September 28, 2011- Fort Worth Harvest Church

After speaking with Pastor Barney Ramirez we got the 'OK' to start and use their church building for our second area. They are located near Riverside Drive and they will open up their gym and back hallway area to allow us to serve the community. They will be having a short service after which allows them to reach them. Here are the pictures to the church.

Our first area is Southside Church of Christ. The weblog contain pictures of the area. Just click on the text above.

We have also allocated an area with MHMR (Department of Mental Health and Health Retardation). I will post the address soon, but this third area is a house of 12 people. It will be a basic Thanksgiving dinner, with song, and prayer. It will be much smaller.

Look for more updates!

September 25, 2011: Meeting Kenneth and Other Updates!

First, with the updates, then with the testimony:

Updates and PRAY:
1. We got the second church at Fort Worth Harvest to do our Thanksgiving meal. Our first one is Southside Church of Christ.

2. We have a huge praise to do Bible Study at a MHMR halfway house from 2-4p every Saturday. This will be fun, since all of them have not heard the gospel, or been taught out of God's Word.

3. We allocated the two churches providing their choir for the COPs Banquet on December 1. This is awesome, that we get to work alongside with DFW!


Testimony:
I was going to wash my car, listening to football on ESPN, and my heart was spurred to be a mouthpiece for God. this was the way I was thinking, but i did not want to be bold. I was being a Moses, knowing the... call, but denying to be a voice to share or pray with someone. So, I stopped by this car wash place and it was closed. then i went to a second one, and I had to pay more, but I had no choice.

I ran into Kenneth, 6'4" 220+ burly strong dude, so I was trying to act all Bruce lee like so I looked tough, but that obviously did not work. He needed help bc his grand daughter had food poisoning. immediately I knew to pray for her health, called 911, console the grandparents.

Then i found out, he's a lower income family, barely surviving, a day laborer washing cars and begging for food. I let him wash my car, gave him some money, he gave me his address, and wanted me to take his family to church and to pray.

Needless to say, this was God's handiwork. In my own flesh I would've rather chosen to do nothing. Shame on me.

September 24, 2011- New Areas, Spontaneous Fun!

I went out early at 9a to scour the area to see if I can gather more homeless families together so they could be there prior to arrival.

Our areas and focus have changed. We had only had 4 families this week in our outreach. We were joined by the Lycans, TJ, Tina, and Sarah. It was great to meet up at the supermarket just off the seminary and start feeding a small group. At first we saw one person, Indio. We ministered to him, served, and loved on him and all of a sudden a family, Maria and her six kids came out. Let's see if I remember their names: Jason, Lexy, Haley, Mia, Maya, and Aaron. It was wonderful to pray for them, but it was even greater to serve them and make them feel loved and significant!

Our second move took us to the Hair Salon (Sam's Salon) just across the street from the Fort Worth Car Wash. We prayed with Susan as well as Claudia. Many of these homeless folk are in distress. I sometimes wonder if they remember us more than we remember them. It's interesting to note, that the men there, also want the prayer and the desire to know Christ. I share with one of the guys and he told me that "Dios loves mi". In his limited english, he had time to share some of that love to us! I'm sure many of us can attest, that we learn more from them, than they from us.

The third area took us to the abandon white house just past Seminary drive on Hemphill street. There at the white house we met Shannon and her lover (for lack of a better term). She's under medication and unfortunately it's hard to tell whether she's being taken advantage of or not. She's totally dependent on this guy taking her around. She has completely incoherent and constantly looking for affection from this guy. She constantly told us how afraid she is of dying. We prayed for her anyway.

The fourth took us all the way back north near Southside COC and served a larger community there. There was up to 20-30 people we served. I met Elgin again, who wanted to be back in Oklahoma and several other guys struggling with finding jobs. Rodney, I believe, still had no eye surgery, and was still blind. There were the usuals there, except we looked for Venita and the two boys along with Liz, neither were there.



We found Steve, Venita's husband in the house, but the kids were not present. His story was that they she left with a crack addict and took the kids with them. He obviously acted like the angel. Liz, was down the street at a massive yellow house, with four other homeless guys. Abbie went and took down her information in regards to her being beat by Jason and being pregnant. She signed some paper work regarding the pregnancy.

There were so many needs, but it was wonderful being able to share the gospel and love on so many. Praise God! Till next time...

September 9, 2011- Going Rogue for Jesus

As usual Joey and his crew arrive at our place promptly at 10am. My wife and kids arrived a bit later. We had the usual in food, drinks, and people, but there was something different about today.

There were so many wonderful stories this week as we went out to reach the homeless. Unfortunately, the first stop at the Texas Car Wash was banned. There were several signs posted that there are to be no tresspassers. The police has finally locked down on certain areas.

Across the street there was a small Mexican market. There were about 5 homeless usuals there. We parked our cars and sought to serve them there. Here we saw Claudia and Ricky and a couple new faces. We were also told that Scarlett is not deceased rather she's in another hospital. Despite all the new changes and stories that were fuzzy, we continue to share our food and the gospel with them. Here's a short clip of one of our interactions with them:


We then found out the whereabouts of Susan. She was just around the corner at Bolt street close to the seminary. We took off down Bolt Street to find a small supermarket and there were another 5-7 homeless guys there. Upon stopping, we served the food and drink, but we got a special treat of Jesse playing the guitar for us. He played three songs, and here are the videos:




I got an opportunity to speak with the gas station owner. His name was Ali. It was great to meet and talk with him. I'm praying for another opportunity to share the gospel with him. Our second stop took us to the Love Fellowship Church again. This time there was about 10 homeless guys. Unfortuantely, at each stop there were very few of them. My personal belief, hopefully this won't continually be an issue, is that the local police is trying to move them out because of their decision to rebuild this area. I pray I'm wrong.

We got to minister to several people here. I had the opportunity to meet a man who needed surgery this Tuesday. He was pretty drunk, but needed prayer for his eye. Another man stopped by. His name was Lance, and he was tatooed from head to toe and just released from federal prison. He was a burly guy, and I had the opportunity to share Jesus with him. He seemed pretty rough and tough and I prayed for his heart. I hope it was a genuine repentance. Regardless, the streets are tough places for these families, the women, and children we see.

Continue in prayer for us as we look to accomplish several things this fall. The COPs banquet is covered. NFWBC and Wedgewood are sending their choirs to help out the community. We also are in need of prayer in finding several more places to serve Thanksgiving.

Continue to ask God to give us opportunities to share the gospel and be a light unto the darkness!