose the surest road,
But that road brought me here.

YOU KNOW BETTER THAN I,
YOU KNOW THE WAY;
I'VE LET GO THE NEED TO KNOW 'WHY'
FOR YOU KNOW BETTER THAN I.

If this has been a test,
I cannot see the reason
But maybe knowing I don't know
Is part of getting through.

I try to do my best,
And faith has made it easy
To see the best thing I can do
Is put my trust in You

YOU KNOW BETTER THAN I,
YOU KNOW THE WAY;
I'VE LET GO THE NEED TO KNOW 'WHY'
FOR YOU KNOW BETTER THAN I.

I saw one cloud and thought it was the sky
I saw one bird and thought that I could follow
But it was You who taught that bird to fly

If I let You reach me
Will You teach me?

YOU KNOW BETTER THAN I,
YOU KNOW THE WAY;
I'VE LET GO THE NEED TO KNOW 'WHY'
I'LL TAKE WHAT ANSWERS YOU SUPPLY
FOR YOU KNOW BETTER THAN I.

Family Update

I am greatly blessed by Maggie's being here with me. Her arrival was of course perfect timing. Along with her job with her darling preschoolers, she is now getting ready to take Rob and James to Africa on a mission trip at Thanksgiving.

I would really appreciate prayer for this. They will each need $2000 for airfare, housing, and food. Isn't it amazing how God calls you to do such 'crazy and unreasonable' things? He has such a sense of humor!

God willing the kids will be going with www.wewillgo.org and staying at www.sebenzela.com. They'll also be spending time with the Bells at Revolutionpeople.org. I just have to record for future reference that one day in the thick of planning this, God gave us an enormous and absolutey brilliant, huge rainbow reaching across the sky in an amazing arch. It was even was a double bow!

...Bob continues to recover, slowly regaining his strength. He takes his iron elixer and presses onward, and has not missed any work all along. In the evenings he rests. We thank God that His good hand is always upon him and us. He never leaves us or forsakes us and He is alway busy doing wonderful things in our lives despite difficulties.

...Sunday morning we went down to the open air church for the homeless in the park. We are feeling more relaxed about sitting among the the guys, sharing songbooks and Bibles and inquiring about their lives, and of course asking them the main question, "Are you born again, because you MUST be born again," and "Would you like to be?"

Church Without Walls

This morning Magggie and I and Peter got up early and headed downtown to the park where Jackson's homeless folks sleep and hang out. As we parked we heard our friends ahead of us adjusting the microphone that would soon be waking those who were still dozing under newspapers on the park benches.

In a few minutes we joined twenty or thirty who were already there getting their coffee and singing, "I'll fly away, O glory." After the preaching and a testimony, we had the privilege of passing out breakfast to the folks and praying for anyone who asked.

Maggie shared a hymnbook with a dear man who had no feet inside his pantlegs, and I know Jesus stood by as I laid a hand on the overall bib of a big, strong, black man with gray hair. He was going to Vicksburg and wanted prayers to get there safely.

I wonder if Jesus slept right there in that pavillion where Jen and her husband had curled up to sleep last night. It says in Hebrews that Jesus praises His Father among His friends and brothers, and today I felt Him there.

His Presence was stronger than when I am dressed up and in a church with walls.

Green Leaf in Drought Time

On my way home from the school this morning, I stopped to say hi to Melvin. He was dressed as usual in his cowboy hat and shirt and was collecting his trash cans from the roadside by his little house.

I rolled down my window and asked had he noticed the dead trees scattered here and there among his woods. He had and was surprised how many there were following our particularly dry summer.

Otherwise tall, good-looking trees, some even oaks with spreading limbs fully leafed out for the summer, are now standing dry, dead brown. There are big pine trees, normal looking, except that they stick out as completely red-brown among the green, leafy trees of the forest or at the side of the road.

I got a surprise too. But you know, you can't tell by looking whether a tree or a person is rooted, until the drought comes. If we don't have our lives rooted deeply in Jesus and His Words, we are going to be just like those trees, when the hard times come upon us.

"Uhh...huh, that is so!" he agreed, soberly shaking his head side to side.

I asked if he were born again, and sadly he gave me the Bible Belt answer, "I was raised in the church."

"No," I said, "I mean, do you love Jesus? Do you know Him and are your sins washed away?"

"Well..." he said, adjusting his garbage cans. Just then a car pulled up behind me and I had to drive on.

Dear Father, capture Melvin's heart, and make Him your child. And may I be so rooted and grounded in Jesus that my leaves always stay green even in drought time.