FAITH IN ACTION

A few weeks ago FIA partners Keith and Jessica Davis arranged a donation of 98,000 bags of tortilla chips to FIA.  Yes, 98,000 bags.  It didn’t take long for the Lord to show us how a bag of tortilla chips could be used to share the Gospel.  The Pantry received over 1,000 bags.  Some went to Dude Share The Food and The Daily Bread Ministry of Good Shepherd Lutheran who serve our Douglasville homeless.  The GO ministry received several hundred bags.  We also delivered to the Good Samaritan Center and Loving Hands. Many were shared on our normal FIA rounds; sometimes we went from apartment complex to mobile home park, duplex to duplex, handing out bags and praise of Jesus to clustering children.  We also shared with Crossroads Church, Shepherd of the Hills and other church youth groups.  Mark Trow and I spent half a day going to all the elementary schools on the east side of Douglasville delivering tortilla chips and prayer. No one stopped us from praying at the schools.

Mark Denyse shared this story yesterday:

Just a bag of chips… It was just a couple boxes of chips I thought to myself. How would I come up with something to write about donating chips to a ministry. Little did I know that waiting for me to deliver was 2000 bags of chips!!! These chips were donated to Seven Bridges by Faith In Action. Seven Bridges goes out to feed the homeless and share the good word of Jesus! Their goal is to entice them with a meal and hopefully get them off the streets and into a rehab facility if they are willing and desire to change. As you can see in the picture the chips also fed the women and children in the shelter. It felt good to bring them a little food and smile really I think these kids put the smile on my face…

The shelter is called the Garden and is ran by Pastor 7. What God has done in and thru this ministry is nothing short of a miracle. For more information donations, information or to volunteer, please contact: 7 Bridges To Recovery (404) 361-2250, Pastor 7 (404) 644-6976

Or e-mail us @ 7bridgestorecovery@gmail.com www.7bridgestorecovery.org Mailing Address: 7 Bridges To Recovery 2875 Brownsmill Rd SE Atlanta, GA 30354

GO JESUS, GO JESUS, GO!!!

Ms. Bettie is in her 70’s and lives alone in the Alpha Fowler Senior Community, which is a government housing project.  She has had 7 cancer surgeries and severe back problems that limit her mobility.  Recently she was approved for a motorized wheelchair, but the government has no means to build the two wheelchair ramps she needs to enter and exit her duplex.

We were asked to help by the Douglas Senior Center and the project was accepted by FIA affiliate ministry The Work of Our Hands.

Charles’s work was blessed by our Lord as he quickly completed two small ramps at Ms. Bettie’s home.  Dean, Kameron, and I visited Ms. Bettie while Charles worked, and she told us that during her latest round of chemo to treat lung, liver, and abdominal cancer she was in so much pain that she got down on her knees and prayed for God to heal her, or “bring her home.”  She felt a tingling all over her body and decided He had removed all the cancer.  At her next MRI she told the technician he would find nothing.  He smiled and said, “Ms. Bettie you know I can’t tell you anything but I think you are going to be happy.”

Her doctor was astonished when it was confirmed she was cancer free.  When Ms. Bettie told her that God had healed her, the young female doctor then said, “If that is true, then why do I have no child and I have prayed for 10 years?”  Ms. Bettie replied, “If you will pray to MY God, you will have a baby.”

A few weeks later, Ms. Bettie’s doctor fainted and fell at the hospital while working.  Tests revealed she was pregnant.  She named her beautiful daughter… Bettie.

Now, I have a bed.

“If we could only remember that God loves me, and I have an opportunity to love others as he loves me, not in big things, but in small things with great love . . .”

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, 1979 Nobel Peace Prize Lecture

Karla has found room at the inn and provision has been made, so far for her, baby Hennessy and her other two children.  Praise God!  She contacted us about a need—a stroller for the baby, and Karla’s FIA caseworker Alma George was blessed to receive one from Sandra Price and our ministry partners at Loving Hands.  After Alma delivered the stroller, she wrote this: “God has been so present . . .I am overwhelmed….love FIA..”  So I wrote her back and asked for “the details.”  She said “Details?  Man, God is BIG….you should see Hennessy.  Got the stroller from Sandra and the kids were so happy.”

It is a gift from God that Alma can take such joy in serving Him and His people in the small things, with great love.  The little boy in this picture recently received a bed from one of our FIA teams.  He became overjoyed—he has a bed!  He started jumping up and down and hopping around his little room.  A stroller, and a twin bed are small things, perhaps insignificant to us as we go through our busy lives consumed with this, or that.  But can you ask yourself, do I really want to keep living like that?  Tethered to a ringing telephone, deadline driven, tired, and often numb?

Wouldn’t you like to love others in small things, with great love?

Karla is from El Salvador, speaks no English, is about to deliver a baby at any moment and also has two small children.  The fathers of these children are nowhere to be seen, but one intermittently provides $180.00 monthly child support, and she lives at a local extended stay lodge but is behind in her rent because out of the country relatives are no longer able to help her.  She came to the Pantry weekend before last and met with FIA Caseworker Alma George, who is bilingual.  Karla was unsure if she could go to hospital because she has no money.  We convinced her to go to Wellstar Douglas for her safety and that of her baby.  Then, little Hennessy was born, and FIA has provided diapers, wipes, and payment of $150.00 on her rent.  Alma also transported the family to our mission partner Sandra Price at Loving Hands to receive baby necessaries including clothes, an infant carrier, and other items.  The government is, of course, useless.  We’ve called SHARE House, MUST Ministries, City of Refuge, Travelers Aid . . .and so far there is no room at the inn for Karla and her children.

Will you pray with us?  Resources for homeless families in Douglas County are virtually non-existent.  But our God does the impossible and we are convinced that very soon, He will provide for this family.

Over the weekend while FIA was out sharing the Gospel and delivering furniture, Pastor Adam Roberts of our FIA member church Shepherd of the Hills UMC called with an emergency: a couple stranded in Douglasville with no money to repair their vehicle.  Joel and Lisa Kilthau of SOTH could not turn away from this pregnant woman and her husband, who had a broken drive belt on their truck.  SOTH and the Kilthau family got the belt replaced and blessed the couple with prayer.

Then on Monday at 412 p.m.  we received a message on our FIA phone line: “Yes my name is Les and we are broke down in Douglasville and my wife is pregnant . . .”  We then heard from Lisa as well the sad news that the vehicle was disabled due to a radiator issue. FIA members Alma George from Crossroads Church and Mark Trow of Church at Chapel Hill then put their faith in action.  Alma contacted the couple while Mark made arrangements through Jeff Hyatt to diagnose the repair and get the vehicle towed to Kell Radiator.  We raised $160.00 in repair funds.  Midge Ortiz and her friend Audrey of Church at Chapel Hill visited with the couple at Wal Mart, providing prayer, lunch, a full tank of gas and Jeff contributed traveling money.  Within a few hours the couple was on their way to Tennessee.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”  Matthew 25:32-36.

The word “stranger” as used by our Lord can also be translated as “traveler.”  Perhaps the Lord orchestrated this situation so that FIA and the good sheep of Shepherd of the Hills could only help the traveler in our midst if we did it together in a kingdom way, not separated by walls of denominational division.  What a blessed welcome this couple received in our community at the command of our Saviour Jesus Christ!