Well I am finally here and slowly adjusting to the higher altitude. When I first got here just climbing a flight of stairs made me remember my days as a smoker. That extra 2000 feet of elevation really does make a difference.

One of the other things that I have had to get used to is the security that is everywhere. You have to go through security just to go grocery shopping. It is something we back in the states take for granted. That no one will blow you up while you are shopping for food.

I almost got caught up in the middle of the latest sad attack here. I was walking home from Succat Hallel on Tuesday afternoon. I am still learning the shortcuts and when coming home I started down the wrong path. When I realized it, instead of turning around, I cut through the woods to another path that would lead me to where I needed to be. When I was walking back up the hill on this second path all of sudden I see all these police and military people all around me running down the path I just got off of. None of them saw me, so I continued up the path I was on and then cut over to the path that would lead me to my house.

On my way back I could see more and more military and police, guns ready, running all over the area. About half way home I run into a group of women coming the other way. One of the women’s brothers is in the police force and she informed me that there was another incident with a tractor outside of a hotel just up the street. Fortunately I made it home okay. I was very glad that the police did not notice me, as I was cutting through the woods and considering the circumstances this could have looked very suspicious.

Yet another vital thing I learned this week was the difference between should I go and may I go. I had the opportunity last Sunday to spend the night in Jericho when I ask the Lord Jesus if I should go I was told no. This was upsetting to me as in my flesh I really wanted to go.

A few days latter I again have the opportunity to go to Jericho this time for a few days. I again was asking should I go. I did not get anything from the Lord. I just felt that I should wait and when we went to Jericho on Tuesday for Church I should pray with Pastor Steve, who I would be staying with, about it. When I got down there and had the opportunity to pray with Steve, I clearly heard the Lord say to me why you don’t actually ask me if you may go. When I did this I received a clear answer from Him that I may go to Jericho.

When I was praying should I go, I was assuming that I had His permission to go. This was presumptuous of me to do so. I need to ask not just assume I had the right to go into a place and minister without first asking if I may do so. Thank you Jesus for letting me learn this lesson and for allow me the great honor of being in Jericho for the next couple of days.

By the way if you are wondering why I am not going to Jericho permanently, the ministry may have me go to Bethlehem for a while to help out with the children’s program there first before I move to Jericho.

Well I am on my way to Jericho, I have made it across the pond as it were and I am sitting in Vienna with little (read none) sleep since 7am on the 14^th. For most of the way over here all I could really think about was one of the last sermons I gave at the CEC.

By the way this is a series on my adventure to Israel if you have not read anything on it may I suggest you start here:

Part 1 of Jericho or Bust

Part 2 of Jericho or Bust

Part 3 of Jericho or Bust

Part 4 of Jericho or Bust

Part 5 of Jericho or Bust

God has been so good to me this past year I sometime think I am living is some kind of fairy tale. He has opened my heart to children, meeting Juanita and her most amazing nephews Ulises and Christian and I cannot forget about my little bro Tyler.  He brought me into the CEC and hook with up the Eibel’s and because of this amazing family which I have come to love so much I am on my way to Israel.

It is all that and so very much more. Jesus even set up this entire ministry trip I am on right now and raised up so much support for it it just boggles the my mind. I am financially and prayerfully covered and it makes me love Jesus so much. Thank you all for your prayers and support…Thank you Jesus!

So all the way over the Atlantic all I pondered on this verse I taught on a few Sunday’s ago in the CEC

Song of Songs 2:4-”He has brought me to his banquet hall, and his banner over me is love.

He must really truly love me and his banner over me is love. I am His beloved and I feel so cherished right now as I sit on the floor in the Vienna airport writing this. How long have I run up my own flags over me, flags like failure, stupid, never get it right, etc… No more after this year, I truly know that I am His beloved and His it is His flag pole and only He has the right to run His flag up it.

I know that I am going to face some tough days in the coming months, but as long as I remember that I am truly loved and that he will never forsake me. I know that I will make it.

Next post from the Holy Land!

Mike

Part 1 of Jericho or Bust

Part 2 of Jericho or Bust

Part 3 of Jericho or Bust

Part 4 of Jericho or Bust

In the quest to go through and deal with all of my stuff including boxes of records, I accidentally threw away my brand new passport which cost me $100. I look for days for it and was quite worried as I had only a month before I was to leave for Israel.

I finally broke down and filled in all new paperwork including of course the form having to explain how I lost the passport. It cost me another $100 dollars and I was worried that it would take to long to get to me, but I had to risk it as it would have cost another $70+ dollars to expedite the procedure and a friend of mine told me that he got his in 2 weeks.

Well as time passes, I do start to worry that I should have expedited the passport as I started to realize it would probably cost me even more to change my non-refundable plan ticket. I prayed everyday for the passport to come quickly and was thinking that I should contact the post office when I got back from Michigan on July 1^st.

God of course had the whole thing covered. The day before I was getting ready to fly home to Michigan my passport shows up in the mail. I came in about 10 days. Not only that, I get a check in the mail from someone for the entire cost of the passport plus $7 dollars. I really feel like God was saying that this was done and I no longer have to worry about my passport.

This was just one more sign for me that I know I am following God’s heart in going to Jericho. It seems impossible for me to mess it up and do something like lose my passport. He has me covered so I will trust Jesus to see me there. God is behind this move, this I am sure of and if He is behind it then I will trust that He will insure all that I need for this trip will be in place when I need it.

Thank You Jesus for loving this much that you are my provider.

Part 1 of Jericho or Bust

Part 2 of Jericho or Bust

Part 3 of Jericho or Bust

Also this will be my last blog entry for a little while as I need to send my laptop in for some work and I will be at Signs and Wonders camp next week. I get to go play with kids and camp out.

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I had some stock left over from when I worked for ABB. I was keeping this stock because I wanted to wait until it got a little higher in value so that I would have enough to pay off my college loan. At one point last year it did get high enough, but it was climbing so that I did not want to sell it quite yet. I got busy with other things and did not check it for a week or so. When I did it had fallen quite a bit so I decided to just leave it sit and hope that it would climb back up again.

Now the problem with all of this was I really felt that the Lord wanted me to sell this stock and get myself completely out of dept, but with the stock price falling I resisted Him on this and decided to just hold out. About two weeks after this I decided to log into my account one Saturday and check the stock. When I did I found all my stock had been sold off a few months ago (I only logged into my Smith Barney account a couple of times a year, I normally just checked the price online through MSN). I was devastated to say the least. I figured someone had gotten into my account and stolen my stocks. I just had this happen to my bank account about 8 months before and I thought I was witnessing the same thing again.

Monday morning I called to find out what happened. After much run around it turns out that ABB without asking me sold off my stock and sent me a check which I never received. It turns out that the department that deals with Employee Stock Option Plan had my wrong address which was impossible as I update my address with Human Recourse every time I move as they still had my 401K money.

I was pretty upset about all this until I stopped and prayed about it. The Lord reminded me that He really wanted me to go to Israel without carrying this major debt and that I had resisted Him. So I truly believe this was His loving hand helping me do something that I resisted doing. He knows what is best and I just need to listen to Him. There is a reason I need to be out of debt and he is just making sure that it happened. Thank you Lord for taking care of me even when I am to stubborn to listen.

One last thing, in further discussion with Smith Barney about this I found out that I was only allowed to have this account (ABB was paying for it) with Smith Barney for 3 months after I left ABB. I never new this and just left the stocks with Smith Barney for over 3 years. I really feel God let it sit there until it was time for me to sell it. In the end it paid off my school loan, and bought my plan ticket to Israel. Do I have a great God in Jesus or what!

Part 1 of Jericho or Bust

Part 2 of Jericho or Bust

Part 3 of Jericho or Bust

Part 5 of Jericho or Bust

Mark 12:41-44 And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”

I was teaching at the Children’s Equipping Center (CEC) this past week for the KC Commission kids and was amazed at just how much the kids understand what is being taught to them.

I was teaching on giving and one of the young girls started talking about the above passage. It was one I had not included in the lesson though when I started describing how giving needs to come from the heart, she brought up this passage. I was impressed enough by this, but doing the devotional time where the kids get a half hour to mediate on what they learned.

She put herself into the story of the women in the above passage and wrote the following short story.

I went to a synague to bring offering, worship and praise. When I went I brought all my money, I only had tow coins of gold. When I put them in, I met a godly person and I wondered who he was. Finally I remembered people talking about the Christ. the I began to ask

T (student first initial): Are ye thee Christ?

J (Jesus): I am indeed

T: Why have ye come?

J: I have come to tell ye something

T: What is thee to tell me?

J: Ye blessing will be in heaven for ye gave all ye have got

T: My Lord…

J: Do not worry I will also bless ye now.

Just as Jesus said he blessed me with riches, what I needed and want. With my heart filled with joy I always praised the Lord who blessed me in Heaven and Earth!

Wow! Amazing!

This really made me see that what I am teaching the kids actually understand and more than that Jesus is encounter these kids’ hearts and they can actually see themselves in God’s heart and in His plan for their lives. I am so lucky to be able to help build a foundation of Jesus Christ in these kids’ lives thank you Lord for this honor and privilege, thank-you.

I really do serve a great God!

Part 1 of Jericho or Bust

Part 2 of Jericho or Bust

Well in this part I was going to talk about something else, but something happened this past week that I want to share with you. It really shook me pretty hard, but in the end God knows what He is doing and it just took me seeing that once again.

Last week, I sent an email to the people I am living with to verify that it was okay to leave all my personal stuff in storage in one of the closets in their house. I was going to leave the my furniture in place thinking that it would a) let me have a place to store it and b) other guest who stayed there would have some furniture to use. As for my car I thought I could just leave it on the side of the house or in the garage. That way if I or they ever flew in there would be a car available.

Well as with all plans things change. Katherine emailed me back and they may now sell the house. They are not sure yet, but what this means to me is that I need to either sell and/or give away all of my belongings.

Sadly, I did not handle this news very well, I basically curled up in my recliner and just pouted for a day and watch movies. I was not a very happy camper. The thought of have to get rid of everything was a pretty major thing for me.

For most of my life I have trusted in things. What I had was very important to me. The thought of having nothing was something that was and is very hard for me to accept. I was not sure if I could actually go through with going to Jericho if it meant that I would have to lose all my possessions.

Fortunately the next day was Sunday and as most of you know I help minister at the CEC. Well the sermon that day just happened to be from Mathew 6

Mathew 6:31-34 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

This really helped me a lot. I was still not quite there, but I knew that God was re-assuring me that it was going to be okay and though this was a big thing for me, that He was in control and that it was all going to work out.

I have recently joined a prayer group and one of the members graciously gave me a book on prayer called 100 Days in the Secret Place. The book contains a collection of writings from different people throughout history.

I was reading one passage a couple of days ago and came across this letter written by a Roman Catholic Archbishop from the late 1600s.

Fenelon-God uses the disappointments…and failures of your life to take your trust away from yourself and help you put your trust in Him… Thus God prepares events to detach your from yourself and from others. God is your Father, do you think He would ever hurt you? He just cuts you off from those things you love in the wrong way. Your cry like a baby when God removes something or someone from your life, but you would cry a lot more if you saw the eternal harm your wrong attachments cause you[1].

This really impacted me and I realized that I had put so much faith in what I had. It was a huge security blanket for me. This is why I struggled so much in selling it all off. It is much better to part with anything that hinders my walk with the Lord now that to hang onto stuff that will cause me stumble.

The last piece of this little journey came to me the just a day or so ago. I remembered a scene from the move Molokai. Father Damien was walking up on the shore of the island for the first time and the guy who met him asked him where all of his stuff was. Damien replied that the suitcase he was carrying was all that he had. I really thought that this was important. He brought just a few provisions and was trusting in the Lord for everything else. I remembered saying to myself that that is how I would like to go if I ever did go somewhere.

In other words he did not worry about things, he trusted Jesus for what he would need. I now see that this is how I need to walk on this adventure that the Lord has me on, by faith. Which is really funny, but it is also the subject of my sermon at the CEC tonight. The Lord put Ephesians 1:15-17 on my heart to teach this week and I concentrated on what does faith look like.

It reminds me of the verse that I was stuck on so long when I first left my career and to come to IHOP.

Philippians 3:7, 8 – but whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ

I always wondered if I would truly consider all things a loss for the following after God’s heart. It looks like I get my chance.

My God is truly a Great God!

Part 1 of Jericho or Bust

Part 2 of Jericho or Bust

Part 4 of Jericho or Bust

Part 5 of Jericho or Bust

Jericho or Bust Part 1

Jericho or Bust Part 3

When Katherine told me that vision I have to admit that I did not take it very seriously. I never really saw myself going over to Israel to serve. I did believe that one day I would work in an orphanage overseas somewhere, but I my heart I thought it would be in Mexico.

I could not ignore this vision she had so I asked the Lord for a sign if it was true. I prayed and basically said to God that the only sign that I would believe is that my house would sell. My house had been on the market for over two years at this point and it was starting to get pretty desperate for me financially especially with the absolute dismal state of the housing market. So I prayed and asked for my house to sell as a sign and then forgot the whole thing. I was busy with school and again really did not take this that seriously (shame on me).

Well two days later I get a call from my realtor and someone made an offer on my house. Now the offer was ridiculously low, so I countered offered. Another couple of days go by and I get another call. This time the same people offered an amount I was willing to accept. Not only that, but it was an unconditional offer. I had three offers before this and everyone involved them selling their house which of course in this really bad market never happened. I was so convinced this was from the Lord I stopped my house payment. Well the buyer had to run out of town for a week which pushed the sell back and my house payment late. They offered to pay the late payment- who does that!

I am of course just floored by this. I thought that I would finish my 4^th year here at FSM though I was starting to feel that maybe something was changing (maybe) and I would not finish my 4 years here. Anyways, I asked for a sign and I got a sign one that I really could not deny.

Yet about a week later I was sitting in the Prayer Room and I was praying and asking God if this was really what He wanted me to do. My reply from the Holy Spirit was that this is exactly what I had asked for. I was undone by that response as I never recalled asking God to go over to minister in a refugee camp in Jericho. So I asked the Holy Spirit what He meant as I never ask to do something like this.

Well the Holy Spirit ever so gently reminds me of a movie I watched about a Catholic Priest by the name of father Damien who spent 16 years of his life tending to the people dying of leprosy on the island of Molokai.

In the 7 years before his arrival on this island the living conditions were severe with the dying living in caves and fending the best they could. Father Damien volunteered to minister on the island and poured out his life caring for these people. He built house and hospitals for the people. He is considered to be the hero of Molokai eventually dying from leprosy himself.

I was very young in the faith (5 or 6 months in the light) and when I watched this movie I was in tears at the end of it. I prayed and said if I could live my life doing something like that it would be a very great thing. The Holy Spirit showed me that I was being granted my prayer. He showed me how the Palestine people living in these refugee camps were like the lepers (outcasts from their land) that father Damien took care of. No they do not have leprosy, but in a camp stuck between the Israelis and their own people, they are a people set apart.

There are a couple of other things have happened, but I will cover those in the next segment as the hour is growing late and I have to teach at the CEC tonight.

Part 1of Jericho or Bust

JPart 3 of Jericho or Bust

Part 4 of Jericho or Bust

Part 5 of Jericho or Bust

Mathew 6:26-34 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Anyways, here is Katherine’s vision in her own words. This is part one and I will hopefully be able to post the rest soon (as soon as I get my paper done for Church History that is).

On January 13^th, I was in Israel with a group of believers from around the world worshiping at the traditional Jordan River crossing site – where the Israelites, under Joshua’s leadership, crossed the river on dry ground and entered the Promised Land for the first time. It’s also believed to be the location where John baptized Jesus. The site is located in an Israeli military zone and is generally not open to the public. But on this day, the Israeli army opened the site to Living Bread International Church so we could we worship there.

Living Bread began as an outreach to Muslim’s living in Jericho. As you may know, Palestinians in Israel are not free to travel outside their territory. But for the gathering this day, the new believers from Jericho were given permission to travel with us to the site. It was quite remarkable to be worshiping with both Jewish and Palestinian believers. Each group has their own style of music and dance, but all the glory was being given to the Lord!

Toward the end of the day, after several hours of worship, the Lord gave me a vision of the Palestinian children. (Earlier in the week, I had attended a Living Bread worship service in Jericho. The children there were so friendly and playful. I so longed to see them mentored in the Lord – for them to grow deep in their faith in Him.) In the vision, I could see their same faces. The children then began to gather around Mike Wakeman. As Mike began to walk down the path, I could see the Palestinian children following in line behind him. Then the vision ended.

Immediately, I knew in my heart that Mike was to work in Israel with the Palestinians – especially the children in the refugee camps! It all made so much sense. For the past several months, God has been using Mike to mentor and shepherd our two sons. They love spending time with “Mr. Mike” and he has been absolutely incredible with them. God has used him to draw my sons into a much deeper relationship with Him. His gift for working with children is quite apparent. I also know that Mike has had a heart to serve in overseas missions, and in particular, to work with orphans. Serving the Lord among the Palestinians – especially the children – seemed to be a perfect match.

The Lord has since confirmed this calling to Mike and I have no doubt he will be used mightily to usher in the Kingdom of God in the West Bank.

Part 2 of Jericho or Bust

Part 3 of Jericho or Bust

Part 4 of Jericho or Bust

Part 5 of Jericho or Bust