Trip

P 3014 On our trip.

/ DVH

Today, I just want to tell you one story – it’s about a single family. While we were on the road, we heard story after story of dreadful hardship, and it was overwhelming each time. BTW, all the government agencies are totally swamped, the need is so great. By the time we got to our last stop, we were so tired. We went to that destination to drop blankets and food into a men’s shelter. 

As we drove into our accommodation, on the right hand side of our cabin, there was a family. They were packing up to leave. They did not have a car, or even suitcases – everything they owned was in a series of medium sized plastic containers, and they were moving and stacking them away from the unit door. These containers each had labels on them with a person’s name on it. The Lord spoke to my heart and said: “These people are homeless – they have nothing, and nowhere to go.”

It transpired that the managers of the place had given them 4 nights to stay there for free — it had been so bitterly cold they took pity on them. But now this nice couple were caught because they didn’t own the facility, they managed the property for someone else and their employer would not have been happy that they let them stay for free.The family was quite literally moving on and they had nowhere to go. We started to pray. We didn’t even unpack, hubby went to talk to the father. 

Every single thing they owned was in those plastic containers.They also had a tent, and had been previously camping by the river, but it became too cold for them to continue to do that, because the two youngest kids were fairly small. The little girl was about 4 or 5, and still in nappies. the other child about 6 years old. He had a fishing pole and he was practicing casting about, presumably hoping to catch fish. The Lord said: “He is trying to help.” 

Hubby quickly ascertained that they had called some relatives for aid, but they were uncertain anyone would come because their extended families were as financially strapped as they were. Then he told the father that we were giving away blankets and food and asked if they needed anything? The father nodded and told hubby he would take 2 blankets and we also gave them all the food we had for the men’s shelter. Hubby queried the man gently about only taking 2 blankets, and only then he said 4 would be better. 

My dear husband emptied his wallet to provide them with some money, because they had no funds at all. He prayed for them, and hugged the wife, who was weeping and weeping. The little girl was attracted to him, she kept wanting to shake his hand. We’d bought a cute stuffed toy, as a gift for someone, and the Lord indicated it was to be given to her. She was so excited about it, and carried it around.. I’m pretty sure there weren’t many stuffed toys in their boxed belongings! 

We asked them what else they needed etc. and then we went off to the shops to get things like milk and nappies. Plus we also managed to replace the food and blankets we were originally taking to the men’s shelter! Then the little family went and settled down outside to wait. Their husband informed mine that someone was coming along to collect them all … eventually.They had a teenage boy with them who had attached himself to the group. He had just lost his mum, and this sweet couple, who already had a lot of things to deal with, took him in. 

Before we left them, hubby gave the younger children little books. Their mother started reading to them about Jesus right away. The Lord was quite clear with us, He told us what we could do, and what we could not. So we just did what He said, and prayed – lots. Because we were just passing through, we could not solve their entire problem.

The money hubby gave to this family was not spare. We couldn’t afford to buy all that extra stuff either — but almost immediately, somebody put funds in our account and God provided for us – and them! Plus we were also able to witness to the manager and his wife and commend them for their generosity. The family was gone the next day.

Nobody sets out to be homeless, without a job or money, but life happens to all of us. “But You, O God, do see trouble and grief; You consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to You; You are the Helper of the fatherless.” Psalm 10:14. “Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:2. Bye. 👋

P 3011 He is a Merciful Father.

/ DVH

“Lord, You’re so kind and tenderhearted and so patient with people who fail You! Your love is like a flooding river overflowing its banks with kindness. You don’t look at us only to find our faults, just so that You can hold a grudge against us.” Psalms 103:8-9 TPT. This Psalm was written 1100 years before Jesus was born. Imagine that! Just spend a minute drinking in the knowledge of Grace that exists in David’s words. He had such a clear, wonderful picture of Who God is. Almighty God was this man’s singular focus. Not sin. Not what he did, or what I did, or even what some Philistine did! His focus was on God Himself. David knew God and His mercy so clearly.

It would be an utter tragedy if we became so obsessed with our failures, that we cannot see, or imagine the Niagara Falls of our Father’s Grace falling, falling, falling into our lives, day after day after day. Let’s always remember to thank Him for it! He’s such a good good merciful Father! We must continually chase after Him, longing to know more about His goodness and mercy toward us, until it fills our thoughts and eyes. If we look at our failures, we will end up obsessing over them and letting those things rule us. That is that kind of stuff that makes people hide from God.

What we need is balance. The ability to see His mercy-in-action in our own lives and yet not presume on it.  To do that we rely upon what the bible says and the Holy Spirit’s help and guidance. His singularity and purity of mind and heart is like our compass, pointing us to true north. So we press on hoping to be more like David, he treasured our God with so much passion. Let’s leave our sinful attitudes and actions at the foot of the cross and praise God He didn’t given up on us!

The letters in the Epistles were written so we can understand the comprehensive everydayness of God’s divine intervention into our lives. Like the people who followed Him then, we lay aside the weights that try to attach themselves, and keep thanking Him for His goodness. Always remembering we are never ever going to deserve anything He has done for us. The pressure to perform is a weight. These saints knew, firsthand, that they could not have done what was done without our Father’s Divine Love, plus His incredible intervention. They marvelled at what they were allowed to see and take part in – their joy, suffering, miracles and troubles. 

That’s the starting point for each one of us, giving thanks that He loves us. We cannot move past that. Then we will begin to understand our role in His plan and receive power from Him to do the works He has prepared for us to do before we ever arrived into this world. I like to cultivate, fertilise and weed the seed beds of my life with His totally engaged oversight. When God puts His finger on something, then it is important and it needs to become a priority … not a postponement. He does this with loving mercy, not accusation.

I often think about all those other people-today-who-don’t-know-Him-yet. The people who worship so-called gods that have no power to help their followers to change the very things that have driven them to find someone, or something, greater than themselves in the first place! And, how I love the Lord Jesus so much for coming here and illustrating what LOVE looks like in a Person. 

Mercy is a greatly underrated virtue, today. Many people think it means we go soft on someone who has terrible attitudes and actions. Actually, mercy means we don’t kill them for what they’ve done, we forgive them instead. But mercy is not about standing against a wall for someone else’s target practice – that’s giving that person the opportunity to abuse Grace. It is not just bad for you – it is bad for them! Grace was expensive. We need the Holy Spirit’s guidance to help us live in it and administer it. Jesus persevered with those who persecuted Him, but He did not excuse their behaviour. Mercy is no-one’s free ticket to punish someone else.

Our God is full of mercy:  “… that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favour with God].”2 Corinthians 5:19. If you want to know more about what His mercy looks like in action – read the book. Bye for today, 👋.

ps For those who have asked about our trip: on this trip we gave away— nearly a hundred blankets. Plus donated tinned food, toothpaste, deodorants, baby clothes, baby bottles, nappies, toys, handmade bags, children’s books, bookmarks, pens, paintings, thank you cards, blocks of chocolate for the maids, prophetic words, plus nearly 300 bibles. That’s approx. 678 things in 8 days. We could have given away so much more, but our car was stuffed full, and we tied more to the roof! We had countless conversations talking about what we believe – many of the people we spoke to, wept. 

There are governmental agencies doing their best, but the funds are incredibly low for the sheer volume of misplaced, abused and over-looked people out here in the country. We met a worker in Nanango who had been a police officer for years. She had to give it up because of post-traumatic stress disorder. She looked at us with eyes filled with tears and said:“I couldn’t take the dead and abused children anymore. It nearly finished me. I couldn’t even talk to my husband about it for a year.”  Please pray for her, now she helps the homeless – you cannot stop a mercy gift and she has one!

The church needs the kind of mercy that stops seeing broken people as just someone we are meant to harvest for God’s kingdom and purposes, and simply see suffering human beings instead. 🙏

P 2859 The ‘back’ story.

/ DVH

Hubby and I have been delivering bibles, and personal words from the Lord, to strangers-who-don’t-know-Him-yet for 20 years, and we’ve travelled nearly a quarter of a million kilometres. We’ve given away thousands of bibles, and a whole lot of personal stuff, together with our own testimonies  about the Love of God for all His kids. We learnt – often in the trenches –  that God is so faithful and He can and will use anyone!

I am sharing this info today so other people know how to start, so they can go and do whatever it is that God has called them to do! It is unfortunately a bit too easy to serve quietly in our churches, but never reach out into our communities. Yet Jesus Himself told us all to “Go!”  Even after the Holy Spirit came on everyone in the upper room, the first thing that happened was Peter preached a brilliant sermon about how and why to get saved!

So hubby and I started praying about doing something/anything for His kingdom. But at the time, it seemed impossible, because hubby had been badly injured at work, he had a ruptured disc at L4-5, plus he was in excruciating pain. Eventually he had surgery and they discovered that one vertebra was rubbing on the other – the vertebral disc itself had collapsed. In the middle of that awful time, we were asked by a dear friend, if we would like to come away with him for a little rest/holiday. Our friend wanted to take us to Uluru and we said: “Yes please!” Hubby couldn’t even sit down on the plane, so he walked the whole way to there, up and down the aisles  for nearly four hours. They had to get a special lift to get him down off the plane, because he could not walk down the stairs.

My point being that neither of us were fit and healthy and up to doing much of anything! The Lord called us to do what we are doing now, just before we were due to come home from that holiday. We’d accidentally locked the keys to our little rental car inside it, and we were at a look-out in the middle of nowhere! Suddenly four big burly men, who looked like rugby players, helped us get the keys out. As we drove away, the Holy Spirit said this to my husband: ”These are your people, I want you to go and tell them I love them.” 

Our pastor was incredibly supportive, and we trust him implicitly. So we submitted what we had heard and asked him for his input. We still do that every single time we go away, because we both believe in the importance of  submission. I don’t think we would have gone anywhere without his personal prayer for us and his oversight. After all of us praying, the pastor came back to us and … … he asked us to wait six months before we went out!  Of course we didn’t want to wait – we were all jazzed up with enthusiasm!! But during that time we learnt that there is wisdom when you wait, because you can’t actually keep running on enthusiasm, it runs out! 

The Pastor and the Body of Christ have supported us in a thousand ways ever since. People we didn’t even know believed in what God was doing, prayed for our safety, and sent us money. We have never had to ask for monetary help, by His Grace, it simply comes. God constantly surprises us.  Along the way, we’ve made many, many mistakes, but I want to say here and now, that He looks after His kids, even the dumb ones, and He has transformed our inadequacies into His opportunities, over and over again. Father God has used our mistakes to give us even more opportunities to talk to people about Him! 

We are seed sowers. Can I just say? … Any fool can sow a seed! We are not evangelists. Many times people have prophesied over us about thousands coming to know Jesus – well who knows? Only God!  We’ve seen two, so far … but we refuse to let numbers be our guide. Our job is to love on people, help those we can, and testify to the power of His Grace in our lives. Through all these travels we’ve been put into positions where faith was the only way out … our faith has grown because of that. If you want to experience God’s love in your life – give it away! If you want Him to touch you – do what He says.

At this moment we are planning yet another trip, and the Lord has already changed our original plan – living by faith means you see His hand in everything that happens. We often tell each other, even if there is only one who wants to listen, let’s keep going out to find that one person that He loves. Numbers are just scribbles on a page – watching Him touch other people’s lives is our goal. Jesus told a number of stories about the importance of the ONE!

Lastly I will leave you with these thoughts — our God can use anything. He can take a whale and make it transport;  a burning bush and make it a place to meet;  300 men to defeat without number; 11 people from all walks of life and make happy-to-die-for-Him disciples out of them;  not to mention a kid’s lunch to feed multitudes! And that stuff has not stopped just because time has passed. We are proof that He will use ordinary people, whether battered and bruised or not, to reach out to others who need to learn about Him and His everlasting love. Our “back story” has changed both of our lives.  🙌

God loves His Son and He adores it when we glorify Jesus.“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:10,11.

P 2227 Off we go…..again!!

/ DVH

Well, our travelling gypsy show is off again on our next trip – we are hoping to make 3 trips this year by God’s grace. We will be giving out blankets, bibles, bookmarks, groceries, grocery cards …telling stories ...all that PLUS giving away His enormous LOVE for the people-who-don’t-know-Him yet. Every time we go, I like to read about the sower in the parable that Jesus told, especially when I think of us trundling about from town to town in our car. 

Luke 8:4-10a MSG “As they went from town to town, a lot of people joined in and traveled along. He addressed them, using this story: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. Some of it fell on the road; it was tramped down and the birds ate it. Other seed fell in the gravel; it sprouted, but withered because it didn’t have good roots. Other seed fell in the weeds; the weeds grew with it and strangled it. Other seed fell in rich earth and produced a bumper crop.“Are you listening to this? Really listening?” His disciples asked, “Why did you tell this story?” He said, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom—you know how it works. There are others who need stories. But even with stories some of them aren’t going to get it: …”

That’s us, BTW, God’s people are to be seed sowers – Father God invested in us, and now He wants us to invest His seed in others. The Lord told us years ago: “You can’t have a harvest if you don’t sow seeds!” So, we chuck out seed in every direction just like that farmer. What if they don’t keep what we give them? That bit is not our problem – our bit is to sow seeds. Meanwhile it’s great fun to be a seed sower, you should try it, you meet a lot of lovely people – and you get a bigger view of this world.  We also pray for the churches we pass as we drive along. Plus we pray those people the Lord will send along behind us, one day soon, to harvest the crop we’ve sowed everywhere we’ve been. We want a bumper harvest for Jesus! 

Hubby and I have given away a whole lot of stuff in faith, over the past 17 years. We’ve driven more than 200,000 kms – not including the plane flights! This time we’ve had to leave a bit early because the journey on the first day was too long for some people – namely me!  So, we found somewhere to break the journey and now we get to meet some more people we’ve never ever met before. 

The sad thing we have found out over the years is that many Christians don’t sow any seeds. However this next bit of that parable has a great point: V13,14: “The seeds in the gravel are those who hear with enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm doesn’t go very deep. It’s only another fad, and the moment there’s trouble it’s gone. “And the seed that fell in the weeds—well, these are the ones who hear, but then the seed is crowded out and nothing comes of it as they go about their lives worrying about tomorrow, making money, and having fun.”(Yeah I know, bring THAT up! – God sows seeds into our lives too!)

HOW we HEAR and respond to WHAT GOD SAYS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT – as you can see for yourself. This life is very crowd-y and so many things take over our time. Suddenly we are busy about the things that make this life work for us and we forget we are not here for us anymore – our time is HIS TIME. Tick tock! ⏰ Despite the fact that from day to day, time often appears to pass slowly – that’s an illusion. Just ask any parents whose grown up child is finally leaving home – talk about an express train! Suddenly it seems like ten minutes ago you were wiping noses and now you are getting the church ready for a wedding or someone is calling you Grandma or Grandpa! 

I write about what happens to us on our journeys to encourage  …our faith, your faith, anybody’s faith! Please sow seeds. The more New Testaments you buy the cheaper they are. And the people in this world love free stuff. You know: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” (Benjamin Franklin) Jesus is counting on our obedience. 😳Ya might want to think on that one. Catch you in the next town … 👋🏻