2015 Family Ministry Trip

I realize its been a few years since my last entry. I guess I could sum up our time in Tucson with three statements. 1. Jean's dream job. It is very evident that a big reason we are here is for the impact that she has in the school district where she works. I believe what we have seen far is just the beginning. We will get back to that in another post. 2. Indirect Ministry. This is how I describe our main ministry objective. Which is simply to be us, stand out for being different, and live our lives in a way that directs people to God. This often leads to direct ministry through personal conversations, and those are pretty cool. 3. To model to others what a life of faith looks like. We are about to venture out on a ministry trip where we know where we are going and when we are going. But beyond that we are simply waiting for God to show us what to do. Let me give you a little back story and then get to the awesomeness of God part. Hopefully by the end of this post, you will be like us, eagerly waiting to see what God is going to do next. And hopefully, your faith will be strengthened as well.

A couple months back I had a series of visions where I pictured myself praying for people on a beach and them experiencing supernatural healing.  I have learned that these visions are usually a direct result of somebody, somewhere praying for something, and God preparing my family to be an answer to that prayer. We decided to plan a ministry trip and trust God to fill in the blanks. What we thought would be summer break trip shifted, when I next began to get a burden for hurting college students. After seeking The Lord, Jean and I decided we would pick a week of spring break and dedicate it to following God's leading and leave the details up to Him. We started to plan for a trip to some college spring break destination the week of March 14-21, but had no idea where we were going. A couple weeks ago, The Lord woke me up in the night to give us our destination. We would spend a couple days in Las Vegas, then finish out the week at Lake Havasu. 

As far as what we will do, the only direction we were given was to be there, be a presence, wait for divine appointments, and be ready. This doesn't seem like much, but I read through the book of Acts and see story after story of ministry happening just by going to a place and following the leading of the Holy Spirit. It stirs in us an excitement, which is fueled by all the experiences we have from times in the past where God used our family to touch others. If is humbling when we realize that God has a plan and invites us to participate with Him in His plan.

The Holy Spirit told me that distractions were going to come up. He said circumstances were going to make it seem impossible to go, but we were to go anyways. Little did I know that I would get laid off just 3 weeks before our trip, and it would seem impossible to go. I didn't want to start a new job with a week long trip happening soon. So I waited to see what would happen. It seemed as though the only logical choice was to postpone the trip and seek full time employment in order to avoid falling farther behind financially. This Orion didn't feel right. I believed fully that to go this route would leave me feeling regret. So we prayed, we sought council and we waited for The Lord. He woke me up one morning and asked me how much I would need for the ministry trip. I told Him I would need to cover the cost of the week's wages, which I have been doing handy man work to fulfill. Also I figured we would need at least $600.00 to fund the trip.

Friday morning I woke up feeling hopeless. It seemed like canceling the trip was the only option at that point. I had no work set up for the following week and the bills were falling further behind. That day I landed 2 bigger jobs that would make enough money to cover the week of work I would miss. Later that day we were approached by a young woman at church who told us she had been faithfully stashing money aside for some time. She kept waiting for God to give her direction on what to do with it. She woke up from a nap that day and heard The Lord tell her Lake Havasu. She saw my post on Facebook from that morning and knew what she had to do. This morning at church she handed me an envelope, and it contained $530.00 in it. A while later Jean was handed another envelope with $100.00 in it. I sat speechless. 2 days ago It seemed as though we would have to cancel, now we sat here with the amount of money I had asked The Lord for. God is faithful. He is our provider, and He takes care of us in ways beyond what we can imagine. So we are less than a week away from hitting the road for an adventure with The Lord. We will be sure to update you on how it is going, and what The Lord reveals to us throughout. We appreciate your prayers and welcome them. God bless!  Brad