Sun, May 28th - 1:12AM

My New Family

Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's,But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.  Mark 10:28-30

     Loretta and I drove past the large apartment complex in the south part of Colorado Springs, observing the yellow safety tap fastened to police cars a hundred or more feet apart.  In the parking lot was the coroner's van and officers speaking with persons next to the body of a man on a gurney.  This was the place we were to pick up a car belonging to a fellow inmate locked up with her son in the county jail.  When we found the late model Mustang and got into it, she reminded me that the owner had warned her about turning down the radio before turning on the ingnition key.  I pressed the mute button on it and, apparently pressed it twice so that when she did turn the key an extremely loud pulse of "ghetto music" blasted us from directly behind, where the back of the rear seat originally was.  I immediately hit the button again but she was so jolted that she hurled an accusatory query at me as to what I was doing.  This normally soft-spoken, even tempered Christian woman had been caught off guard by the sudden noise and lost her composure.

     Loretta's mission was to take this young man's debit card to an ATM and get $500 in cash so as to get him released on bail, so that somehow he would, in turn get her son, Clark free.  (Just how, I cannot tell)  For the remainder of today this long haired, dress-wearing and somewhat elderly and homeless "holiness" woman was to drive about in a low-rider cruiser to complete her many tasks.  She followed me over to Doug's house, who had gone through such a powerful repentance several weeks prior at one of our Saturday night Gospel meetings at the shelter.  To my my surprise and great dismay, Doug had slipped a couple of nights ago and gone drinking with someone he had found in the streets, and renting the room to this individual, which he had agreed to rent to Chris, another homeless person working for me.  When Doug pulled up with a man and a woman he got out of the car with them and came over to me, telling me he had "fallen off the wagon a little."  I quickly became angry, partly for breaking his agreement with Chris.  I was most bothered by his stupid decision to allow his extra room to go to this drunk from the streets.  After venting my anger on Doug I drove off quickly, leaving Loretta there with him.

     Brother Derald, our pastor visited Doug tonight and was asked by him to pick him up for church tomorrow morning.  Thankfully, even though I lost patience with Doug, another member of the body was able to help restore this man from his self-condemned state.  Praise God for a church family that works together as a team to rescue the perishing!   

Lord Jesus, give me strength to love these lambs of your!  More later.

Mon, May 15th - 1:39AM

Salvation Army Shelter Mission

       I have been coming to the shelter during the week and getting to know some of the faces I see at the meeting on Saturday nights.  Last evening brother Melvin Beecher, the president of our little Bible College, his wife and one of the student girls came to support and assist in the ministry.  Some of our meetings have been without any spectacular occurrence. This one appeared to be so, but proved very fruitful later.  A small group showed.  One reason for this is that I don't provide any refreshments as do some of the other ministries that come in.  After singing a hymn, a man came in led by a little infant girl.  Apparently she had heard and liked the singing and burst through the door to the kitchen where we meet.  The man, whose name we learned is Richard, his little one named "Destiny," later remarked that there must have been a reason for them being drawn to the meeting.  After our lesson on the fourth beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled," (Matt. 5:6) Richard related to me the sad tale of his wife, Deadra being locked up on an escape charge from a half-way house, and facing 4-12yrs. on her escape in addition to the completion of her first sentence. He acknowledged to me that he, himself bore the greater responsibility for drawing her into a criminal mode of behaviour by his own poor example.

     He also told me that, while he himself had been in prison he had begun a Bible correspondence course with a view to a ministerial degree, and that he would like to enroll in a  school now.  I agreed to be available to disciple him and even develope a course of study for him, and even get him into our school this coming Fall.  He agreed to come to church, which he did this evening and the people were deeply touched by his presence there.  After brother Derald's message on faith, I asked the men of the church to gather round Richard and to pray for him.  His eyes were hardly dry during the evening, as he shuffled little Destiny in his arms back and forth to the rear of the church when she cried.  His mother is also in the shelter and must leave the premises when she watches Destiny for him while he seeks work.  After the service Kim, the pastor's wife and Derald our pastor gathered around Richard and Kim offered to watch Destiny any time.  A young brother, David happened to need painting help tomorrow and they connected.  I, myself may use him later in the week also for painting.  He expressed a desire for a ride to Wednesday prayer service.

    Where this is all going, I have no idea.  A brother in the Aspen area sent me an e-mail reply to a report of the ministry and urged me to pray about renting a house for ministry to some of these repenters, and that he would come down here to help in it.  Wherever Jesus leads, I must follow, though I lose myself in doing so.  I've fruit to bear for His kingdom in the short time before His return.  Having strongly criticized the organized contemporary churches for their worldly methods and deficient, humanistic gospel, this may well be the time to lead by example by the grace given me for this purpose.  Dear friends, pray for me; pray for us here concerning this little ministry; pray for yourselves and for your churches!

Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly [is] great, but the labourers [are] few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. (Luke 10:2)