About 2 years ago at the end of the year I was evaluating how we could be better stewards in the coming year. And the Lord began to speak to me as I ask him what He wanted me to do. I heard “do nothing.” Now give me something to do and I am on it. But it took me back to the first day at the Mission when I step out of the apartment into the hall leading to my office. As I heard the door shut behind me and I said Lord I am not ready for this and I heard him say “just show up and get out of the way.” And that has been my position for 14 years now. I just keep showing up and staying out of His way so He can do what only He can do, change lives. Now I was being ask to do nothing again. And them I heard him say something that in the natural made on since. “STOP BUYING FOOD, THERE ARE LEAN TIMES AHEAD AND I AM GOING TO INCREASE YOUR FAITH AND SHOW YOU MY PROVISION.” Along with donations we were spending over $1000 a month just for the bear necessities to feed about 35 women and children, Now the Lord was saying I want you to stop and do nothing. So I told my staff the next day we were no long buying food to feed our ladies. They look at me like I was nuts and I was beginning to wonder myself. So the first thing we ran out of was coffee and you can imagine what 35 women in the morning without coffee would be like. So when the cook came to me and ask if we could just buy a little coffee for in the morning I thought sure. But the spirit stopped me in my tracks. “I said nothing” so I said if the Lord wants the Ladies to have coffee He will provide it. At that moment I look up and a man had just walked in with 3 big cans of coffee. I shared that story with the Ladies at devotions that night and told them when they had coffee the next morning it was a gift from Jesus and just picture him pouring it for you. I looked up and several women were crying and received the Lord that night. I realize this was about so much more than food. To make a long story of provision short. Here is a list of some of the things he has done.
Give us the strength to kept running the mission through, my Associate Director having a double mastectomy and losing her Mother and Father to cancer 2 months apart and a life and death situation with her first grandson. My mothers heart surgery. Jaci’s cancer, Daryl two surgery’s in a week gallbladder related, a broken leg and knee replacement.
We have not bought one food item in 2 years. And we have more food in our panty than ever and had to buy another freezer for meat. We have also been able to help another Feed the Homeless Ministry. We tithe our food ever month to someone in need and God used that to convict a man who refuse to tithe and was losing everything to start tithing and the Lord gave him a job and helped him pay off all his bills in 6 months. The Lord laid it on someone heart to replace all of our broken down beds with new ones, over 40 new beds, a furniture stores to donate new furniture. But the best of all is many have come to no Jesus, as many as 21 in one service. I could go on and on but this is just a few examples of stepping out and doing the opposite and for some of us that is nothing. It is amazing what God will do when He asks us to do nothing. Several people have said I make running the Mission look easy. Well now you know my secret “get out of the way
Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Bitter Waters Made Sweet
In Exodus 15:22-27 Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea to the wilderness of Shur. They came to Marah and the waters were bitter. The people complained and the Lord showed Moses a tree. When he cast that tree into the bitter waters, they became sweet, and the Lord promised to heal them. They then moved on to Elim. My favorite part of the scripture is, “So they camped there by the water”. I love camping out at the water of His Word. God is faithful to keep me moving on. I thank the Lord my God that through the bitter waters of my life I have learned to camp out at the foot of the Tree the Lord has shown me called the Cross. It has always heeled me and makes my bitter waters sweet.
My Creed
I am Passionate about justice, I can't be at peace until I have done my best to help the oppressed. I am not afraid to speak truth to people, though I have paid a price for doing so. I will sacrifice for the good of others; I desire to be true servant-leader. I do not ...rely on my own power. I don't have to. I have seen Providence step in to change what looked like disaster into victory. At the same time, I have suffered and been lonely as a result of my refusal to go along with the crowd. I know that the great plan is beyond our limited comprehension, and what looks like a loss to me may eventually turn out to be a win.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Remenbering the 60's on this Journey.
In the late sixty’s and early seventy’s God began to move in an awesome way down on the beaches in Southern California. Young people were getting saved by the hundreds. At the same time our church was praying for revival. Their Pastor who had so many he didn't know what to do with them told them to go back to their home towns and take the Gospel. Some young hippies started coming to our church. They had sandals on their feet, sporting long hair and carried big Bibles. They not only carried those big Bibles, they read them and they talked about God’s Word all the time. I had never encountered anyone so excited about God’s Word. It was catching and I caught it. I began to study with them and in my private time the word of God had come alive in me. This was the missing piece I had been looking for, after all how do you have a love relationship with someone and refuse to read His love letters to you. One of those hippies began to teach a Friday night Bible study in our church Daryl and I began to attend. As I began to study the Word, I began to hunger after it. I saw in these believers what I hungered after, that very personal love relationship with Jesus Christ the lover of my soul.
Those young hippies with their big Bibles and what they call their Jesus music changed the course of our lives for ever. The Bible Study grew to be an exciting out reach in the church the problem (as some saw it) was it had grown to be as large as the Sunday Service. Some were not happy about that and it became a source of division in the church. This young man had such a pure heart and love for this body of believers that he left the church rather than causes division. He now pastors a church of more than ten thousand people in the same town. He never set out to build a big church. He just loved the Word and began to teach, God did the rest. Look around the valley for the rest of the story. Not only this valley but all over the United States and other countries. It was known in those days as the Jesus Movement and He is still moving.
Those young hippies with their big Bibles and what they call their Jesus music changed the course of our lives for ever. The Bible Study grew to be an exciting out reach in the church the problem (as some saw it) was it had grown to be as large as the Sunday Service. Some were not happy about that and it became a source of division in the church. This young man had such a pure heart and love for this body of believers that he left the church rather than causes division. He now pastors a church of more than ten thousand people in the same town. He never set out to build a big church. He just loved the Word and began to teach, God did the rest. Look around the valley for the rest of the story. Not only this valley but all over the United States and other countries. It was known in those days as the Jesus Movement and He is still moving.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Real Men
Since today is Fathers Day I thought I would share this.
My son Doug was a youth pastor for 14 years and has a daughter that just left home for College. He has shared this Definition of a real man with the young women in his life. I thought I would pass it on, it is very simple, 4 little points:
1. Must have his own relationship with Jesus
2. Must have his own transportation
3. Must have his own nest
4. Must have more money than month
That's a real man
My son Doug was a youth pastor for 14 years and has a daughter that just left home for College. He has shared this Definition of a real man with the young women in his life. I thought I would pass it on, it is very simple, 4 little points:
1. Must have his own relationship with Jesus
2. Must have his own transportation
3. Must have his own nest
4. Must have more money than month
That's a real man
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Be a Bridge
“Sing, O barren,
You who have not borne!
Break forth into singing, and cry aloud,
You who have not labored with child!
For more are the children of the desolate
Than the children of the married woman,” says the LORD.
Isaiah 54:1
In 1889 I found myself sitting outside the Medford Gospel Mission watching the people going in and out, my heart aching and asking the Lord, “What can I do?” After all, I was raised in the church, in a Christian home by two parents that loved and served God with all their hearts. I was never abused, never went hungry, and always had a warm meal and a clean bed. I have a husband who loves God and loves me, two grown children serving God with their wives, plus grandchildren that love Jesus. I found myself pondering, ”What brought me to the door of a homeless shelter?”
Driving home after a morning service , I heard myself saying without thought. “If I don’t get somewhere where I Can lead people to Jesus I am going to dry up and die. The fact of the matter was I had already dried up and died. Died to all my old preconceived idea’s of what a personal relationship with Jesus was. I thought the more I did the more spiritual I was. My experience with serving the Lord was one of performing. But I had just come through a season of doing nothing. Oh not by choice, but from the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing through my life and fanning a flame, blowing out all the wood hay and stubble and finding I had nothing left. As a young girl I saw two of my friends who were not welcome in the Church , lose their lives 6 months apart one to drug and one to suicide and it put a deep resolve in me to see people come to Jesus. I know I had won more people to Jesus in my life time than most but here I Was a 50 years old striped and barren aching to bear fruit for the Kingdom in the form of new babies. This desire compelled me, it grove me, I was in spiritual pain from the reality of the lost and dieing. As I was driving into town from our country home one day, the spirit of the Lord spoke to me saying “if you want to see people saved you will need to be where they are.” That meant moving to Medford Oregon form the Applegate Valley. I thought oh no this is a trick. Twenty five years earlier I had told my husband as we sat in our home in Santa Fe Spring California “ I will move to Oregon with you if you promise me we will never live in Medford. But at that moment the Lord change my heart. He has a way of sneaking up on me at unexpected times. This was one of those times.
“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out there curtains of there dwellings: Do not spare: Lengthen you cords and strengthen our stakes, 3. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendents will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited.”
Isaiah 54: 2-3
The biggest surprise to myself and others in this journey called my life is that someone who’s life style and life choices were so different than the people of the streets, would end up living and ministering among then. But some where along the way of being broken and striped. I found my vision moving outside the walls of the Church. Those that had the greatest need were not making their way through the doors. The need to see people come to Jesus began to compel me. As I read the Word my heart was stirred by words like called, sent, go, and the voice of the Lord saying “I am taking your ministry out of the Church and into the streets“. I had no idea how that would or could happen. What did I know about the streets.
Not long after we had been ministering at the Mission, I began to realize how wide the gap between the Church and the streets really was, and began inquiring of the Lord, “how do we bridge that gap”. One way was to be effective. If we who had come to the streets by way of the Church (not by way of the streets) could be effective in the ministry to those who’s shoes we had not walked in, then we could begin to see those desolate places inhabited. If the homeless, the drug addict, the alcoholic, the prisoners could receive and be healed and experience the message of redemption and freedom and be disciple by someone who had not walked in their shoes, it would dispel one of the biggest lies the enemy has use to separated and divide the Church from the streets and the street from the Church. We have bought into the philosophy of the world that tells us we need to separate into our little groups ,the alcoholic’s all together, the drug addicts together. We find the foundation of our fellowship being weaknesses of our flesh and identifying ourselves with our past life. Therefore we believe we can not fellowship with those who are not of like background. The foundation for our fellowship is Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So when I am ask how can you relate to those you minister to and they to you. I have simply come to understand that our common bond and place of fellowship is at the foot of the cross. We all were separated from Christ by sin, It doesn’t matter what sin. Sin is sin. What does matter, is that we were all lost and now are found and saved by the same grace and going to the same heaven, where there will be no separation. According to the last of Eph.4 and the first of Eph. 5 we are all called to forgive the way we have been forgiven and to be imitators of Christ as we love the way we have been love, no matter where we came from the call is the same and we all get their the same way. Let us be a bridge form the Church to the Streets and for the Streets to the Church, in Jesus name, amen
You who have not borne!
Break forth into singing, and cry aloud,
You who have not labored with child!
For more are the children of the desolate
Than the children of the married woman,” says the LORD.
Isaiah 54:1
In 1889 I found myself sitting outside the Medford Gospel Mission watching the people going in and out, my heart aching and asking the Lord, “What can I do?” After all, I was raised in the church, in a Christian home by two parents that loved and served God with all their hearts. I was never abused, never went hungry, and always had a warm meal and a clean bed. I have a husband who loves God and loves me, two grown children serving God with their wives, plus grandchildren that love Jesus. I found myself pondering, ”What brought me to the door of a homeless shelter?”
Driving home after a morning service , I heard myself saying without thought. “If I don’t get somewhere where I Can lead people to Jesus I am going to dry up and die. The fact of the matter was I had already dried up and died. Died to all my old preconceived idea’s of what a personal relationship with Jesus was. I thought the more I did the more spiritual I was. My experience with serving the Lord was one of performing. But I had just come through a season of doing nothing. Oh not by choice, but from the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing through my life and fanning a flame, blowing out all the wood hay and stubble and finding I had nothing left. As a young girl I saw two of my friends who were not welcome in the Church , lose their lives 6 months apart one to drug and one to suicide and it put a deep resolve in me to see people come to Jesus. I know I had won more people to Jesus in my life time than most but here I Was a 50 years old striped and barren aching to bear fruit for the Kingdom in the form of new babies. This desire compelled me, it grove me, I was in spiritual pain from the reality of the lost and dieing. As I was driving into town from our country home one day, the spirit of the Lord spoke to me saying “if you want to see people saved you will need to be where they are.” That meant moving to Medford Oregon form the Applegate Valley. I thought oh no this is a trick. Twenty five years earlier I had told my husband as we sat in our home in Santa Fe Spring California “ I will move to Oregon with you if you promise me we will never live in Medford. But at that moment the Lord change my heart. He has a way of sneaking up on me at unexpected times. This was one of those times.
“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out there curtains of there dwellings: Do not spare: Lengthen you cords and strengthen our stakes, 3. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendents will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited.”
Isaiah 54: 2-3
The biggest surprise to myself and others in this journey called my life is that someone who’s life style and life choices were so different than the people of the streets, would end up living and ministering among then. But some where along the way of being broken and striped. I found my vision moving outside the walls of the Church. Those that had the greatest need were not making their way through the doors. The need to see people come to Jesus began to compel me. As I read the Word my heart was stirred by words like called, sent, go, and the voice of the Lord saying “I am taking your ministry out of the Church and into the streets“. I had no idea how that would or could happen. What did I know about the streets.
Not long after we had been ministering at the Mission, I began to realize how wide the gap between the Church and the streets really was, and began inquiring of the Lord, “how do we bridge that gap”. One way was to be effective. If we who had come to the streets by way of the Church (not by way of the streets) could be effective in the ministry to those who’s shoes we had not walked in, then we could begin to see those desolate places inhabited. If the homeless, the drug addict, the alcoholic, the prisoners could receive and be healed and experience the message of redemption and freedom and be disciple by someone who had not walked in their shoes, it would dispel one of the biggest lies the enemy has use to separated and divide the Church from the streets and the street from the Church. We have bought into the philosophy of the world that tells us we need to separate into our little groups ,the alcoholic’s all together, the drug addicts together. We find the foundation of our fellowship being weaknesses of our flesh and identifying ourselves with our past life. Therefore we believe we can not fellowship with those who are not of like background. The foundation for our fellowship is Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So when I am ask how can you relate to those you minister to and they to you. I have simply come to understand that our common bond and place of fellowship is at the foot of the cross. We all were separated from Christ by sin, It doesn’t matter what sin. Sin is sin. What does matter, is that we were all lost and now are found and saved by the same grace and going to the same heaven, where there will be no separation. According to the last of Eph.4 and the first of Eph. 5 we are all called to forgive the way we have been forgiven and to be imitators of Christ as we love the way we have been love, no matter where we came from the call is the same and we all get their the same way. Let us be a bridge form the Church to the Streets and for the Streets to the Church, in Jesus name, amen
Friday, June 17, 2011
Cast into the deepest sea.
As I begin this journey I find myself asking why? You see although my life calling requires me to be involved daily in the live of many people and the fact that I am not a writer but most of all I am a very private person. A fact many may not know about me.Them you add to the fact I have always thought blogs were a bit self indulgent and am always amazed that anyone wants to hear what I have to say anyway. I ask myself why? The only reason I have is that their are some that just won't leave me alone concerning a blog. So I guess I am opening my mouth to shut theirs up. Well here goes.
My husband Daryl and I are celebrating our 48 anniversary by spending 5 days on the beach in our motor home.
We are about 50 yards from the water and as we hear the wave crashing and the sun is shining I am always reminded of the majesty and magnificence of our Lord. It amazes me that He tells us our sins are cast into the deepest sea. He also tells us in another portion of scripture that they will never be remember against us anymore. I am blessed that I get to share that everyday with others and see them come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The ocean is so vast and endless, I feel so small when I look at his creation. I makes me think about how big God really is but yet the hairs on my head are number. He is vast but he is personal. A trip to the coast always brings me peace and rest and a renewing of my spirit as I sit on the shore and read his Word. There seems to be a clarity for me her like no other place. He meets me in a way that speaks deeply to me.
I am feeling blessed today as I have my wonderful husband or 48 years and we have our wonderful savior that has seen us through the mountain tops and the valleys and has seen fit to bring us to this time in our live when we can minister side by side as we work in his harvest field.
Blessing to all on this wonderful day that God has made, rejoice and be glad in it.
Janet Marie
My husband Daryl and I are celebrating our 48 anniversary by spending 5 days on the beach in our motor home.
We are about 50 yards from the water and as we hear the wave crashing and the sun is shining I am always reminded of the majesty and magnificence of our Lord. It amazes me that He tells us our sins are cast into the deepest sea. He also tells us in another portion of scripture that they will never be remember against us anymore. I am blessed that I get to share that everyday with others and see them come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The ocean is so vast and endless, I feel so small when I look at his creation. I makes me think about how big God really is but yet the hairs on my head are number. He is vast but he is personal. A trip to the coast always brings me peace and rest and a renewing of my spirit as I sit on the shore and read his Word. There seems to be a clarity for me her like no other place. He meets me in a way that speaks deeply to me.
I am feeling blessed today as I have my wonderful husband or 48 years and we have our wonderful savior that has seen us through the mountain tops and the valleys and has seen fit to bring us to this time in our live when we can minister side by side as we work in his harvest field.
Blessing to all on this wonderful day that God has made, rejoice and be glad in it.
Janet Marie
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