So much Thanks!

Every once in a while, we have something cool and wonderful happen. Something more cool and wonderful than usual. There are a lot of stressful and heartbreaking things that we see and sometimes God will send us a really neat miracle that offsets all the bummers. Brian is one of these miracles.

That is Brian over there in the picture eating one of our infamous casseroles made with Mac and Cheese and whatever gets donated. Dar, my wife can make anything out of nothing and keeps us smiling! Anyway, Brian came to live with us a couple of weeks ago.

Dar and I decided to go for lunch at this Christian Restaurant where they don't put any prices on the menu. If you like the food, you place what you think its worth into a box that sits on the table. Because its a Christian Restaurant, the Lord uses the place for many ministry happenings. Well, when we arrived and sat at our table, we saw this young man sitting on a couch in the prayer area with a duffle bag that had 'My Stuff' written on the side of it. I knew in my spirit that something was up with this guy.

The owner of the place saw us arrive and gave me a big smile. I didn't know yet why he was smiling, but he had been praying about what to do with this young man. Another Christian couple had brought him in only an hour or so before and he was very lost and in need of some direction.

Of course, we are talking about Brian.

Let me share just a little about Brian's history. At the age of six he was removed from his home and placed in foster care. For the next 12 years be was bounced from one foster home to the next, from one treatment center to one group home to the other, totaling 42 different foster homes. In all of those 12 years, he said only two of those places made him feel like he was accepted or cared about. No one ever taught him any life skills. He is filled with so many questions. Things that you and I take for granted.

So... 42 foster homes in 12 years.

When he hit 18 I guess he "Aged Out" of the system and they placed him with an older brother. At his brother's house, he was swindled out of the little money he was able to save while in the system and introduced to the world of drugs. His brother was doing "illegal things" as Brian puts it, and Brian didn't feel safe there. So at the age of 18 with very little street smarts or life knowledge, he took off and hit the streets. All he had was a bag of clothes, some video games and the clothes on his back. He was going to "WALK" 300 miles to a city he had lived in years earlier to try to find a girl-friend he used to know.

A Christian couple found him walking on the streets and after a couple of days brought him to the Christian Restaurant to see if they couldn't help him. In walks Pastor Mark and Miss Dar! (me and my wife) LOL Gary, the restaurant owner knows that we work with the homeless and the outcast and that we try to reach them for Christ and disciple them and get them to a place where they are living victoriously... Well, Gary of course was praying that the Lord would provide and at that very moment, God has us arrive! Isn't God good?

Well, we knew that we had to take him home with us.

To make a long story not so long...

After ministering to Brian for these couple of weeks, he has accepted Christ, has really been growing in the Lord and.... we were able to find his family! He has brothers and sisters that he hasn't seen in 12 years! It has been such an amazing couple of days!

I am not going to go into why the State never bothered to reunite him with his older siblings. It boggles my mind that they would allow him to get lost in a system that doesn't care one iota about him personally instead of trying to place him in an environment that wants and loves him! They had to have known how to find his family! We were able to contact them in ONE PHONE CALL!

Anyway... This young man was rescued from the streets, has accepted Christ and is being reunited with his family of origin and we couldn't be more pleased! He will be living with his older sister and her family and attending a small church with them. God is just so wonderful!

Thanks for your prayers everyone! I know that your prayers help us to reach the lost and to fight the enemy and to help broken people find the Lord and sometimes even their missing earthly families!

Please if you would, pray for Brian. His family is buying him a plane ticket home! It will be his first Christmas with his biological family since he was 6 years old! Pray that he will continue to grow in Christ and that his entire family will be able to continue to attend church and receive the healing they need after years of separation. Their father is still in prison from all the things that transpired, causing them to be separated in the first place. But the mom and most of the siblings are now all reunited. Brian is the youngest.

God is about healing. God is about restoration. God is about family!

It was a GREAT Thanksgiving!

God is GOOD!

Loving ya all!

Pastor Mark

A Crowded House

Hey All!

We've had a little extra joy around the place lately. Its the time of the year when the 'Rainbows' and the Hippies and more of the homeless start to arrive for the winter. We do what we can to reach them for Christ and once in a while will find one or two who really want to change their lives.

We have three with us at the moment. Its been a real blessing. John comes and goes and has a real sense of humor. His imagination will make you laugh over and over. Jesse has recently made a renewed commitment to Christ and we are excited about the victories we are seeing in his life on a daily basis. Brian is the youngest. He turned 18 this year. Having lived in 42 fosters homes in 12 years, when he became a legal adult, the state sent him on his way. We ran into him in a Christian restaurant. We call these things divine appointments, but he just happened to be there at the same time that we just happened to show up at the exact time that the Christian owner just happened to be praying that God would provide a place for him to go until he could find some direction in his life.

So, life has been exciting. We are trusting that the Lord will help all three of these young men grow in their Christian walk and that He will give us the wisdom and the means to help disciple them while they are here.

Praise the Lord!

As usual, we can really use your prayers!

Love you all!

Pastor Mark

Just Brought Out Some Water

We just came back from doing some "home" visitation.

One of the persons (We'll call her 'Mary') we visited has lived in the forest for going on about 10 years I guess. Living mostly in a tent here and there in different locations. However, the federal rangers/forest service has been making it almost impossible for anyone to hardly even camp in the forest, let a lone stay out there and be "homeless."

So, this young lady and her 'partner' are staying in a couple of old beat up campers in the back of a guy's yard with no running water or electricity.

Usually, Connie, one of the ladies from our fellowship goes to visit her on a weekly basis. She sees if she needs any groceries or anything and always tries to read the Bible to her. Often, when we pray or mention the name of Jesus, 'Mary' will block her ears, stick out her tongue and make "blah, blah, blah" verbalizations.

While we were visiting, she mentioned that she was out of water and needed to do her dishes, so we volunteered to take her containers and get water for her. We placed them in the back of my pickup and after the other visits that morning, we went and filled them up at Connie's house. While we were there, Connie's daughter, Sue decided to come along and help us carry the containers.

WOW!

Apparently that was a mistake.

When we arrived back at Mary's camp, she went berserk! "NO EXTRA PEOPLE HERE! NO EXTRA PEOPLE!" She flipped over us bringing Sue with us. She started to become violent.

I had to tell her to be quiet in the name of Jesus.

There are so many different types of people in the world, people with mental illness, people with physical illness, people who are even possessed by the demonic.

Jesus loves them all, each and everyone.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. " Matthew 25: 34-36

Love you all!

Pastor Mark

The Truth

You want the truth? The deepest truth of all? Well, here ya go...

1. I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

* Refrain:
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

2. For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim;
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.

3. And now complete in Him,
My robe, His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.

4. Lord, now indeed I find
Thy pow’r, and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.

5. When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

6. And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down,
All down at Jesus’ feet.

...

Isn't the love of God amazing? I am so thankful for where he has brought me from and for where we are going. What a wonderful, wonderful Savior!

Love you all so very much!

Pastor Mark

Mark 2:17

Poverty

I have to publish this little blurb on poverty that really echos my heart...

Poverty calls us to sacrifice the possessions we don't need, and some that we do, for the sake of Jesus, the Church, and the world. We also benefit in the process. For ourselves, it provides the spiritual wealth of an uncluttered and clear lifestyle so as to better hear the Word of God coming to us through all the areas of our life. It also protects us from recluttering. It benefits our ministry in the Church and the world because it leaves us freer to minister without the responsibility of many possessions. It also does something tangible about offsetting the unequal distribution of the world's wealth, which in turn gives rise to violence and war. Poverty stands I radical contrast to the consumerism of our western culture. In this it helps bring peace and justice to a world replete with injustice and war. It also stands in contrast to the clutter of the average American lifestyle. J.M. Talbot

I pray that as followers of Jesus Christ, we can get our lives un-cluttered. We can unload the material things that so easily weigh us down. Not that we have to get rid of everything we own...but here in America it is so easy to be over come with "stuff".

I just wanted to share this.

Love in Christ,

Pastor Mark

What is going on?

Have you heard of this new Cash for Klunkers progam?

This is how it works.

You take that old faithful, paid for klunker that you've been driving for the last decade or so to the nearest Studebaker dealership and they give you $4000 for it!

WOW! They give you FOUR GRAND! Thats right! FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS for your old beat up klunker.

Wait a minute... you don't actually get to KEEP the money. They keep the money and put it toward a NEW car as a down payment. But listen... its still a good deal, right? I mean, you are going to get a NEW car! Supposedly, one with better gas mileage.

So, now you have a new car. Maybe you bought an inexpensive one. You got a $20,000.00 car - cheap these days. (I've actually seen many cars for sale for more than we paid for the last house we owned!) But anyway...

So, you put that $4,000 down on that $20,000.00 car and you finance it for 5 years. Guess what? At 8% interest, you now are in debt $21, 776.85 or so. AND... you have a monthly payment of about $363.00!

Are you really better off?

Lets see... you go from old faithful paid for car, to being in debt for 5 years.

You do the math.

Why is the government so intent on us being in debt?

"The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." Proverbs 22:7

It just seems silly to me. In a time when people are struggling to pay the bills they have. In a time when the economy is falling apart... let's give people another monthly payment to worry about!

I'll stick with my paid for truck.

Love ya all!

Pastor Mark

Ephesians 3:17-20

Its Only STUFF!

Families are losing their homes.

People are losing their automobiles.

Some are being taken in the night by those re-possession guys.

We are seeing boats for sale, cars for sale, vans for sale all along the roads and highways around here. People are trying to sell their "stuff" so they can buy groceries and pay their mortgages.

I was talking to a loved one the other day and he was telling me how he was getting less and less hours at work. He told me he was having to pay his mortgage with his credit cards. WOW. We both agreed that he was headed for big trouble.

But what is he supposed to do? He can't sell. No one is buying.

Times are hard. We all know that. But listen up. Its all just STUFF! Material things that when compared to eternity? Don't really matter. Not really.

Its all just STUFF! Stuff can be replaced. Houses get old and fall down. Cars rust and fall apart. Maybe its time to lighten the load some. Throw some of that "stuff" overboard. Know what I mean? How many headaches do people get worrying about their STUFF.

I read stories about people who are killing themselves because they lost it all in the stock market crash! Man! Brokers jumping out of windows. Grandfather's ending it all because they lost their retirement. None of it is going to last anyway!

We need to invest in things that LAST! Things that last FOREVER!

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. " Matthew 6: 21

Don't sweat it, people! Its all just STUFF!

Love you all so very much!

Pastor Mark

Jeremiah 31:3