Wind and Rain!

Wow, it’s been a really difficult couple weeks, yet at the same time, a lot of ‘God highs’ as well. The enemy has been relentless! Constantly attacking us in many ways – horrible nights of no sleep, constant physical pain, a great deal of emotional pain in me dealing with a few issues (part with current and past – trying to be totally healed from past stuff), extremely high winds, dealing with a homeless couple we’ve been working with, etc. While at the same time, big-time God highs and provisions from God – one of which is getting more classes, which means more $$! All back to back and two overlapping, scheduled through the end of August with steady pay through Sept.! This hasn’t happened in years!! We’re getting our car’s tune-up finally this Friday – after waiting years to get this done! In two weeks, we’ll finally get the bearings done! We have waited so long for the provisions to finally fix the car, yet at the same time, God has kept our car running with NO problems all this time!

On the night of April 6^th, we had extremely high winds – at least 80-90 mph (later found out trees were down all over the county), that rocked and shook us so much, neither of us got ANY sleep. That next morning, we got a call from Elizabeth saying her tenant had no water (thought the water line was broken) and a tree fell on her house. We went up to survey the damage, and the uprooted tree took out the old water line (we found out later, it was the old one and it didn’t affect her water supply, but rather, the city had turned off the water for repairs!). The tree fell on the back corner of the house, totally crushing the corner, damaging the roof and walls! William spent 6 months working on that house! Anyway, we didn’t have the tools, nor the physical ability to do anything about it, and besides, the rains were still coming down! So Elizabeth arranged for a tree company to come out to take it down AND a construction company to come rebuild that corner of the house. Good thing, because William really is not in physical shape any longer (too old, as he says!) to do heavy construction any more.

When we went to the library later that day to get our work done (William downloads videos/sermons, etc. – I’ve got a lot more grading to do now that I’ve got so many classes now! ) Anyway, sitting out front was the homeless gal we’ve been interacting with for the past month or so (her boyfriend was still up at their camp site), she was looking very much the victim (I should have really picked up on this, but didn’t). She was upset, cold, and wet, awaiting a call back from a friend who said they would come help them get their camp moved – for I found out they were camped on someone’s private property illegally (up near Fairview), got caught and were asked to leave immediately. She thought they would move out to Bastendorff beach since she heard there was free camping. I told her, “yes, for only 24-hours, then you need to move.” She argued with me, insisting they could stay there. Anyway, I went in to do my work and about 2 hours later, came out and found her still sitting there, almost in tears. She was complaining that she was hungry, hadn’t eaten that day and they were out of food stamps. I told her that our food stamps didn’t kick in until the 8^th. I asked her what happened to the guy who was supposed to come get them last week and take them to Washington, and she said the guy ripped them off and didn’t take them to Washington. She also hadn’t heard from whoever it was that was supposed to move their camp. So I went in and asked William if it would be ok if we could help them. So William went up to Fairview and helped move their camp (all wet and stinky! With 3 cats!) and paid for 2 nights out at Sturdevant park, moved their camp down there – it took 2 loads. They made William do all the work! They hardly did a thing for themselves! 

I, in the mean time, was at the trailer, getting together a couple grocery bags full of food, including some of my canned and dried stuff. After William came down with the 2^nd load, he stopped by to get me to get my help to help them set up their new camp. We suggested they should camp in the shelter of the treed area in the back of the park due to the fact that the high winds were to come back again that night. They didn’t listen to us, set their camp up along the river on a hill, right in direct line with all the winds! Of course, when we came to check on them the next day, their tent was flattened, all their stuff spread all over the place and wet, she was sitting under the gazebo wet and miserable, and he was supposed to be at the library looking for another BLM site to move to. She said how around 1 am everything got soaked and flattened and they ended up inside the bathrooms for the night. It was still pouring rain off and on, so I said I’d help them move the camp to behind the bathroom (the park host said they could), so I went to the library and got her boyfriend, who had fallen asleep in the library. I made them pack up their own stuff, but I helped load it into my car and take 4 loads over to behind the bathroom (our car is REALLY stinky now!) I told them that William would be down the next morning to help them get to Bastendorff Beach, but they were to get their stuff ready on their own and be ready when William got there ( we were realizing at this point, they hardly do a thing to help themselves, but rather, wait for someone else to do all their work and providing for). Of course, the next morning they were not ready and William said he’d give them 2 hours. 2 ½ hours later, he went down there and they had done NOTHING to get ready! William was real fed up at this point, but kept his temper, got their stuff all loaded to do in 1 trip, put the last of our money into the gas tank and took them to Bastendorff. He again said to them that they were now on their own and that they could only stay at that camp site for 24 hours! They disagreed. Whatever, they were now on their own. We did what we could to help them!

In the mean time, William and I had been dealing with several days of the enemy’s attack on us and by this time we were under a deep exhaustion! Lack of sleep at nights due to tormenting spirits and dealing with these people, absolutely exhausted us! So much so, we kept falling asleep throughout the day, each day, but never sleeping for any length of time, night or day. At the same time, my blow-up mattress had deflated earlier in the week, the hard bed caused me a great deal of pain, keeping me awake, etc. and etc. I finally was able to go to Coos Bay yesterday to exchange that mattress and last night slept for the first time in over a week!

Last Thurs. morning’s (6^th) prayer meeting was very powerful. This is one of the things we know and realize is that the farther we advance in the Kingdom of God, the harder the enemy of the kingdom of darkness tries to fight back. That’s what’s going on, we know it, they know it, but they should realize by now that we’re not backing down. Like William says, “bring it on!” But, they just like to try to make us miserable; however, through all of it, we keep praising God, singing, throwing scriptures about in this battle and making them run! Anyway, we felt the Holy Spirit show up at the prayer meeting in such a powerful way, not only William, but others were weeping. Humility was the main topic of the day. William ended up flat on the floor because God kept telling him to “get low, get low”. I’ve noticed that lately (that day, and others) that my speaking in tongues has increased and is sounding different at times. Anyway, it was such a powerful time, and we are so thankful to have this group to meet with each week.

Because we were dealing with those homeless people and fighting such exhaustion/emotional issues, etc., we didn’t go to Palm Sunday services at the Foursquare, but stayed home, prayed, fasted, and tried to sleep. I guess when William went to the men’s bible study early Tuesday morning, that was the first thing the pastor had asked was, “where were you guys?” William filled them in on the homeless situation. We had met with the pastor and his wife last Wed. night (5^th) and spent a good 2 ½ hrs talking with them about who we are and what we wanted to do at Sturdenvant park on June 10^th and the Gay 90’s event on June 3^rd. Like we said, we’re not there to ‘come under their banner’ so to speak, but to come along side to help their congregation any way we can AND to invite them to what we want to do for their city. Last Sunday (2^nd) after church, we had gone to the Sturdevant park and prayed over it, asking God for more direction as to what He wants us to do down there. We had a great, powerful prayer/praise time the rest of that day.

Coquille Valley is so green!

This past Monday (10^th) I met with the ladies at Figero’s again for Bible/discipleship time – again it was powerful. Not only did the leader mention that since William and I have started coming to their church/various groups, they have risen to a new spiritual level that was very noticeable. Again, the topic centered around humility and discernment. So many great verses were discussed and experiences of various things God has done, were brought up. I mentioned how I wollowed in self-pity and victim mentality while going through my healing period in the 90’s, but with God’s help, I rose out of it. I also recounted the homeless situation this week and told of what we learned from that episode: that some people just don’t want to take responsibility for their own lives, don’t want to help themselves, sit in their victim mentality, whining for someone to rescue them. I was a sucker for that this week, in my desire to help, I only enabled them. She mentioned (and others said it too) that I had such a spirit of Mercy on me, that I need to learn discernment on this sort of thing. I totally agree. Then, she asked another member to pray over me in this area because she too has been anointed to the healing ministry, not only that, but knows about victimization and is learning still to work on boundaries. Such a great and powerful time that morning.

This past week, God has continued to teach me from II Samuel and I Chronicles. One thing that we are well aware of in dealing with the spiritual realm, that where there are great victories in God, we cannot get careless about walking closely and in constant communion with God, because the enemy is right there ready to claim any ‘relapse’ and devour us. In the story of David (II Sam. 11 and 12), he had a series of small lapses in his character/daily communion with God, which then, of course, led to the BIG one. That didn’t make him bad all of a sudden, just human. We all need to watch for those little things that lead to the big one and cut it off before it happens. The cool thing, though, is if we fail, God is always there, ready to pick us up, forgive and cleanse us! God’s response to humble submission, continued trust, and a contrite heart (Ps. 51:10, 17) and he WILL renew a right spirit in us!

Like right now (this past week or so), we could just give into this exhaustion and quit praying/seeking God’s will/rattling the enemy’s cage by joining with other believers, and maybe this onslaught will stop. Just because we are constantly getting attacked by the enemy, doesn’t mean we are out of the will of God (as in David’s case here), we are in a spiritual battle and we are fighting back in the power of the Holy Spirit, in God’s will, but us being human, we get wore out! We’re making the enemy MAD and he’s trying to make us quit! But we won’t! That is where we have to go to God for a time of rest and restoration (we’ve been taking a lot of naps lately!). The most important part of restoration is prayer, worship, and praise! That is what is so cool about David and the Psalms, that whenever he has a ‘human moment’, he goes right to God, pours out his soul and gets restored! I have found that when I pray the Psalms, I get immediate relief: Ps. 7, 69, 109, 142 - 144 are great to use against the spirits of depression, loneliness, fear, envy, discouragement of any sort – all temptations, in fact. Ps. 72, 73, 74 (and others) are great to pray on behalf of the poor and outcast. And of course, for expressing our love, thankfulness, and joy to God: Ps. 1, 8, 9, 16, 19, 23, 103, etc. And so on, the Psalms are great for all occasions.