Home Sweet Home

While standing on the corner with a gospel sign in Austin during morning rush hour I received a call from my missionary in Croatia, Johnny Leslie.  He had located a ground floor apartment in Cakovec Croatia for me at a good price and very near to the church! Hallelujah.
Since I will be arriving there on 3/27 - 12 days from today - it was very timely to locate a place for me.   They emailed pictures to my phone and we made the arrangements for a deposit to be made - all while holding a gospel sign - Amen!
As it turns out, this is a very small, BRAND NEW apartment building.
The Croatian people believe in using a lot of bright color to liven things up.  NO, this building is not pink, it is peach. (And I don't want to hear any more about that! :-)

Below you can see it has a great looking shower.

I'm not sure what this room is for, but they call it a k-i-t-c-h-e-n.

God is good!  He has provided a neat little place for me to live while I endeavor to serve Him on the mission field of Croatia. And He did it during rush hour on a street corner in Austin.  (That was an exhasting search for a place to live!)

On 3/27/10, this will be home sweet home.  Wow!

Capitol City Baptist Church! Hallelujah!

My recent visit to Captiol City Baptist Church in Austin was such a great blessing to my heart.  It is great cause for rejoicing.  We gave Austin a good dose of the street ministry and saw many positive responses, not only in the passers-by but also in the participants.  PRAISE GOD.
Here we are catching the early morning rush hour.  God put in my heart to be out in front of the rush hour traffic to give people some Scripture to think about on the way to work.
One lady stopped her car and ran up to me weeping, threw her arms around my neck and thanked me repeatedly for what I was doing.  While choking back her tears she said, "Thank you so much.  This world needs to be saved. Thank you. Thank you." Then she backed away and told me she had to get to work and she was gone.  Try to tell me God's Word isn't powerful!

Jared Williams and I caught the afternoon rush hour traffic at an enormous intersection on the other side of town.  Austin traffic is unbelievable!  Praise the Lord.  Every car is piloted by an eternal soul.

 

 

 

Traffic was non-stop for hours and hours!  With reflective gospel signs, that is no problem.  The light shineth in darkness!

 

 

Saturday afternoon was a big bonanza for the street ministry.  We had 16 people on the street with gospel signs.  It looked like (ministerially speaking) we had half the New Testament available on the corner.  Talk about a blessing for a "street man" like me! Wow!

 

This young lady is filled with SONshine.  What a blessing and encouragement she was.

This young man is a special kind of encouragement.  What we are doing here is not rocket science, but if it was, he would be right at home.

The young lady holding the sign that says, "What shall a man give...", is the pastor's wife.  AMEN!  That's a great encouragement to us all.  She was ecstatic with the opportunity to stand up for Jesus - as were we all.

The man on the very corner is a precious blessing and encouragement.  He is 75 years young!

The traffic was incredible.  Praise the Lord!

Several of our people were out in the median, sharing the Word in every direction.  Thank God for young people who are not afraid to take a stand for Christ.

Even my good friend Robert Williams got into it.  He loved every minute!

Look at the souls heading our way to read the gospel message!

The response from Austin was incredible.  The saved are encouraged and the lost are convicted.  That is the power of the Word of God.  Every participant in this ministry was fired up!  The pastor's young daughter said, "Daddy, I want to do this every week."

I can't help but think of the great old hymn, 

Stand Up Stand Up for Jesus, Ye Soldiers of the Cross. 

Lift High His Royal Banner.  It Must Not Suffer Loss.

Would you be willing to stand up for Jesus?  To bear His name in a public way?

I think of what He did for me, and it helps me to make better decisions about what I am willing to do for Him.

I love the verse, Hebrews 13:13, Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

 Amen!

God Knows Best

A big blessing this week was the company of Missionary to Serbia, Danny Foss.
I have been in a hurry to get to Croatia for some time now, and there have been several small delays along the way, but God knows what He is doing and His timing is always perfect!
Danny Foss attended our missions conference last week at Trinity Baptist Church and was a blessing to us.  Then, after the conference he needed a place to stay for this week to work out a few local meetings.  Lo and behold, since I was still here in the house he stayed with me.
It was great getting to know Danny a little bit while soulwinning with him.  He has a great burden to see Serbia saved and he is preparing to go there as soon as next January.  He will be the first and only Independent Baptist Missionary in Serbia.  Since we now know one another, and since Serbia is right next to Croatia, and since both countries speak essentially the same language, perhaps I will be able to drop in on Danny once in a while and be a help and encouragement to him. Maybe that is what God had in mind working out my timing the way He has. (Just maybe.)
What a mighty and all-sufficient God we serve.  He knows the end from the beginning.
Oh, and my timing?  I purchased a ticket for March 26th.  I will be in Croatia very soon.
Glory to His name!

Bull Riding? Yes! Bull Riding.

What a great Saturday we had!  Missions Conference has been going on at Trinity Baptist Church in Arlington and we had the honor of some very special guests being in town.  One such guest is a young man name George Salazar from Capitol City Baptist Church in Austin.  He accompanied his pastor, Adam Thompson, who was preaching to our Spanish department this week.
George and I went soulwinning together for several hours Saturday morning, and after lunch at my favorite Chinese Restaurant (China Sea Buffet) we went to my favorite street corner for some Street Ministry time!  Hallelujah!  What a blessing!

George has a great singing voice and we sang hymns for over a hour, to the top of our lungs. (He sang and I made a joyful noise.)

Traffic was unusually high for a Saturday afternoon and we had noticed some activity around the gigantic Dallas Cowboys stadium that was worthy of some followup.

Lo and behold! Bull Riding was going on at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium and it wasn't going to be over till 11:00 PM.  That's great because we had plenty of time to go to our church service and then return to the streets again for all the exiting traffic.  Wow!

We had the privilege of passing out hundreds and hundreds of tracts and standing with our signs till well after midnight.

Thank you George Salazar for the blessing of your participation on Saturday.  And THANK GOD for a Street Ministry and a Gigantic Stadium to draw 100,000 never-dying souls to our back door to receive a gospel witness. Bull Riding?  Who would have thought?

What a Saturday!  Glory Hallelujah!

What's next week?  Would you believe a Monster Truck Rally?  Yes, we'll be there.

God is not willing that any should perish.....

NBA All-Star Game

We were so privileged to have the NBA All-Star Game played in our city over the weekend!  Why? Because we had the privilege to be at the entrance of the stadium passing out hundreds and hundreds of gospel tracts and repeatedly telling the huge crowd that Jesus loves them and died for their sins!
Glory Hallelujah!
What a blessing to have so many thousands flock to your back door - just 5 minutes from church - and have them hear and receive a gospel message.

Two experiences stood out to me:

1. When I asked a man who had a very pronounced European accent if he would like to have a Bible message, he replied "Not Really."
   As I continued holding out the tract for him to take I pleasantly said, "Then you probably need it very badly". To my joy, he chuckled and said, "You are probably right" and accepted the tract.
   (God will give us the words to speak if we will depend upon him.)
   
2. I offered a tract to young man who,  when he realized what it was, broke out into a long and extremely joyous statement of what a blessing it was to have somebody out preaching the Word.  He offered a high five saying, "High five me, bother! High Five!", which I happily accommodated. He was a blessing and an encouragement.

Hundreds of tracts were passed out and many people heard that Jesus loves them and Jesus saves!
A Sunday afternoon doesn't get any better than that.

Interesting Video (Less than 2 minutes long)

The First of Many Farewells

My two most faithful English class students, Peter and Ling, invited me to dinner on the 27th to say their goodbyes since they decided to move back to New York.  They also invited our good friend Trista.
We had a wonderful dinner together at one of their favorite places - the one that served us steamed chicken feet last time we were there.
The food was fantastic and the fellowship was wonderful - a very fitting goodbye.
After dinner, Peter and Ling mentioned the remote possibility that they might one day move back to Texas.  That was my cue to let them know about my upcoming move to the mission field of Croatia.

It was perfect timing, since Trista speaks really good English she was there to help me explain to Ling and Peter exactly what I was planning to do.
Needless to say, they were not too pleased with the thought that I was moving halfway around the world.  They asked many questions about my health, the weather over there  and how long I would be gone, etc.

In the end, they came to understand that my move to Croatia is because of the Lord.  (Ling and Peter don't yet know Him, but I continue to pray they one day will.)

Trista is a Christian and joy is always on her face.  She is such a blessing to me.

As you can see, both Ling and Trista are actually very mean spirited!  :-)

 

By their own declaration, "We are family.  We will never forget!"

I have so enjoyed getting to know these precious people, and the joy of teaching them English in an effort to reach them for Christ has been incomparable.  The grace of God is evident in having them move first.  The goodbye would have been much harder the other way around.
Ling told me she would keep these photos of us and tell her children, "This is your Uncle Sam, the teacher."

By the way, Ling kept a couple of the A Beka Readers we were using in class.  She is determined to read them to her sons who are finally coming from China to meet them in New York.  (The A Beka Reader has Bible verses in it.)  Praise the Lord!
To God be the glory, great things He hath done!

This is the beginning of a series of farewells.