If My people...

This last Saturday I was an invited guest to an event that required nothing of me except to show up and enjoy myself.  Loved it! A small team of Christian women put aside their doctrinal preferences to showcase the Lord Jesus Christ and pray together. Four hundred women showed up! They brought in a fabulous speaker, Sheryl Giesbrecht of KAXL radio, Bakersfield, also an associate of International Christian Ministries. (I am so proud of Phil and Debbie Walker for pioneering and continuing to direct ICM, a ministry that trains countless Africans for ministry.) O.K. ...back to Saturday's delightful gathering: This small planning and praying committee of women rounded up a praise band that represented several churches, invited a half-dozen women to tell us about their ministries outside their local churches, served a beautiful lady-fied lunch, then in the afternoon Sheryl spoke warmly and powerfully again,  and the day was topped off with Michele Lawrence taking us up, up and away with her singing of "Precious",  a song that was born at Round Top Retreat in Texas when Carole Lewis, then President of FirstPlace4Health said to Michele: "You are precious!" That one word so moved her that she went back to her room at the Retreat and wrote the words to the song,  When we returned to California Michele took it to her arranger who turned it into a wow of a worship song that brought hundreds of women out of their seats.  Michele ran down off the platform, raced up and down the aisles of the audience and even pulled some startled women up to dance with her! Now, dear readers,  these women were Lutherans, probably a Catholic or two, Methodists, Assemblies of God, Bible churches, Living Room churches, several brands of Baptists, no-name churches and some women who had never even been to church!  It was holy fun!

I have been alongside Michele for several years as she fled from a religion that gave her no hope. I have dropped my jaw in amazement as she lost,  in less than a year 65 pounds of emotional, spiritual and physical weight and now has emerged as a very slender,  redeemed composer and singer who no longer performs in bars or clubs but hears, writes and sings words that point wrung-out and worn-out people to Jesus. Once she began to dig into God's Word for herself,  Satan lost his grip. Michele can be heard on www. cdbaby.com/redeem.  Call her at 661-609-3744 if you can't figure it out.  I've told you all I know about web sites... somewhere short of a thimble full.   She's ready to take her new show on the road.

No professionals planned Saturday's event nor do any "professionals" orchestrate the coming together of many men every Tuesday night for prayer and Bible study here in our community. If more of you out there would forget your church distinctives and come together to pray,  He just might extend His grace and give us more time to freely share the Gospel without getting our heads chopped off! "If my people who are called by My Name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 

I am not going around the world any more, or even outside the Bear Valley gate very much. The disciples are going for me!  I continue to love and receive people into my home and arms for Bible teaching, comfort and help in replacing their futile fights with the only one worth fighting: freeing the souls of people who are trapped by the ways of the world, the flesh and the devil.

                        OLD HYMN:  WORK FOR THE NIGHT IS COMING

Work for the night is coming; work through the sunny noon.
Fill brightest hours with labor; rest comes sure and soon.
Give every flying minute something to keep in store.
Work for the night is coming when man works no more.

Love,  Jo