Thursday, July 28, 2011

There Is Nothing Like God's Timing

Do you realize that God's timing is ALWAYS perfect....ALWAYS right....and rarely lines up with our own timing?

We love it when the Spirit of the Lord moves on people at just the right time.....it is a current day miracle and wonderful to experience.

Just over the past couple of days:
  • Dean happened to be praying in the parking lot at Food Lion when an elderly man saw him and started up a conversation....before leaving Dean was able to pray with that man right there in the parking lot - for the man's wife that was in the hospital and probably getting ready to pass from terminal cancer
  • I had a trunk load of 75 loaves of bread that needed to go out immediately....the Lord led me and Courtney to take the bread to Urban Ministries yesterday (whom I have never worked with or contacted) - we drove up in the parking lot and just walked in and asked if they needed bread....well guess what?  Their food pantry had just ran out of bread THAT MORNING and hadn't gotten their regular bread pick-up that Tuesday.  God already had that lined up :)
  • We were unable to locate a local Gideon in the Granville County area to have a case of small Bibles for the outreach on Saturday, and just this morning God has already provided through two friends sacrificing their hard-earned money!  We got an email this morning from Denise Watts that she has 30 small Bibles, and then Malcolm Mathieson provided $40 to pick up Bibles and small dollar store toys.
  • We have had people in the community asking for fresh fruits/vegetables, and Ellen and Tim Rogers at Antioch Baptist Church gave us access to a family corn field last night, and Dean was able to go and pick many, many ears of corn which will be given out on Saturday.
  • We do not have a truck or trailer as of yet to haul all of the outreach items, but Dawne and Randy have graciously donated use of their van to get everything picked up and hauled around tonight.
There are many, many other things that God has provided for this outreach.  We are very excited to see it all come together.  There is a lot of work to be done between now and Saturday - but we are confident that God will see us through it all and that His plan will be accomplished through this.

We are already so grateful for everything that has been provided so far....all the people that have volunteered to help.  We will post a full list after the outreach is done.  Then everyone can see how God used His people to come together and work together with one mind, one body, one goal of reaching others for Him.

Loving Radically Through Christ,

Melissa

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

TWIN CIRCLES PARK OUTREACH

As some of you know we are having an outreach at the Twin Circles Mobile Home Park this Saturday at 5:00 p.m.. We are asking that all the volunteers be there around 4:00 to help set up everything. As I promised I am posting all the needs that we still haven't recieved or things that we still need more of. We could still use some more cases of water, dollar tree toys for the kid's, bagged candy ( no chocolate ), face paint, games helpers, and bibles. I would like to thank all the people that have given so far and please pray that God will meet us in a powerful way on Saturday for His Glory!! Thank you!!

LIVING RADICALLY THROUGH CHRIST,
Dean

Friday, July 22, 2011

Family In Need - July 22, 2011

Dean just received a call from a family in Durham.  They live in Hoover Street Apartments and have 5 children.

We do not know a whole lot about the situation - but we know that they are in need and would appreciate your help.

They are in need of the following items immediately:

Food Supplies for their home
Baby Food
Baby Wipes
Diapers - Size 4
Boy and Girl Clothes - Size 18-24 months
(The mother said that the girl has more than the boy at this time, but both are in need.  I'm going to assume that they are looking for summer type outfits just due to the need being immediate.)

Please give Dean a call at 919-665-8997 or send us an email at radicallifeoutreach@yahoo.com if you are able to help!

Loving Radically Through Christ,

Melissa

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

THANK YOU OPEN ARMS - THANK YOU WORKING FAITH!

I want to take this moment to give a HUGE thank you to Open Arms Fellowship in Creedmoor and Working Faith Ministries in Butner.

I know that these two congregations probably do not desire a public commendation....but I'm giving it anyway!  :)

Both of these congregations have opened their doors, hearts and lives to us.  They have willingly joined with us and will be joining with us further for the July 30th outreach in Twin Circles Mobile Home Park.

We have had a wonderful time already serving with some ladies (and their sweet children) at Open Arms Fellowship.  For the past two Tuesday nights we have been joined by Dawn and her daughters, and Gloria and her children, to pass out bread and food supplies at Twin Circles and Morning Glory Apartments.

It was hot and sweaty last night - but we still had a great time showing the love of the Lord to these folks with the food He has so generously provided.

We even decided that we had such a good time together last night that we're gonna meet up again tonight and have some Bible study/discussion and fellowship time :)  !!!

And to Working Faith Ministries....this relationship has just begun but we are very thankful and very excited.  Dean has found a true brother in Christ and he is so very humbled and honored.  Pastor Trey provided us with Spanish Bibles and Spanish Tracts on Sunday after Dean spoke a little about our ministry.

WHAT A BLESSING!!!!

Please Join Us in Prayer for Jessica!






Please join us in prayer for Jessica!

The pictures above were taken on Sunday, July 17th.  Jessica is a lady that we have met in Twin Circles Mobile Home Park in Butner.  We have been by her house quite a few times and have talked with her and delivered some food.  She called Dean on Saturday and asked if we could bring some bread by her house.  Dean agreed and said we would be happy to bring it by the next day after church (Sunday).

On Sunday as we were getting ready for church, I told Dean in the bathroom that I just didn't think I'd be able to go deliver the bread with him.  He asked why - and I honestly explained.  I have had a past family history with drug addiction and abuse and lies.....some of you understand the whole deal.  I explained to Dean that I just didn't think I could go and witness to her with all of the negative thoughts running through my head.

Well that's when the Spirit started talking to me :)  Through my precious husband of course.  He basically gave me a sermon right in the bathroom about how I needed to see her through God's eyes, not my own eyes.  How maybe the OLD ME couldn't go out and serve her - but the NEW ME could.  And I needed to put the old me aside, and let the new me, the Spirit living in me, do the work necessary. 

I humbly agreed and we went about our morning to church.  We were visiting at, and Dean was speaking at, Working Faith Ministries in Butner.  Imagine my surprise when the Holy Spirit showed up again, preaching to me a second time....as if He already knew I really didn't listen the first time :)  This time it was through the words of the pastor, Trey Davis....Dean's friend from high school.

Pastor Trey began to preach his message and when he started talking about seeing people through God's eyes when we're out in the world, and seeing past the words that come out of their mouths and really seeing their pain and their need, I just about fell out of my chair.  My husband looked over at me and sweetly smiled and said "Sound familiar?" and I just said yes.  There was no denying it now.  I knew what I was going to be doing that afternoon.  I stopped right then and prayed about it.  Thanking the Lord for His speaking and for allowing me to hear. 

I was going to yield to His Spirit even if it meant going out of my comfort zone and doing something that I didn't think would be possible.  He showed me right then that I needed to ask Dean's mom to join us.  He showed me a picture in my brain of the 4 of us praying together on Jessica's porch - and He showed me that it was going to be powerful.

Ohhhhh - that it was!  We weren't at Jessica's house more than 2 minutes before she started asking us questions about the Lord.  This turned into a half hour discussion of Jesus and the salvation He offers.  The Truth that He is and the Grace and Love that He gives.  We were able to pray with Jessica, talk with Jessica, love on Jessica, befriend her, talk to her about some current issues and past problems, and even able to read straight from God's Word.  She was overjoyed when we were done and told us that she wanted to claim that day that Jesus was Lord.  And she did, outloud a couple of times!!

Marcia, Dean's mom, was an absolutely necessity for that time with Jessica.  Jessica felt so attached to her because of Marcia's testimony and by the end of the time was calling her "mom". 

Jessica was all smiles - and honestly, so were we. 

We are going to follow up with Jessica today to see if she has any further questions about her decision and to make sure she understands and has the resources necessary to follow through.

Jessica has a history of non-Hodgkins lymphoma and also currently has an ovarian cyst that she was going for testing for yesterday.

Please pray for her and for us....that we may yield to the Spirit once again and be whatever He needs us to be in this situation.

Especially me.....ya'll know I can be stubborn!

Loving Radically Through Christ,

Melissa

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words....

So it's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words - right?  Well....I hope these pictures say a lot :) 

We had a wonderful time last night.  Yes it was horribly hot....yes we were sweaty and a little on the miserable side....but when you're doing the Lord's work and building relationships with people in order to share His Good News, then it's all worth it.

We had Dawn and her girls and her son from Open Arms Fellowship with us last night, along with Dean's mom Marcia who is an essential member of Radical Life Outreach Ministries! 

It was such a blessing to be able to introduce some other Christians to our friends in Twin Circles.  We had a great time fellowshipping with these ladies and Alex really enjoyed having Chase around to play with.

I believe the highlight of the night was James, the boy with the cross necklace.  This is the same guy who we mentioned in an earlier post who had NEVER heard the Good News of Jesus.  He didn't know what Jesus did, or why He did it.  He'd never even heard John 3:16....amazing in this area where there is a VBS going on every week during the summer.  (Wake up call church....get out of the pew and into the world!!!  I absolutely adore VBS and enjoy putting on a good, Word-of-God sharing VBS for kids, and will probably continue participating for many years to come....but I do recall Jesus reading scripture in the temple IN ADDITION TO walking the towns preaching the message.  He did more "street ministry" than hanging out in the temple.  And as His disciples, as we wear the name of "little Christ" we are ALL called to go out like He did....we are ALL called to give up EVERYTHING and follow Him if required.)

Well last night Dean was able to catch up with James and two of his friends.  He was able to show him John 3:16 again and have him memorize it this time!  Then Dean found me, and James was able to repeat it back to me without any assitance!  So very cool!!!!  His first learned scripture about the One who was sent to redeem!  We gave him some goodies and told him that we would see him around very soon.  We will definitely be getting him a Bible of his own and will continue to encourage this relationship.  I found out that Courtney goes to school with him and knew him fairly well, so this will come in handy next year when school starts back and Courtney can befriend him and share the gospel with him more.

We handed out invitations to the July 30th outreach and people seemed excited to come.  We hope that God will send many out to us that day and we will be able to disciple these people and lead them to Christ.

Please email us if you have any questions about the July 30th outreach...if you want information or if you want to see how you can help out.  We definitely need all the help we can get!!!!











Friday, July 8, 2011

Spiritual Milk?

Ok ok - I know that was a pun....but when you get more gallons of milk that you can hold in your refrigerator and freezer, and your brother's refrigerator and freezer...then I believe that we can call this "spiritual milk"!

The Lord has provided once again and we are very excited about being able to take this milk out and use it to bless His people....so out we will go again tonight to deliver bread, milk and cherry tomatoes - and it will be our pleasure to explain to our friends that the Lord has provided this milk for them.  It was not our doing....it was all His blessing.

When I got the call from Dean just a bit ago that we had received all this milk it led me to immediately go to http://www.biblegateway.com/ (my favorite internet Bible site) and search for instances of "milk" in the Bible.

I saw the reference in 1 Peter 2 for "spiritual milk":

1 Peter 2
 1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

What a wonderful reminder that as newborn babies crave milk - we are to crave the purity of God's Word and His Spirit.  That is how we are to mature in our salvation....in Christ....by nourishing ourselves with Him.

Dean and I have definitely tasted that the Lord is good recently...and in return we will do what His Word says....and that is to crave His pure spiritual milk.

Living Radically Through Christ,

Melissa

Please continue to pray for our blessed little ministry.  Please pray for us tonight as we go out to deliver these items.  Please pray that God will allow this to build the trust and friendships necessary that will allow us to share the Gospel.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

BUSY BEES!!

Wow....we have been so busy lately!  God is so good and providing so many avenues for us to get out and witness to folks.

Hopefully we'll be able to post a report soon so everyone can keep up with what's been going on with us for the past week.

Amongst the regular food pick ups we've graciously been able to
  • hand-deliver two Bibles to two young Hispanic gentlemen that Dean has begun a friendship with
  • deliver bread and milk to an elderly apartment community
  • donate bread to Hoover Road Apartments
  • participate in an outreach with Bull City Outreach Ministries in McDougald Terrace in Durham
  • give out honey buns to the kids of Twin Circles and encourage them to read their Bibles
  • give a present to a Hispanic family that just had a new baby last week
  • video witnessing at North Gate mall
I hope we'll get a chance soon to report on some of the specifics of these so you can see how God works in our lives.

(We will be going out again tonight to visit folks, hand out food and talk about Jesus, so the post may not come tonight.)

Loving Radically Through Christ,

Melissa