The Word on the Street - 9.7.2022
Earl and Terry were sick with Covid this week, so pray for their swift recovery and recuperation!
Mr. Ford got the job, Praise God! He looked better and when I told him I was concerned for his health, he said the doctor looked him over and said he was in good health. I gave him a gift card to buy some food, anyway. Pray the new job goes well for him. Work gives a person dignity, a sense of worth, and gratitude to our Provider who has allowed us to participate in our own provision.
Marcos showed us a picture of himself with his daughters on his cell phone. He had used the new car to visit them. They looked so happy to be with their dad! He spoke too fiercely of how he would protect them and I can honestly warn any teenage boy not to cross Marcos! But I told him he had to entrust his girls to God. You can’t be there as a father every minute. But our heavenly Father is always with them.
Rachel came back from her missionary trip to South Carolina with her middle school youth group at LWCC. We were all so proud of her! Her father, Tom is thankful for the work of grace God has done in her life (she practically glows with it!). And he asks that we pray for her in hearing and following Jesus.
It is a good prayer for everyone. There are so many distractions, so many temptations that lead away from the Way, the Truth, the Life. When we enjoy success, we are so inclined to take the credit for it. And when we are defeated, disappointed, we are tempted to blame someone else.
I love the Tauren Wells song, Hills and Valleys:
On the mountains, I will bow my life
To the One who set me there
In the valley, I will lift my eyes to the One who sees me there
When I'm standing on the mountain, I didn't get there on my own
When I'm walking through the valley I know I am not alone
You're God of the hills and valleys.
Jamie hears the folks on the street often talking of the wrongs done to them; by others on the street, their children, others in the church, by society. She thought of her “verse of the day” on the way home from street ministry on Saturday:
See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people.
1 Thessalonians 5:15 NLT
Jamie is sort of an Eskimo, even on Labor Day weekend all bundled up, but she is so grateful for her warm home each day, especially early Saturday before she heads off to street ministry with her LWCC friends!
Today it was not cold out at 63 degrees . But Jamie was forced to imagine a life with no heat, no bed, no comforter, not even a tent around her at nigh, when two different homeless men told her they woke up shaking from shivering all night and their teeth were chattering. The one man was very thin from being malnutritioned, but he was sweet and friendly to Kim, Wayne and Jamie. They gave him a flashlight, and helped lift his spirits with a funny joke. Wayne and Kim pulled a tent, tarp, sleeping bag and sterno (heating liquid ) out of their car in a split second to keep this man from shivering at night when he sleeps. They did good to another person, as they always try to do, just as it was written in 1 Thessalonians.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being the Living Word. You are not a dead god, one of the many distractions, the many temptations, people so often follow in their futility, instead of following You, wandering from the Way. You are a living God, the God we all so desperately need! Please keep us on the path!
Cinderella and George, with whom she says she has been for the last 29 years, were not downtown Saturday, but she came to church on Sunday with a friend of hers who also is looking for a church home and has found one with us, Lord willing, and will also bring Cinderella, who has no car.
George is in the Harrisburg hospital. At last report, he was still in cardiac ICU, unable to have even visitors with pastoral privileges. Cinderella said they described his condition as “unresponsive”. Please pray for George. I have shared God’s message of salvation with him since I first met them in June and he was not “unresponsive” then. He started coming to our church, bringing Cinderella with him!
If God is leading him into eternity, we may have hope of his heavenly reception, praise the loving Father who through the sacrifice of his only Son has torn the curtain in the temple that symbolized the separation between man and God since the Fall. The Way is open, dear brother George!
The poet John Donne said as he was about to come into God’s presence and become his music, he tuned his instrument at the door and practiced then before the music he would soon play. May we all find His music in our hearts!
Wayne brought his public address system, allowing us to share some great gospel music with our friends on the street. Kevin said to Wayne, “Hey, take that speaker off my car!” It is the running joke that he owns Wayne’s car.
And please pray for CJ who goes by the name Casey, out on the street, a young woman with many tattoos. She got some clothes and we are getting her new shoes. Frank asked for hiking boots and a man I didn’t recognize came up to him and gave him a pair. Even Amazon doesn’t deliver that fast! But the Lord has delivered us, Frank. May God bless your feet as you deliver that good news!
And that is the Word on the Street!
~Jeff Mason
For more information, or to learn how to join us in reaching people for Jesus, please email Living Water’s Director of Outreach, Mike Bongo, at mikeb@livingwatercc.com and he will get you plugged in! You will be blessed as you become a blessing to others!