June 6th was Coquille’s Gay 90’s’ Festival (has
nothing to do with ‘gays’ but rather, the 1890’s), we set up a ministry booth
and William carried the cross through town during the parade. He was dressed in his white painting
overalls, on which I had just finished embroidering “Servant of Jesus Christ”
on the back, and his name on the front.
Anyway, he wanted to just be a common working man carrying a cross to
give a visual of the verse about carrying our cross daily. He must of made an impact on the community, because
people were talking about him all day (I heard).
I manned the booth most of the day,
while William and Scott (a friend from Ashland who had joined us for the
parade) wandered around handing out bibles and bible tracts. I had to put up with the hardest part! So many people came up to argue with me, give
me weird or bad looks, like I was the bad guy!
I had a table full of bibles I was handing out, along with those
“Evolution Handbooks” (actually, should be called “Creation Handbooks” since it
gives tons of proof FOR creation— http://evolutionfacts.com/Handbook%20TOC.htm). I had a lot of good conversations, but a ton
of arguments and bad comments! What was
even more shocking, was that 4 different people (independent of each other)
said that Hitler was a Christian! Is
this what the world thinks Christians are?
This world has really gotten worse!
Anyway, here are excerpts from my
Journal, with the days leading up to the event and after:
June 4 – It’s interesting, now that we’re getting ready for
this parade/festival in this town, how much God is reminding us of the history
of America. From the 1850’s – 1950’s or
so, there was a fight for man’s freedom, for the blacks especially in the
South. Then there was the fight to get
God out of the nation and politics – it wasn’t an accident that God put one of
His most powerful servants in the White House in the late 1850-s, early 1860’s
(Abraham Lincoln). Then came the
full-scale war against the minds of the people - the advent of Darwinism and
Evolution – the successful takeover of getting God out of this nation. Then the fear and hatred of the KKK – to stop
men by fear, killing (even whites who stood for justice) all who went against
them, thus changing the politics (republicans vs democrats), thus winning the
fight – those men took over the power of this nation. The devil saw this and saw that taking God
out of the young had to happen next, because there were still so many who
(1930’s-50’s) looked to God for everything (all of which had been instilled
from infancy on). So, 1958-64 was the
full-scale war against children, changing of textbooks, educational system, and
finally taking God out of school completely.
The ‘spirit’ of the 60’s and all the revolutions all across society - the
killing of babies made legal, the killing of the 3 great hopes for restoring
this nation to God (Kennedy’s and King), power of women and the weakening of
the man, the influx of the Southern mindset (democrats) realizing they couldn’t
kill man’s freedom physically, so they took over society by supporting
financially all social handouts, looking out for the interests of the
minorities, until they’ve bankrupt this country socially and financially. Where this country centered on God from the
beginning, the country who were always sending out missions throughout the
world, became the place where nations looked to us as a God-centered world
power before, now that has been stripped away, the full course-changed
philosophy of this nation and the re-writing of history, fear, hatred, and
destruction reign in every aspect of society, making us the laughing stock of
all the nations now. Are we surprised
now why judgment must fall?
I’ve been listening to Carmen’s song: “America Again”. I
need to learn that and sing it, or at least play it at every gathering we
have. We have realized through our
preparations for this festival, that we are called to do much more than we ever
expected at first. We came to Coquille
to work, earn a few $$ to pay off debts, and God has set us up here for a
long-term work in all aspects. We only
realized a couple weeks ago that God wanted us to infiltrate this town
spiritually in a bigger way, by kicking off our campaign for this town by doing
this festival. Wow, I am always amazed
by God. We don’t set out to plan these
things; over and over God ‘sets us up’!
We ‘fall’ into these things clueless!
Then He starts ‘feeding’ us things little by little until we have this
whole ‘program’ of sorts. It’s no
accident that the devil attacks us so relentlessly – by my little fit
yesterday, by the depressions that keep trying to set into my mind by our
‘hard’ lifestyle. It is not hard when
you compare it to what those in China, India, or N Korea have to go
through. We are quite lazy and whimpy!
June 7 – wow, what a weekend! The weirdest thing – Friday the 5th,
I’m at a printer shop in Myrtle Point, getting prints done for this weekend’s
festival, and it was so chaotic in there between my job, and 3 other people’s
jobs. It was a small space to hang in
anyway, so I put my open wallet on the counter (because I thought the job was
done and I was going to pay for them) and pick up the prints she was handing me
so I could approve them or not. Just
then, William comes back in (he had been wandering around the town waiting for
me) and he notices she had forgotten to print 3 other items. I give her the flash drive again and we go
over to her computer to find them and print them out. In the mean time, (I didn’t realize this
until later) someone walks off with my wallet.
When it was all said and done after about 45 minutes in the shop,
everyone else is gone (their jobs done and taken), I go to pay for the
printing, and can’t find my wallet – we tear the place apart looking, and
William made the comment, “someone obviously walked off with it.” Which the owner said, “no, I know all of
those people and they wouldn’t steal.” I
find my little stone cross on the floor by the counter and explained how it was
in my wallet, so obviously someone picked it up (since it was unzipped) and the
cross fell out. She still maintained, as
we continued to look again and again at the same places, while William went to
find a bank to get more money out, that no one stole it.
Anyway, as it turned out, the next day, it was stolen and
the ‘old’ lady felt guilty the next day and turned herself in at the police
station. Mom had gotten a call from the
police earlier that Saturday, asking for me (because my driver’s license gives
her address) and somehow the police tracked down her cell number. She, being wary, didn’t want to give them too
much info, told them I was at the coast and they then proceeded to tell her
they had my wallet. She immediately
called me, I called them, and by 5 pm, a Myrtle Point cop actually brought my wallet
to me personally, at my booth in the festival!
He told of how this lady had showed up at the station that morning,
feeling guilty for stealing the wallet, had used $6 something that morning of
it, replaced it (because there was $99 in there), and turned herself in. They felt so bad for her, the chastised her
just a bit and sent her on her way, then tracked me down.
What was so amazing about all that was after we left the
printers, we prayed about the wallet and specifically said to make the person
feel guilty and turn it in! Wow, I was
so amazed that not only was it returned, but all the money was in there. Here we were spending money for a festival
(printing) we weren’t gaining anything by financially, but rather, giving to
the community, and God blesses us this way.
But it also chastised me as well – I was sure it was the
teenage girl that had stolen it, was talking bad about ‘young people today’ and
so on. In fact, before I had left the
print shop, I had asked the owner to call each of the people that had been in
there, asking about it. I could tell she
didn’t want to do it, but I was insistent.
Two people didn’t answer and she left messages. The third was the mother of the girl, and I
was silently saying, “yup, she’s going to get in trouble when she gets
home.” When in the end, it ended up
being the old lady who was in there. It
showed me how I still ‘judge’ others and shouldn’t.
Anyway, the 6th was the festival; we were so busy setting up the booth Friday night and Saturday
morning, then I manned the booth while William walked cross through town during
parade, I didn’t have time to call the police and tell them my wallet was
stolen. I heard
the coolest thing, this morning when I went to the library to get online
(library wasn’t open, but the connection can be made by sitting outside), William
sat on the lawn and talked with a father and son who had seen him and I know
that was a God-appointed visit!
A lot more happened over that year; however, I’m not going
to bore everyone with every detail.
Suffice it to say, we had quite a year, ending up in the Rogue Valley
again Aug. 29-Jan. 20, where we lived in my mom’s upstairs apartment,
ministering to our various family members (lots of serious issues!).
We ended our stay, by connecting with the Jerusalem Center in Medford
(where we went to several services the past month) and found the Holy Spirit
really working with that congregation.
We look forward to coming back to the valley and working with them some
more.
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