Take a look

http://www.francischan.org/media_player.php?f=Think%20of%20Me%2Emov


I think this video is thought provoking.
Please give generously to missionaries. Find one you really like and support them with your finances, prayers, and letters of encouragement.
www.irismin.org is a worthwhile and trustworthy cause to give to.

Potty Mouths

Well, the weather is nice, and with nice weather, the neighbors seem to expect that you will cut your grass and do all that yard work stuff. Sigh. Since clearly, I am a princess, I don't do yard work. Ever. Ok, well maybe sometimes, but not without a lot of complaining. And why let three perfectly good boys go to waste? So their job was to fill bags up with pine cones. Pine cones, those things that riding lawn mowers don't like a whole lot. And with that chore came cash. Yep. They got paid, which meant dinner at McDs. So off we go for a nice late spring treat.

Did you know God likes to hang out at restaurants? Me either, but He does. So we are sitting there enjoying our happy meals and all, when a group of 5 big fellas come in and sit at the table right next to us. One of 'em stands, being it's just a four seater. By this time we are enjoying hot fudge sundaes and trying to have a couple of dinner conversations with the kids.

And there's those loud fellas, using every foul combination of vowels and consonants possible. I mean, "I" was educated sitting there. The "f" word and the "g-d" word was thrown around as frequently as we might use the word "the" in a sentence. It was awful. And just as I was so tempted to tell these boys that they needed to tone down the naughty tongue wagging, that still small voice inside of me said not to. Was it fear? Not at all. As some of you well know, I don't back down from the devil. Well, I had already made eye contact with several of them, hoping that they would no doubt sense my disapproval and would on their own, out of the kindness of their hearts, or just plain good manners, stop with at least the worst of it, but instead, they gave me the "whatcha gonna do about it looks." Very annoying. Don't they know who I am? I mean I have a tiara and everything. Jeesh.

So as I'm sitting there listening to only about the first five minutes of these colorful metaphors being slung around my children, I start to get a little miffed. Ok, a lot miffed. And then God gently reminds me that these people are lost, and how can I expect them to act like anything other than lost people. He's right you know. If they don't know Him, they don't know how to act like Him. And if they don't know Him, it's up to us to tell them of Him.

So I wait for an open door, seeing that clearly these fellas are my target. But no doors open up. So I sit and pray and wait and nothing. And really, since my children are with us, I'm not so very brave. I look over at Frank and he's all mellow....so I'm like, what's up with you? And the whole time, he's over there getting wacked with the Holy Ghost, getting tanked on the new wine. So not fair. Well at this point I'm not feeling like we can do much with the crowd the way it is, the fiestyness of those fellas, the loudness of the room, and mostly the fact that my small children are there. Mama bear and all. So we decide to leave. I never said a word to Frank that these guys were the "ones", however, while we are walking to the van, Frank says, "Did you get a word yet?" I love it when we are on the same page like that. So we talk a minute and he says he doesn't have a word but he KNOWS he can't leave without talking to those guys. So I get the kids settled into the van and Frank goes back inside and has a little chat with those boys.

Now, can you guess what they THOUGHT Frank was coming in for? Yep. They thought that Mr. Preacher Man took his sweet little family out to the van and was coming in to give them "what-fors" for talking potty talk in front of them. Know what they got? Yep. The love of Jesus. Don't ya just love surprising people. I watched through the window what was going on. Apparently he walked up to their table and told them he had a message for them. Then he started speaking life into them and offered to pray for anyone. One guy DID want prayer for his life to get on track (WOW) and the other guys sat there very humbly and received, rather well, the words of life and hope that Frank was speaking to them. It was a God moment. And one those boys won't likely ever forget. Going to McDs, getting some chow, then talking dirty in front of some princess and her kids, then low and behold, not getting reamed for it, but instead getting the message of Jesus and being loved and accepted by some guy still dressed in his dress shirt from work. Now that's good stuff.

Pizza Hut in Atlanta

Well, we took a trip to Atlanta for a home school day at Six Flags. It was quite HOT! Hot enough in fact that Franklin ended up with heat exhaustion. He was actually quite sick and we were not able to do much at the park except rest and hydrate. What a day. And what a better way to end the day than at a Pizza Hut near the hotel we stayed in, don't ya think?. Yum.

Being a Friday night, we expected the restaurant to be crowded, but sometimes God will do things unexpectantly to acheive His purposes. It begins to pour down rain just as we got in and were seated. There was one waitress. ONE. On a Friday night. But there was only one other family in the whole dining room though. Kinda strange.

So our waitress comes over and God says "this is the one tonight." Well, to be honest with you, I didn't really want to be "on the clock" because we had had such an awful day with a sick child and being out of town and exhausted, I mean I was tired and just wanted to feed my family and go back to the hotel and crash.... but when the Boss calls, you just go with Him and do the stuff. He gives you strength. He really does. So we start making conversation with the waitress and find out she has been there all night by herself and that the dining room had previously been packed out. She was very tired and very worn out and very discouraged. And very drawn. There was one point where I almost invited her to sit with us, since she was hanging out with us so much as it was. :) I loved it! It was God that was drawing her near. He's such a good, good God!

Well, the evening progresses, menus are colored, bellies are filled, drinks are surprisingly not spilled, and it's time to pay and go back to the hotel for the night. So Frank commissions me to be the "one" (as if I didn't know already!) and he takes the kiddos out to the car, while I go up to the register to pay.

There she is, our unsuspecting target, who has already shared her life story with us, which included a 3 month old baby that she was single parenting, a pending move from whomever it is she was currently living with to be on her own, and plans to attend college in the fall for bigger than life dreams. And I have nothing. No words of knowledge, no prophetic vision, no angelic visitation, no beams of light, nothing.

So I walked up to her, handed her the payment, and she looked deeply in my eyes with that look of desperation. That look I am starting to become very familiar with in people who recognize that you have something living within you that they want. That Hope. That Jesus. That mighty, mighty Jesus.

And then it came. The words of LIFE and HOPE. Out of my mouth, without rehearsal. As I stood there, the first thing that happened was that I reached over and gave her a hug, kept my hand on her shoulder as I pulled away and remained face to face with her and out came, “God is here for you. He wants you to know that He has a plan for you bigger than anything you can imagine, and He is going to take care of you and of your little girl.” She replied with an unworthily, “I hope so.” Then I said, “God is going to supernaturally enable you to learn all the things you will need to learn to succeed in college, you are going to be amazed that you will learn that medical terminology so quickly and so easily, and you will know that it is God that is enabling you. He has something big in store for you and wants to bring you out of where you are now.” And that was it. Not that profound, really, but to this young lady, it was diamonds. She was beaming. In fact she begged me to please come back. I explained to her that I was from out of town and she was genuinely disappointed. Why? Was it ME she really wanted? No. It was the Presence that was with me. His Presence. I am nothing with out Him.

What would happen, if the next time you go to a restaurant, you speak words of life into your wait staff? What would really happen? Revival. That’s what would happen. Go love someone to LIFE this week!

May First Friday - Cinco De Mayo

It was sooooooo crowded down town this time! WOW! Where did all these people come from? And for it to be the first part of May...we froze our buns off! The wind was really whippin'! Yet still, it was sidewalk to sidewalk of people!

Well, you know what the means.....our "congregation" was "up" and we had a lot more "visitors"! LOL! So we maintained our roles as pastors of A Church Without Walls, and stood on the side walk greeting people as if they had just walked into our church building. What ended up happening was kind of weird and humbling all at the same time. Instead of just us offering ministry to the passers-by, WE were ministered to through a lot of encouragement from folks who just wanted to stop by and say they supported what we were doing and wanted us to know that. That was special. Truly it was.

With a bigger crowd, we had a bigger opportunity. Unfortunately, our usual team members were unable to attend, so we were flying solo....well, not really. Holy Spirit was all over the place! Wow I love Him! We got to pray for healing for several people, lots of arthritis and that sort of thing. But I think the thing that was the most memorable was a man who came up for prayer. He was desperate for a touch from God, and we were more than happy to share His love with him. He came up and introduced himself and we talked for a while about salvation. He said he had received Christ years ago and was really struggling with some things right now. So Frank began to pray for him, and had his hands somewhere on his shoulders, while I had one hand on his back. And then the Lord told me to place my hand over his heart. This is not the first time God has compelled me to do this. I wonder why. ?? Anyway, when it was my turn to pray for this man, I asked him how much he had had to drink. He just replied that he had been drinking, which was apparent because all the while we were talking with him, he was less than understandable. So as I took my turn approaching the Throne of Grace on this man's behalf, I began by commanding his body to sober up right now in the name of Jesus. Now I'd like to say that there was a big "Woah" moment, like we've seen before, but it wasn't as a pronounced manifestation of deliverance as we have experienced in other people. However, even without the dramatic sobering that I wanted to see, this man did very suddenly become much more coherent. You go God! This was cool!

After we prayed for his specific needs, chiefly a desire for alcohol to be removed, and his relationship with his wife restored, he began to really open up with Frank about his life, his needs, his struggles and his desperations. I love that about God. I love how He allows His love to flow through you in such a way that it touches someone, and they begin to share things with you in such a way that you can point them to the One Who can solve all their problems. He's such a good, good God! He ended up giving Frank his phone number (well the phone number of the friend he was staying with) so that Frank could call him so he could continue ministering to him. Frank spoke words of LIFE into him......Heidi Baker (IRIS Ministries http://www.irismin.org/) has this great saying that instead of loving them to death, you love them to LIFE! We loved on this man for quite some time, and he felt like he had a friend, and a better Friend, Who was ready to listen to him and help him in his time of need.

While you were out of town, dear....

While I was in New Jersey at Tawdra's fabulous birthday party at a posh country club, I had a few minutes to call Frank to check in. He was higher than a kite. I knew he had to have had a good time with the Lord that day. And he did. Apparently, during the conference in Columbia, John Crowder spoke on the very subject that is right up our alley....getting out there. So after the speaking, he encouraged everyone to get out there and "do the stuff." Frank ends up going with this group of people, of which included a phenomenal worship artist, who paints beautiful paintings during the worship music. Unbelievable use of color and imagery. Anyway, I guess Frank and this team ended up moseyin' on down to the local college where they stopped and hung out there for quite some time. Frank was able to speak with a few people, giving words of destiny and prophesying over them, offering them encouragement and the love of Jesus. There was one young man who he encountered that he spoke to at length, and ultimately ended up leading him to the Lord. Whoo-hooo! Another one for the Kingdom! YAY God!!!