OFL Road Trip, Days 3/4/5 -- Guitars, Flower Beds, ERs, and HOME!

(This is Mike--I'll recap the last 3 days of our trip in one long entry!)

Sunday morning, Carter and I worshipped where Libby and I were on staff back in the mid 90s. It was wonderful to see so many old friends, and they were glad to see us too. Carter must have heard twenty times how amazed everyone was to see that “baby Carter” was now a handsome young man. It was shocking to see and hear of the many children and youth who were now grown, married, and have kids of their own. The visit was also bittersweet as I learned that many of our friends from our time there had gone to be with the Lord.

After church we enjoyed a great lunch with friends and then Carter and I went into town to work on our presentation for Sunday night. The only wireless internet we could find was at Schlotzky’s. The young man working there gave us free water and coffee while we worked which was great! It began raining while we were in there and didn’t stop all night.   Anyway, we worked for about an hour and a half on our talk, slideshow, and then drove home practicing the song we’d decided to sing.

After a couple of songs to start the evening service, the rest of the time was ours.  I began by reintroducing our family and showing pictures of the younger kids. Then I introduced the idea of the OFL Road Trip. Carter and I shared a few stories from the past couple of days. Carter told a couple of stories and did a great job! He was so comfortable on stage talking about what we’d done, and his jokes were actually funny! Very proud daddy moment for me. After we’d shared our stories, I spoke about the concept of “surrender” as depicted in Workman’s Outward Focused Life, peppering it with stories from our trip. We closed by singing the song we’d practiced. Carter played the guitar and did a great job.  It was his first time to play in front of a crowd, and he handled it like a pro. All in all, it went very well. I hope that God will work in the lives of those we shared with and move them to serve as well.

After church, we went to dinner with friends. It was after 10:00 when we got home, so it was off to bed. Yard work Monday morning!

Monday morning we got up a little later than we expected, so we hurried through breakfast and went to the church to find out where we were to go.  One of the ladies we were to work for was there, so we followed her back to her home. She's a young 78 years old, but since her husband passed away 13 years ago and with a recent hand injury, she can’t do much yardwork herself.

The note we had regarding Mrs. Betty's yard only read “flower beds.” We thought we were going to be cleaning out an existing flower bed, but it turned out that she wanted a large chunk of yard in front of her house (about 25 feet long and 5 feet wide) turned into a flower bed!  Carter and I took turns between clearing the flower bed and doing other work (mowing, weedeating, trimming low-hanging limbs). It was unseasonably cool and the ground was soft due to the rain the night before. God really blessed us with that rain. I can’t imagine how we’d have done all of this if the temperature was as high as it usually is or if the ground hadn’t been softened by the rain. Thank you Lord! After about 3.5 hours of hard work, we finally had that yard looking good! She knew we wouldn’t take any money for our work, so she insisted that we take her extension cord to use on the next house we were going to work on as well as some trash bags.

We headed back home for lunch and some well-deserved rest. After lunch, we were going to cross the highway to north Grape Creek for more yardwork, or at least so we thought!

The next house was a trailer sitting on a pretty large lot. We checked it out, got our game plan together for doing the yardwork, and headed back to the van to get our equipment. I walked through the gate, but Carter decided to hop the fence.  As he jumped, the old fence gave way under his weight and he lost his balance, falling awkwardly. It was funny, and we both laughed until he realized how badly his wrist hurt. He got up holding his arm and covered by fire ants! I brushed the ants off of him (we kept finding them for the next 10-15 minutes) and checked out the wrist. It began swelling immediately, and he was in a lot of pain, especially when he moved the wrist at all. I was sure it was broken. We loaded up and, with Carter apologizing over and over, we drove home to clean up before heading to the hospital. We went to Angelo Community Hospital (the same hospital where Carter was born in 1996) and went to the ER. The x-rays showed no break, but he did have a pretty good sprain. They gave him a splint and sent us on our way. Brad came to the hospital with us and waited in the waiting room the whole time. What a friend! Afterward, in the parking lot, he gave Carter a pocket knife as a gift. Carter has been so impressed with the people here throughout our visit, and he loves Brad and Karen. At one point I joked that he ought to go to ASU and come be a part-time youth minister at GCBC. As we were leaving the hospital, he said, “I’d really like to work with that guy someday!”

After leaving the hospital, Carter and I went to eat and see a movie. It was time for a break! After a good meal and movie, we headed back to our friends' home for our final night on the road. Tomorrow we start the trek back home. Carter and I talked about the trip as we drove, recapping all of our experiences. He said this has already been one of the best summers he’s ever had!

Tuesday was our long trip home.  Carter slept in the back of the van most of the way.  Our only OFL act today was a stop along the way to give food to a couple of people we passed in Ballinger.  A lady was pushing another lady in a wheelchair down Hwy 67. They were two sisters headed to Wal-Mart. We stopped and gave them a couple of bags of groceries and prayed with them. 

We arrived home around 4pm and it was so good to see everyone and to be back in our own home!  The trip was such a success, and we are already talking about doing more "Outward Focused" events around here with the supplies we have left over.  Thanks so much for your prayers for us while we were on our adventure over the last few days!

~Mike

UGH, a bump in the road

Carter may have broken his left wrist!!!!  After spending all morning doing yard work for a widow, he fell when a fence post gave way.  They are 5 hours away from me so I can't see it to assess, but from what Mike is telling me, it is probably fractured.  I'm sad that he always seems to have a weird illness or injury!  Not the way you want a 14yr old to end a mission trip.  Say a prayer for him if you wouldn't mind.  He LOVES to play praise songs on his guitar and this won't make it easy.  He also leaves for youth camp next Monday and it is in New Mexico.

Okay, Mike texted me and the ER says a bad sprain not broken.  Hooray!!!  Poor guy.  I'm so relieved!

O.F.L trip, Meeting Dutch

more stories from Mike and Carter's OFL road trip(if youdon't know what I'm talking about, click here (http://psalm139verse14.blogspot.com/2010/06/ofl-road-trip-begins.html)

This is "Dutch," a self-proclaimed hobo in his camp outside San Angelo, Texas. We spent about an hour with him. He shared his story with us--drugs, motorcycle gangs, the death of his wife, etc. He currently has a job at a car wash, but lives in the back of his pickup. The next few pictures are of his camp. All of his cooking implements are on the table on the left. Check out the campfire with a potato wrapped in foil and cans of beans over an open fire! We used our mower to clear out the back of the lot where he lives and he was so grateful. We prayed for him and left him with a couple of bags of groceries, some new socks, and a Bible stashed down in the bottom of it all.  He was super excited about the groceries.  He said that the rice, beans, and veggies would make a great pot of "hobo stew" the next night.

 This is the "kitchen" in Dutch's hobo camp. The red hose provides water for the sink. There's no electricity in the camp--and the only water is supplied by this hose.

This is the bathroom.  Check out the lawn chair with a hole in the seat over a bucket and a phone book for TP!  The "shower" consists of water in buckets warmed by the sun and old car floormats spread over a pallet to stand on.

This is Dutch's bedroom...an inflatable air mattress in the back of a pickup.

PS...In case you were wondering, Dutch thought it was great that we asked to take his picture. After taking one with Carter, he insisted that we take pictures of the whole camp! 

Day 2

From Mike:

We arrived in Grape Creek, a small community just outside of San Angelo around noon at our friends home.  Brad is the pastor of Grape Creek Baptist Church where I was on staff for 3 years when Libby and I first got married.  We had a great time catching up and settling in.  After lunch at their home, we headed into San Angelo on Carter’s “birthland tour.”  We spent the afternoon checking out various sites that were special to us when we lived here.  We drove by Angelo State University, went into Eggemeyer’s General Store, wandered around the Cactus Hotel, along the Concho River, and even got out and went into the hospital where Carter was born back in 1996.  Carter thought it was pretty cool to be able to stand in the same viewing room outside the nursery where his aunts, uncles, and grandparents stood and watched him as a newborn being weighed.  

After touring SA for a while, Carter reminded me that we were on an OFL Road Trip, not a trip down memory lane, so we busted out the cleaning supplies and started looking for restrooms to clean.  The first place we stopped was a business I remembered as being owned by a family I knew.  It was closed, but a young man was there catching up on paperwork and came out to meet us.  He turned out to be Justin, a former member of my youth group!  We met his new fiancé and prayed with them before leaving.

The next stop was a cell phone store where we offered to clean restrooms.  The manager was friends with the music minister at GCBC, and he was glad to hear what we were doing, and a young lady working there was so touched by what we were doing that she came out with a bag full of cold bottled water for us.  When I asked how we could pray for them, she told us that her entire family is working in Minnesota at a vegetable processing plant until the season is over in October.  She was left alone here in SA until they returned because she didn’t want to leave her job at the cell phone store.  She was maybe 18-19yrs old.

Next door to the cell phone store was a Dollar General. 

An older man in tattered clothes was sitting out front.  As we grabbed our cleaning supplies and one of the cold bottles of water, a taxi pulled up to pick him up.  We grabbed a second bottle and flagged down the taxi.  We offered the driver (Mary) and passenger (Bob) bottles of water and asked if we could pray for them.  Both of them were very happy for the water and the prayers.  Please pray for Mary and Bob.

We went on into the Dollar General.  We asked the manager if we could clean his restrooms and he seemed kind of frustrated as though he really didn’t have time to mess with us, but showed us the way back to the restroom.  As soon as we started cleaning, a lady came rushing back asking if there was a restroom she could use.  We cleared out and wandered around the store until she came out. As soon as she exited, another lady went in.  That restroom was the dirtiest we’d seen so far, and needless to say, I was less than thrilled to go back in after it had just been used twice!  I won’t go further with any details, but my fears were confirmed and that was the quickest bathroom cleaning in the history of OFL service!  We did a good job though!!!  After cleaning, we needed some new rubber gloves and sunglasses for Carter.  The manager had watched us clean  after the two customers had used it and his heart softened a lot.  He even pulled out his wallet and offered to pay for our items out of his own pocket!  We told him that we would pay but that he could let us pray for him, to which he agreed.  The cashier lived in Grape Creek, so we hope that she will visit the church.  We’ve been giving out cards that tells people “God loves you so much.  Please accept this gift as an expression of love from Him and the people of Grape Creek Baptist Church.”  Please pray for the manager Kevin, and the cashier whose name I cannot remember.

Now we’re at a Starbucks mooching their free wireless right now, and we’re both pretty wiped out.  I think we’re about to head back to Brad and Karen's home, eat dinner, and hit the hay.
Carter and I decided to sing Monk and Neagle’s song “Twenty-first Time” tomorrow when we share at Grape Creek Baptist Church.  Carter sat in the back of the van playing his guitar while we practiced singing.  I think we sound pretty good (or at least his guitar does!).


From Libby:
After painting my living room, cleaning orange nail polish off the tile floor and door frame that Dillon spilled and then cleaning up a bowl of watermelon that Dillon spilled 10minutes after the nail polish fiasco, I'm so glad my buddy Susie came over to hang out!  Abby prayed for "mommy to have grace and patience to take care of Hudson and Dillon."!!!  HA, if that doesn't tell you what those 2 little boys are like when together all day, then I don't know what will ;)

OFL road trip begins

Mike and Carter left early this morning for their first Outward Focused Life roadtrip (we call it the OFL road trip, pronounced awful). They don't have internet tonight so I'm trying to remember what I heard on the phone. The minivan was loaded with bags of non-perishable food, bars of soap, some coloring books, the lawnmower and various yard tools, water bottles and a few change of clothes. 

They began their adventure of service in the city at a homeless ministry called Beautiful Feet.  They rode in a bus to the usual corner of our city where the homeless gather.  They helped pass out muffins and invited people to get on the bus and go to Beautiful Feet for lunch and the gospel presentation.  One man touched them in particular.  His name is Vincent.  On Mother's Day, Vincent was jumped by a gang, beaten, and left to die.  He awoke in the hospital with a concussion and a broken hip that had to have surgery to fix.  After being released from the hospital, he was staying at the Salvation Army's shelter where someone stole his walker.  Now he is stuck sitting in a wheelchair.  Another man they met had moved to the city from Oklahoma because he had heard there was construction work here.  He's still not found a job and has nowhere to live.  There was a young woman on the street with a double stroller--with toddlers--homeless!!!  Kinda kills ya doesn't it?  After being in the city a few  hours, they headed west to a town where Mike has long time contacts in ministry.  Mike said Carter wanted to know about the whys and hows of homelessness and  poverty.  They had a good hour of conversation and then Carter fell asleep :)

In the smaller town, that I'll call "B", they drove around to find where they could help.  Mike said "apparently it is harder to find places to serve than we thought."  It felt rather awkward driving up to a run down house and saying something along the lines of "Um, excuse me, you look poor, your yard is a mess, do you need groceries or your yard mowed?"!!  They ended up cleaning the restrooms at a 7-11 convenience store (this was one of the ideas taken from the book that sparked this trip The Outward Focused Life).  The manager on duty was dumbfounded that they'd want to clean their restrooms.  After leaving the toilets sparkling, they gave her a card about how much God loves her and then asked her if she needed prayer.  Mike and Carter chatted and prayed for Judy and her co-worker Betty while they were on their smoke break (Betty and Judy-not Mike and Carter). Next they went to some run-down low income apartments where they handed out some pre-packed bags of groceries to a sweet little old lady named Anna Maria.  Mike said she was from Peurto Rico, and he thinks he spoke Spanish well enough to get the message across!  They also mowed a yard for a lady sitting on a porch in a wheelchair.  Mike said she seemed happy about it, but it was hard to tell due to her communication limitations.

They ended the day by going to the church where his friend is on staff (by the way, to our C-wood friends, this guy just got back from Kunming working with Craig S.  Isn't it crazy how our lives intersect and we don't even know it??) and helping stuff some bags that the church is handing out tomorrow.  As of this morning, they didn't have a place to stay tonight.  We prayed for God to provide somewhere for them to sleep.  Boy did He ever!!!  The friend I mentioned above had another friend who has an apartment over a barn that is on the lake.  So, they aren't exactly roughing it tonight. 

A really really amazing thing happened.  Mike met a guy who is on staff at the aforementioned church this evening.  They got to talking and this guy and his wife are an international adoptive family and are waiting on a new referral of an older sibling set in China!!  AND(this part totally blows me away!), his family is so burdened for the thousands of girls trapped in the sex slave industry that they just sold their family business and are building a shelter on the Chinese border for girls rescued out of the sex slave trade.  Is that not just amazing?????  Just 8months ago Mike and I knew nothing about this rampant and demonic business.  Now, it is everywhere we turn.  Almost everyday we hear of someone else serving to reach these woman trapped in evil.  Hmmm, okay God, Mike and I laid our life plans at your feet long ago, we are game for anything, but we were thinking more along the lines of adopting, not working to rescue people from the sex slave trade!

Well, that about wraps up day one.

Lucy Lane Gotcha Day - 1 Year Later

FIRST:  scroll down to the far right and pause my Music Player so you can hear the video's music.  This video is shared with the owner's persmission.  Trust me, you'll be inspired, you'll probably cry, you'll grin a lot and just love it!  As a person who is super passionate for orphans, this speaks straight to my heart.  Who knows, maybe someone out there will be called to adopt after watching this?  You  never know how God will speak to you ;) 

speech-still praying

Guys, I'm asking for some more serious praying for a miracle for Dillon.  Bless his precious little heart, he can't speak clearly.  He has a fairly severe articulation disorder.  We've had him in speech therapy since he was 11months old.  He is 7.5yrs old now.  We are barrelling towards 8yrs old and I'm getting panicky.  When a person can't speak clearly, it doesn't matter what their brain is capable of doing, people immediately peg that person as "retarded."  I despise that word, but alas, that is what people use(I know, I hear it in the workplace all the time-- used often as a joke--not funny!).  The school systems have never given him speech during the summer so we hire our dear private therapist.  She works wonders with him and he responds well to her.  It isn't in the budget, but a sacrifice that is certainly worth it.   Here's the deal, we want and expect a miracle.  Please join us in praying for Dillon.  A few weeks ago he was wanting to tell us a story about something that happened at school.  He struggled to tell us and after asking him to repeat it 3 times, his lower lip began to quiver and his eyes pooled with tears.  It is so cruel!  I used to pretend like I understood everything and would nod my head and say things like "uh huh, and really?".  I've decided to be hard.  We can't let him slip into laziness.  People in the world will not pretend to understand him.  We have to make him try harder. 
Speaking of prayer, Mike and I are learning a lot of things that we were never taught in the church.  We love listening to Francis Chan(author of Crazy Love) podcasts.  Man, that dude is radical for the truth of the gospel and is  not afraid to  say exactly what the Scriptures say--not watered down or politically correct.   We can't expect healing and such with unconfessed sin in our lives.  Please, do NOT hear me say that Dillon's speech disorder is punishment for sin, no way am I arrogant enough to claim those kind of judgements!!!!   Yes, God is a god of love and He is a good god, but God is a holy and pure God, not a vending machine that we put in our requests and get what we want. 
James 5:16

16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
So, I'm going to examine my life and confess sin that I've been harboring and then I'm going to ask my Heavenly Father for healing for Dillon.  Will you join me?