Our Daily Bread Ministries

Wow, what a week that was! We left Coquille for Crescent City on the 21^st to spend the week helping at the Our Daily Bread Ministries/mission. It amazed me at how blessed we were by going there – for cooking, art, and for spiritual/counseling help, which we were able to supply, with God’s guidance and help. I brought my drawing supplies to do art therapy and I had several throughout the week take part in that, while William and I talked with and counseled several people throughout the week, as well as me doing a ton of cooking! Also, one heck of a storm came in (we ran just ahead of it all the way down 101) and the mission was open for the night – 20 additional people came in for the night. Poor William was up most all night dealing with issues!

We got there the 21^st after having driving down Hwy. 101, with intermittent rain, which was a problem because of the leaky windshield. The windshield was installed wrong last year by the guy who fixed our car after the accident and the couple times this past year we’ve taken it to him to fix, he didn’t have time to fix it; therefore, it got looser to where wind would come through the sides as well as rain, which ran down into the electronics and flooded the floorboard of the car. We’ve been covering the car with a tarp for a couple months now, it would start to get dried out, then we would drive in the rain and start all over again – sometimes it would be weeks before we could get the interior dried out. Also, the electronics seem to be effected and shorting out various things off and on. So driving down the 21^st (after it was almost dry again) was a problem and we got there with the interior wet again.

Anyway, we got there mid-afternoon, everyone was glad to see us. We just basically talked with people, I did art therapy with a few of the guys (there are 10 disciples staying there now), talked a lot with a new guy who had just came in also that afternoon – he’s 63, newly homeless (4 days) and so clueless as to how to live this way. After talking with him a while, we told Daphne that we thought he was a candidate for the discipleship program and recommended he stay there as well. It was almost midnight before Daphne and I got to her house (William stayed at the mission all week).

We told her we’d be back again for a week before Christmas and for 2 months in the spring and probably for a year after July of next year, but that was all we could say for now. God leads us and gives us direction and he’s given us indication that this is the schedule – God could change things up, we don’t know, but we are open for change if He so chooses.

Helping in the kitchen!

On Wednesday, I cooked and cleaned all day getting ready for the Thanksgiving feed that evening. I haven’t done that much work in months! I was exhausted! 4 turkeys was not enough (I even said earlier that day that maybe we should have made 2 more and I was right!) – there were almost a hundred in attendance for dinner. The next day, (it was prearranged) each disciple was to cook a special dish and bring it at 3 pm to Daphne’s daughter’s for a family thanksgiving dinner. So, I was in the kitchen again all day, monitoring they guys, who did quite well – they each cooked something. I taught one guy how to make bread from scratch and he took over after it rose the first time, stuffed it with blue cheese and covered it in garlic butter – it turned out incredibly awesome!

William borrowed Daphne’s truck and hauled tables/chairs to her daughter’s and I hauled people and food over. Between friends/family and disciples, the place was quite full! Daphne got there about 3:30 and pulled me aside and thanked me for taking over that morning. After dinner, most of the people left except for about 6 of us, so we sat there and played charades and cards and had fun for the evening. Me and a couple disciples got back to the mission after 10 that night, then I went back to Daphne’s. What an exhausting couple days that was!

I was actually surprised at how well I handled certain circumstances this week – when any of the guys ‘flipped’ out or ‘anger’ issues showed up. In the past, that kind of thing would pretty much shut me down, but this time, I stepped in and helped resolve situations. Like this one situation I used it as a teaching opportunity for the others and stated that in order to take command of a situation, to use the authority of Jesus He has given us – “In the Name of Jesus” – I explained that demons have to obey that authority (if we are truly saved) and leave or quit what they are doing if we, using Jesus’ name, tell them to go. It’s cool to see how I’ve grown in the Spirit and in this area to take control rather than to run.

Prayer time before dinner.

Nov. 28 – we left Crescent City and headed for the Rogue Valley early afternoon the 25^th after having convened a meeting of all those at the mission, giving some instruction on repentance and revival – we gave out the pamphlets about this, and discussed how we want to come back at Christmas time and really enter into a time of prayer with all their hearts in it, to expect them to have worked through various ‘sin’ and ‘bondage’ issues, so we can see that true freedom can occur.

Tomato, tomoto, what does it matter?

11/7/2016 by William Hayes

This morning I had a dream.  I don’t write down many dreams, but this dream has stuck in my heart so deeply.  

When I awoke this morning, I was so impacted by this dream that I couldn’t forget about it.  Though the night was restless and this one part of the dream was so vivid and real.  This dream will sound funny, because it was about a tomato plant.  The only thing that came to my mind when I awoke was to find out what was meant about a tomato.  So I felt in my spirit to go to the library and look it up.  Normally I don’t go to Wikipedia for information, but God told me to.  It would be there that I would find the answer and the dream would be interpreted.   So after I looked it up, one thing stuck out to me.  There it said that the tomato was called “the fruit of paradise,” along with the saying that goes, “tomato, tomoto, what is the difference?”  And all of a sudden, the dream made total sense.

But first, let me tell you the dream:

I was walking down a dirt road; it seemed to be near an edge of a cliff on the right side.  It was a day like a summer day.  As I was walking down this road, I noticed a tomato plant to the right on the edge of a cliff or an overhang on the road all by itself.  I thought it was strange that a tomato plant would be growing there.  It had tomatoes on it, but it looked dry like it hadn’t been watered and it seemed to be to be in trouble.  The ground under it looked unstable.  I thought to myself, “why would anyone plant it there in such a bad area.”  Then this is where the dream got strange.  I decided to rescue or save this plant.  So I leaped off the road and sprawled out, reaching around the plant as if I was going to save it from the ground, which was starting to crumble away. 

So there I am, laying on the ground, sprawled out with my arms around this tomato bush.  I began to notice the ground under it is giving way and cracks begin to form and I can see the air or open ground below it.  I started to get nervous, because if the ground crumbles, not only will the tomato plant fall off the edge of this cliff, but I too will go with it.  

The cracks grew larger and larger, I could see below, and I’m thinking, “nobody has watered this plant in awhile and it is about to perish and me along with it.”  Just about that time, I hear a voice behind me say, “What are you doing?  That’s dangerous, are you crazy?”  That was the end of my dream.  I just wanted to save this tomato plant.  That’s the dream.

The plant is the gospel and the tomato is the fruit of Christ of God’s people.  The color red of the tomato is the blood of Jesus.  The cliff is the place where careless leaders have left God’s people all alone, unwatered.  The lack of Water is the Holy Spirit that is missing from the gospel message preached today.  The crumbling of the ground around the root of the plant represents the lack of a strong and well-watered foundation of the gospel to support the people or church of Christ.  The cracks represent the church about to loose it’s foundation of the Word of God in a dry and parched ground and the falling away from the Truth of Jesus Christ’s true gospel.   I was representing the few who are willing to put their lives on the line at any cost to save God’s people and reaching out to the lost from falling away at this hour.  Though I’m not saying this to puff up myself, but few are willing to carry their cross and be fools and spectacles before angels and men.  The voice represents the world, the enemy, and the flesh saying constantly to us, “what are you doing?  That’s dangerous, are you crazy?”

Let us tell the people of God the whole hard truth, and quit watering down the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  Because Jesus is saying:

Mat 25:30-36  “And cast ye out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory:

and before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats;

and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

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 hungry, and ye gave me to eat; 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.”

Read the whole chapter of Mathew 25, it is very direct!

James 2:14-26   “What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? can that faith save him?

 If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food,

  and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.

Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from thy  works, and I by my works will show thee my faith.

Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe, and shudder.

But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren?

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar?

Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect;

and the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.

 Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.

And in like manner was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way?

 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.”

Hebrews 11:30-40, 12:1-4  “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about for seven days.

By faith Rahab the harlot perished not with them that were disobedient, having received the spies with peace.

And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets:

who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,

quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens.

Women received their dead by a resurrection: and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:

and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:

they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword: they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated

(of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth.

And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise,

God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls.

Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin:”

Conclusion:

Rom 12:1  “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.” 

From Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, to the disciples sacrifices, to the early Christians sacrifices, and now our brothers and sisters suffering around the world! 

I speak this to the arm chair Christian, pew sitting believers in America.  Why won’t we lift a finger to save a soul or even do what it takes to save their own nation.  So when and how will we bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ?!

Walk on Water!

Study this morning over Mark Chs. 6-8: Walking on water, disciples called out in fear. Jesus answered don’t be afraid. I am with you. Just like today’s “storms of life” we are not to be afraid. Today being election day, it could turn to evil and the ushering in of the tribulation (Hillary) or it can turn to good and the rebuilding of what the evil has done (Trump). Judgment has fallen on the leadership of this nation – are we to suffer more today or later – it will come, tribulation, persecution of Christians in this country, but first, the greatest revival of all history will be ushered in. Prophetic utterances all over this nation as much as 35+ years ago (that I’ve heard), have all said the same thing (and of course, the Bible has also said), that in the last days, we are on the verge of the greatest, biggest revival of all of history!

Them (the disciples) being full of fear, looking at the bad, the circumstances around them, thinking Jesus was a ghost, walking out of the darkness on the water, in the mist. No different today; like us focusing on the bad instead of what God is doing. They cried out in fear. Not to Jesus/God, but just cried out in fear. When we cry out, freaking out about fearful stuff around us, who/what do we cry out to?

Immediately when Jesus spoke, they recognized Him, only then did things calmed down. We need to ‘listen’ to Jesus instead of ‘struggling’ against the winds of life. He could have passed them by, left them in fear, but He didn’t. They cried out, and He heard! If we see Christ in EVERY situation because God is in control, then we need not fear.

Like the video we just watched last night (Story of Daniel on uTube) of nations rising and falling, all ordained by God, leaders put into place BY GOD, whether we like it or not, to FULLFILL HIS purposes.

Greatest evangelist of all times is John the Baptist and Paul – were executed! Who are we to think we are any different? God was in control and still is in control, and the story impacts more BECAUSE of their deaths, many people were won after and because of their sacrifice! Like the stories in the Foxes Book of Martyrs, who are we in America to think we are any difference? Like the Word says, the world hated Him (Jesus), so too will they hate us.

Beach in Bandon