First of all, Larry and I want to wish you a blessed Thanksgiving! We feel so blessed to have you as part of our On the Roadfamily. Many of you will be gathering with friends and family, making a special time of connection and building or rebuilding relationships.
{ November 21, 2012 }.jpg "Making our way towards home!")
First of all, Larry and I want to wish you a blessed Thanksgiving! We feel so blessed to have you as part of our On the Roadfamily. Many of you will be gathering with friends and family, making a special time of connection and building or rebuilding relationships.
On the Road News: Cumberland, MD
We ministered at Friendship Haven Church, an inner-city church in Cumberland, Maryland on Sunday, November 11th. After the altar call a man in his mid-thirties walked up to me, clasped my hand with tears in his eyes said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your message and altar call. I needed this. I needed God. You saved my life today... and then he choked up and said, "No, I mean it. You really saved my life today. This was for me." It was God's appointed time for him. Larry and I couldn't save him, but he didn't know how to explain it. But God was there and met his need.
We were blessed to be back with Pastor Floyd Bender and his wife Martha. Pastor Bender says, "Every time you come, lives are changed, touched and challenged."
"We enjoyed your service and it's so nice seeing you again! I enjoyed helping Larry with the equipment set up and tear down and also helping Larry wash the bus. He always has jokes and is funny." - Crionnie
We want to say thanks Crionnie for your help! A 45 foot long 13 foot high motorhome is a huge washing job, which Larry usually does alone - you were a blessing!
It was also fun to reconnect with our friends that we met in the late 1960s. They were Amish, hungry for something else, found God and have been active in their churches and in ministry since then. More of their testimony will be in our January newsletter.
"Larry and Gloria, your love for God and people are very evident. Your service was powerful and encouraging. God bless your ministry!" - Laura
"I enjoyed your service at our church immensely. Salvation was made so clear and easy for everyone to understand. Thank you for your encouraging service." - Arikina Ariky
We arrived home last night (Tuesday) from our 6 week east coast tour. Last Sunday we parked out motor home at a friend's place in Lake Wales, Florida which is near Orlando. On Monday we flew from Orlando to Minneapolis and came back to Sisseton last night. It was truly and exciting ministry tour!
I think the enemy knew it was a tour of transformation of lives and didn't like it and tried to put a monkey wrench in every time he could. He tried to discourage us...but it didn't work. We've had our motor home for almost 7 years and we've sailed along smoothly, but on this tour, Larry struggled everyday trying to keep things working and to keep us up and going. There was literally a major problem that we faced every day.
We had trouble with our slide-outs that didn't want to slide out...and if we got them out, they didn't want to slide back in...not good because you can't travel down interstate with your slides hanging out - ha! New parts and a thousand dollars later we were up and going. Next the motor home air valve went haywire so Larry rolled up the motor home on blocks, crawled underneath - much to my worry and intense prayer - and fixed it. I was so nervous that the coach would roll and crush him underneath because of the lack of air pressure. Needless to say, Larry is claustrophobic, so that didn't help any - ha! The third time it went out was last Thursday night, while we were traveling through South Carolina, going through road construction and hit a bump in the road that I thought was going to shake our teeth out - instead it took the air valve off again. Thank God that Larry has had 50 years of experience of fixing buses. We had electrical problems, heat pump went out, etc. and we're so blessed that friends along the way were so gracious to help to get it up on the road again and again for 6 weeks. We made the whole tour even in the midst of breakdowns! We've come back tired and this momma has some shattered nerves, but so thankful that God was so good. We have so much to be thankful for.
When we got to Maryland, we needed to have an urgent wheel alignment done. The garage mechanic drove the motor home over the pit and a few minutes later beckoned Larry to come and look underneath. He showed Larry the front tires and the 3-5 inch splits and cracks an 1/8 inch wide on each tire. Evidently they had rotted from the heat. Larry said when he saw them that his heart skipped a beat. The mechanic looked at Larry and said, "You are very, very lucky that your front tires didn't blow out. If they would've it could've caused a deadly accident and probably your life." If we hadn't been in for that wheel alignment, we would've never known until something bad happened. God is so good!
Now to add to that story: Last night, after we arrived home Larry and I unpacked the car and I dashed up to see my 97 year old mother at the assisted living. I hadn't been in the room very long, just a little while and she looks at me and factually says, "Missy...a couple of weeks ago, about 10:00 in the morning, God gave me such a burden to pray for you and Larry. I began to pray and I had such an urgency to pray for protection over your motor home. Then God began to prompt me to pray for your tires." A cold chill ran up and down my spine...as I hadn't shared any of the mechanical problems - which were many - with her at all. She knew nothing about it. The words gushed out of me, "Thank you, Mom, for praying!" Then I shared all that had happened. Then she calmly looked at me and said, "Oh, that's why God told me to pray." Thank God for praying mothers and others. That is my most recent "thanksgiving" testimony. And boy, are we full of thanks!
Larry and I will be home in Sisseton in our home office for most of December. We are doing a Christmas brunch at Fargo First Assembly on December 1st. If you could join us, we'd love to have you come! You can contact the church here: 701-232-0003. We are also looking forward to seeing many friends from that area.
Before we end this On the Road Update, I want to share this article from our newsletter several years ago that seemed to ring true for today in light of Thanksgiving:
I sense such a grip of worry, fear, and anxiety on God's people. Philippians 4:6 says, "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." In another version, "be careful" is interpreted as "don't worry" or "don't be fearful" for nothing.
Overwhelming fear and worry of the unknown can sap our emotional, spiritual and physical capabilities to believe for the "now" miracle. Doctors' offices, hospitals, mental facilities, counseling centers are filled with people overtaken by fear and worry. They are looking for any type of sedatives, drugs or tranquilizers to help numb them to the worries, pressures and crises of life that they don't know how to deal with.
Let me address this verse a bit further. "Be careful for nothing"...When you fear or worry, you sacrifice your faith - like gas and water, faith and worry don't mix. Notice the Scripture continues on, "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."
One great lesson I've learned is from my precious mother-in-law, Julie Brooks. Whenever someone in the Brooks or Lundstrom family is sick, in the hospital, facing major health issues, etc., she "calls on" the troops (a family of over 100) to link together in prayer. As she leads in prayer, she lets the requests be known to God believing God to intervene and then she always closes with these words "and...we EXPECT a great report!" Her prayers always end with an exclamation point not a question mark. Praise God, we have seen so many of our heartfelt prayers answered with a good report.
If during this Thanksgiving season, you are worried or overtaken by crisis, loss, disappointments, deteriorating health, financial stress...call out to God right now...address the need of Him and then verse 7 of Philippians 4 will kick in, "...and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." That's His promise!
This Thanksgiving...despite what trials you are going through, choose to thank Him and praise Him and see what happens next!
Have a blessed Thanksgiving! We'll chat again in a few weeks!
Gloria
.JPG "Cumberland, MD altar call")
.JPG "Paul & Linda, us and Connie Yoder")
.JPG "Laura & Arikina")