PRAY!

Today is the 21st...that means everyone please say a prayer for the Hernandez family. Today is their appointment with immigration and they are travelling back from mexico. Pray that the Lord will open the eyes and hearts of the INS officials involved. Also, pray that the family gets back safe. I'll post pictures when I have them.

"Call to me and I will answer you"

Before I share about my day today I want to share two quotes from my blog yesterday:

"The summer began with us losing one of our most involved kids to deportation. I didn't know that my heart would ever heal for that. It's still a tough subject."

""Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us" Ephesians 3:20"

Now on to my story.... you're going to need to sit down for this one. To understand this story fully you need to go back and read "Chandy...we got our miracle" that I wrote on March 9 of this year. To sum that blog up, last March the family I am closest to at Cross & Crown, the Hernandez', were torn apart by deportation and I had to say goodbye to them all, including 14 year old Osvaldo who was the heart and soul of our Rock Island ministry. The hardest thing I've had to do since coming into full-time ministry a little over a year ago. On May 6 I wrote a blog titled "Viva la Mexico". In that blog I wrote about the plan I had to go see the Hernandez family for Osvaldos 15th birthday that is coming up on September 13th. Now that you're up to speed I will go on with my story.

On Sunday night I had a dream about Osvaldo. I dreamed he was walking towards me in a white t-shirt with a huge grin on his face, he told me he was coming home. On Monday morning when I got to work I told Luke & Ron about my dream and told them that I just had to go to Mexico and follow through on my promise for Osvaldo's birthday. I was actually considering taking a bus down there by myself. So I pretty much prayed all day yesterday for the Lord's guidance in what I should do. I knew He was telling me something about Osvaldo and I couldn't figure it out.

Today was the second day of the school store and after a long day of handing out close to 200 backpacks the staff was exhausted. I was tired and weary and ready to head home. The doorbell rang and Paul went to get it. A few seconds later I look up and in walks Luis, Osvaldos 22 year old brother. Luis stayed here when his family got deported in order to keep a job and send money back to Mexico. Luis has only been to Cross & Crown a few times, he is kind of shy and has never really acknowledged us as someone who loves and cares about his family, so the fact that he was standing in the middle of the sanctuary shocked me. Immediately my heart sunk into my stomach and I thought something was the matter. I wasn't prepared for what he told me next.

He was heading to Mexico this evening to pick up his family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Their mother has been given an appointment to renew her papers at the immigration office in Texas. THEY ARE COMING HOME! All of them...including their mother Maria and newest baby brother (who I've never met) Ezekiel. Osvaldo had called and asked Luis to come down and tell us. He also asked Luis to make sure we saved a backpack for all of them. They are getting back in time to start school. My immediate reaction was to start crying, which I did for a while... and then I remembered my dream.. the Lord wasn't telling me to go to Mexico, He was telling me that they are coming home. Never has Ephesians 3:20 rang so true. He truly is doing immeasurably more than I have asked or imagined.

To end this... I ask everyone to pray for their family. Specifically on the 21st. That is when Maria has her appointment with immigration. Pray that the Lord intervenes and brings their family home safely as soon as possible. Tell everyone you know to be praying all day on the 21st. The Lord is so very faithful to those who believe. And He says,

"CALL TO ME AND I WILL ANSWER YOU" -Jeremiah 33:3

Summers end....just the beginning!

This morning on my way to work I was thinking back on this summer. This is the first summer of our full-time youth ministry and to say it was exhausting would be an understatement. But when I thought back about this summer I began to cry. The Lord has truly done some amazing stuff that I didn't even think possible. I can't imagine what amazing things He is going to do during the school year.

The summer began with us losing one of our most involved kids to deportation. I didn't know that my heart would ever heal for that. It's still a tough subject. But soon after the Lord started bringing kids from all over Oklahoma City who have now become a family. We had our share of hard times: the youth center was broken in to about 5 times, one of our kids got stabbed, a few of our kids spent and are spending some time in jail, there were a few gang encounters and as recently as this week, 3 of our youth kids are enduring the death of a parent. But then there is the good stuff: camp was life changing for so many of our kids. About 10 accepted Christ for the first time and had their first encounters with the Holy Spirit. We did slip and slide in the front yard of Rock Island, played basketball in the rain, watched tons of movies, had many pool tournaments, had watermelon eating contests, and ate lots of ice cream and pizza.

I remember a few weeks ago during a particularly tough time asking myself what in the world I am doing. I think I ask myself that at least once a week. I love what I'm doing, but sometimes I wonder if I'm equipped. The Lord then reminded me of a prayer I prayed months ago. I said, "Here am I, send me". That is a bold prayer and it still scares me, but I dare anyone to pray it. The Lord not only will overwhelm you with predicaments, but he will open the flood gates to His blessing. As we near the closing of our exciting summer and the kids head off to school I can't help to be excited about what's going to happen next and thankful I get to be a part of it.


"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us" Ephesians 3:20

AND HE HEALED THEM.

The very last picture is of a kid named Julius. I met him at Sister Teddy's school. It is a boarding school (if you can call it that) run by a former nun. She used to only take in deaf, blind and crippled. Now she also takes in former LRA members who have escaped. She has about 120 kids, half are LRA and half are handicapped. We spent 4 days at Sister Teddys... the very first day I was drawn to Julius. He didn't socialize with the other kids or smile. He just sat in the corner with a sad look on his face. Julius is 14 and when he was 12 he had to witness his dad (who was going mentally crazy from AIDS) chop up his little brother with a machette and then turn on him. Someone intervened before Julius was killed. The brain damage left him deaf, mute and paralized on his entire left side. I knew from the moment I met him that the Lord would heal him: body and spirit.

The last day a few people in our group decided to lay hands on Julius and pray for him. We spent more than an hour just calling out to the Lord. I was literally sweating I was in such a spiritual battle for this child. I could feel the battle surging and must admit I was about to give up when.... I felt something. My hand was on his back and I began to feel the vibration in his voice. That's when one of our team who was on the front side of him cried out that he was talking, a few moments later we communicated with him and discovered he was hearing.... we knew there was only one thing left to do. Keep battling and wait for the Lord to heal his paralysis. So we began calling out to the Lord again and a few minutes later his body started to shake.... he started straightening his hand on his left side. I've never seen anyone healed in front of my eyes... I've heard of it, but never seen it. I had no idea what to do. So I just sat and stared as he marveled in his new healing. This teenager had been mute, deaf, and paralized for 2 years and now the Lord had intervened. HALLELUJAH!

This picture was taken after his healing...look at that smile. As we left the school compound for good we looked up to see Julius standing at the gate waving bye... he had the biggest smile and just as he was shutting the gate we saw him jog over and kick a soccer ball with the other boys. OH PRAISE HIM...

"Then the news about Him spread throughout Syria. So they brought to Him all those who were afflicted, those suffering from various diseases and intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, and the paralytics. AND HE HEALED THEM"
-Matthew 4:24

Hola from Africa...except they don't say Hola!

Greetings from Kampala Uganda. We arrived here early this morning. It has now been 6 airplane meals and 3 days without a shower since I stepped foot on American soil. Kampala is in the capital and I just paid a dollar to use a computer in a little print shop for 30 minutes. We whitewater raft the Nile tomorrow and then it's off to the village of Kitgum for the rest of my 2 week stay.

One of the more funny things about my trip so far is my frequent slippage of the Spanish language. For some reason, when I'm around people that don't speak English I switch straight to Espanol mode and start spitting out "holas" and "como estas's". Nevermind that they might speak French, Portugese or Acholi. I have slipped so many times and feel like such a dork.

My 30 minutes is almost up. But I just wanted to let everyone know I'm here safe and please pray for my trip. Pray for everyone on our team and that God would open our eyes and ears to his purpose here. Blessings.

When you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. - Hebrews 4:7

Last night we took some of the Rock Island kids who are 15 and older to a pre-screening of a new movie called, "Miss HIV" It was very interesting. Much of the movie was about the AIDS epidemic in Uganda. This caught my attention, considering I fly out for Uganda in less than 24 hours. After the movie we took all the kids to dinner. It's always special when we can eat a meal together.

After we got back to Rock Island I ended up giving one of our youth girls a ride home. We'll call her "Ava". Ava came into our office on Wedesday night in tears over several issues. One was family issues at home, one was being picked on by other girls (it's a jealousy thing, Ava is very beautiful) and the last was that she is desperately seeking the Lord and all her friends are dragging her down. She is trying to find a way to get away from all the negative influences around her. After giving her some female advice, Ron and I laid hands on her and prayed for her. One of the things I prayed for her was that she would come to really KNOW God, not just about Him.

Okay, back to the ride home. So last night (Thursday) I'm taking her home and she asks if she tells me something weird, will I think she's crazy. I tell her of course not, everyone thinks I'm crazy anyways. So she goes on to tell me that the night before (Wednesday) she woke up in the middle of the night from a dream where God had told her to read Psalms 27:1. The interesting thing is that because of her lack of biblical background she didn't even know how to say Psalms, it was just spelled out in her dream so she spelled it for me and asked how to say it. She said she got out of bed, found her bible and read the scripture and then prayed. It's really hard to explain to kids about the voice of God but that was definitely it with "Ava". I just encouraged her not to ever feel weird and to listen when she thinks the Lord is speaking to her. I am excited about this knew breakthrough with "Ava" and I pray that she will have more intimate experiences with the Lord. I also pray for these experiences for all our kids. I don't want the bible to just be this book that has big words and confuses them, I want it to be ALIVE.


"The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?" Psalm 27:1

Empty Streets

Rock Island doesn't normally meet on Wednesday nights, but last night we had some of our friends we met at Youth for Christ camp over to hang out for pizza. We had a great time.

This is just a quick group picture we took last night of some of our kids. Some nights, when we have lots of kids, I get kind of overwhelmed. But just think... every kid in this picture voluntarily spent their night at a Christian youth center. NW 10th, 9th and 8th streets were empty because all the kids were in Rock Island. That's a good feeling.