JOEL 2 GENERATION

One again we had the chance to minister to a number of people in the Name of Jesus.  On my morning prayer walk, my good friend and I met a Filipino Christian man who was waiting in his truck outside of a customer's home.  We had the chance to encourage him on this Easter weekend, to pray for him and to speak about the Lord and His work of redemption.  We weren't rushed and so it was a truly special time with this man who will not be celebrating Easter tomorrow with his church. We got to "be the church" today for him! Later we got to follow up with another Filipino Christian woman working in a restaurant who we had prayed for a week or two ago.  My wife got to pray with her again and since we are breaking our fast tomorrow and getting food from that restaurant, we told her we'd be back to celebrate Easter with her! After that, we got to bless another group in a coffee shop I have been visiting - including a new Italian manager that we hadn't met before. ...

Today is Good Friday and once again our community chose to go out and do another week of "Church on Wheels".  And like all the other weeks, God opened unprecedented doors to minister to dozens of people.  I was with one of the members of our Church and in a 2.5 hr. period us two were able to minister to well over 50 people. In some cases it was one or two on the street, in other cases, it was 6-8 employees in a McDonalds (actually 2 McDonalds today!). For the Christians we ministered to, and we met Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Evangelical Protestants, it was a time to do "mini Good Friday services".  We reminded them of the death of Jesus and His forgiveness of our sins.  The response was remarkable.  So many expressed their gratitude and one woman literally started to cry.  This has been such a fearful and emotional time for these guest workers in this Muslim-majority country.  They fear for their families, they fear for their jobs and of cours...

On my prayer walks, I have seen the same group of Iranian men working every day and have greeted them and prayed a prayer of blessing over them.  But it hasn't been very significant.  I speak Arabic and their first language is Farsi (Persian). So today, I wanted a new idea - a new way to engage them.  I had recently gotten a Farsi translation of a book by Dr. Michael Heiser entitled What Does God Want? And I knew that God wanted me to offer it to them. It is an evangelistic book that is being translated into many languages and being offered for free to download. Link:  https://www.miqlat.org/translations-of-what-does-god-want.htm So as soon as the Lord gave me the idea, He also gave me the plan.  I went back to them after having walked by and offered to their supervisor my card with my number on it.  I told them that a friend of mine (I know Dr. Heiser a little bit) has written a short book that is available in Farsi. I told them I wanted to send it ...

It was incredible today on a long prayer walk how many people we could interact with and pray for - again from many different nations (we actually aren't sure how many).  The Lord opened doors for us again to minister to many Muslims - Egyptians, Lebanese, Jordanian and Palestinians.  We got to pray for them, for their families.  I was able to share with a number of Muslims about this being Easter week for Christians.  They know nothing about the "Holiday of the Resurrection" which is what Easter is translated to in Arabic. The interactions weren't long. But it was just a privilege to bless so many.  One group of 3 Muslims were all eating and insisted we join them.  They were so kind.  Since we are fasting, we told them another time and I gave them my number.  But it was incredible how welcoming they were!  People truly are fed up with having to be so closed.  We saw that today. We also got to pray for many Christians and bless them...

Today the Lord opened a number of doors to pray for Muslims from Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.  For the most part, they were extremely grateful for the prayer.  I prayed for their protection, for their families' protection, and for healing.  In several of the conversations,, I was able to share some things from the Bible and point them to resources they could go to.  Beyond that, I was also able to pray for a number of grateful Christians who cannot attend services during Holy Week or for Easter.  In a very short period of time, I was able to pray for between 10-15 people. In a supermarket, in a coffee shop (yes I got one!), in front of a juice place, inside a car insurance office, on a sidewalk next to a parking lot and even going through a drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant (yes, I got a diet cola!) FEAR Extinguishing might be our current mandate, but I can tell you that when this COVID-19 thing is over, we will all be living far differently....

This morning during my wife's prayer walk she felt "drawn" to a woman that was passing by.  So she went up to her and asked her how she was.  She hadn't been out of her house in 2 weeks and so my wife just offered and began praying for her.  She thought she was a Filipino but she was an Indonesian Muslim.  After the prayer, she thanked her and asked about the Church we attend.  She expressed an interest in coming to visit our church.  She explained that she was born a Muslim but wasn't sure about anything.  My wife began speaking boldly about Jesus - that we do what Jesus did and how amazing He is and even told the woman to ask Jesus personally to reveal Himself to her, to ask Jesus, "Who are you"?  She wondered if it could be possible!  She asked for my wife's phone number.  May she truly begin to ask Jesus to show Himself to her, to show her the truth! One of the prayers we have been praying as we go out to pray for people and "to e...

Holy Week has begun and we had the chance today on a long prayer walk to encourage a number of Christians who can't attend services this week.   And with the Muslims and Hindus we met, we got to pray for them and tell some of them that this was a special week for Christians before our most important Holiday (HOLY Day)! Again we had so many opportunities to naturally pray for people, doing so without violating anyone's personal space.  We engaged people in public on a walking path and in a couple of restaurants we stopped in on our way home.  With one Egyptian muslim man after praying for him, I got to show him a video of Fr. Makary (a Coptic priest) praying and he already knew about him!  May Christians open their eyes to people around them - many are fearful and no one we are meeting hasn't appreciated the prayers we are praying - for protection, for financial provision, for ongoing job security, for their families back in their home countries, for del...

Today is Palm Sunday and today we had the privilege of encouraging some Christians who were isolated, unable to attend Church as we are about to enter Holy Week. These men and women today were from the Philippines, from Sri Lanka and from India and we got to pray with them, for their needs and concerns, and for God to meet them in this special week leading up to Easter. Some of the Christians we meet aren't able to attend church regularly in this country, but if they were able to go, this would be one of the weeks in the year they would be given time off to attend their churches.  This year, of course, no churches will be holding services during or Holy Week or celebrating Easter Sunday. We pray that this week, we will be given special opportunities to encourage many Christians as we take the "Church on Wheels" out to them. for such a time as this!