“Flame is the air which true Christian experience breathes. It feeds on fire; it can withstand anything rather than a feeble flame;” – E.M. Bounds

Read the beginning of the series HERE

God had abundantly answered my prayers to be back in the action of winning and discipling young people while attending Bible college by allowing me to be a part of Teens Unlimited Youth Ministry at Baptist Temple, Springfield, Missouri. Lisa and I were quickly assigned a bus for Sundays to pick up teens and we started hitting the streets on Saturdays visiting and witnessing to young people. God blessed our efforts and soon teens started getting saved and coming to Teens Unlimited on Sunday. We would go all over Springfield and just stop teens on the street and start telling them about Jesus. During the week our prayer groups would be praying for the teens and workers by name. We began to see God really move in hearts and change lives. It was so exciting. It wasn’t long before I was asked to preach to the teens on a Sunday morning. I was ecstatic. I had been studying and praying for power to preach and here was my chance. Lisa and I made a pact to fast and pray as much as we possibly could the week prior to the Sunday I was supposed to preach. By Sunday we were so weak and so tired that I was wondering what in the world I had been thinking. Lisa sat in the back and prayed and I gave my sermon but I felt like it was a total flop. I preached my heart out for 45 minutes and then went and sat down on the front row and put my face in my hands and started to weep. I was complaining to God that I had fasted and prayed and preached my heart out and I didn’t feel anything supernatural. Just about then I heard a great rustling and I peaked up to see dozens and dozens of young people at the front weeping and repenting and giving their lives to Christ. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I put my face back in my hands and started praising God with everything I had. The invitation lasted as long as the sermon and at the end of the 2 hour service almost all of the teens in that ministry had either been saved or rededicated their life to Christ that morning. Praise God! That night the baptism service was amazing as young person after young person was baptized. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

We continued working the streets and winning souls and building Teens Unlimited and more and more invitations started coming for me to preach around Springfield and around the country. Our team of prayer warriors and I made a trip to Indianapolis Indiana and held a youth rally and souls were saved and lives changed. We got to go to Kansas City and hang out at Jerry Johnston’s ministry headquarters and other amazing things. I was preaching so much that I couldn’t work a job and most of my preaching engagements didn’t pay anything so we would “pray down” the money to go. I’ll never forget whining to God one night that I had prayed and prayed and believed Him for some money and nothing had come in. I got up off my knees and went to my mailbox on campus and there was a check inside for $500.00. Boy did I do some apologizing for my unbelief to the Lord that night.

Then we heard that Jerry Johnston was coming to hold a week long conference on evangelism at our school and he needed volunteers to hand out brochures and put up posters and promote the meetings. We jumped in and helped and then sat enthralled each night as different speakers from around the country preached about evangelism and winning the lost. It was exciting to get to spend some time with him and tell him about what I was doing at Teens Unlimited. One night a young pastor preached on Power From On High and he told about how Jesus, our example, was anointed of the Holy Spirit to do powerful ministry and so must we be. He preached from Is. 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; and Acts 10:38 “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. I was tore down. I remember going to the front during the invitation and praying so hard that I didn’t realize the meeting was over and I was the only one left at the front until one of my buddies came and got me and we left. God was continually reminding me of where the source of power was from to reach souls.

Lisa and I were steadily growing in our love and admiration of each other though we were still not considering ourselves romantically attached. We were just “working in ministry together” but we were inseparable and had been for 6 months. March 1, 1985 would change all of that. This night was supposed to be a youth ministry night but for some reason that I can’t remember it got cancelled and we ended up going to the mall with a young evangelist and his wife to hang out. This young man had worked for Jerry Johnston Ministries and now had his own ministry and he was also helping out at Teens Unlimited. We hit it off that night and had a wonderful time. I’ll never forget at one point he turned to me and said, “what is the deal with you and Lisa?” I said, “well we really like each other but we aren’t dating or anything.” He said, “Why not?” I said, “well frankly she is so perfect that I’m afraid if I date her I will want to marry her.” He said, “And what is wrong with that?” and I said, “I don’t know if she is God’s will, or how to even know how to know if she is the right one and I don’t want to make a mistake.” He laughed and said incredulously, “So you are telling me that you love her, she loves you, she’s perfect, she thinks you are perfect, but you are not sure if she is God’s will for you???” Then he held up his arms like Elijah and said in his best Jerry Johnston imitation “Matt Bullen, how long halt ye between two opinions?” “Marry this girl!” It was the mentor approval that I needed. I asked her out that night and she looked at me like, “I was wondering when you were ever going to ask?” and we had our first date the next Saturday night, March 7, 1985.

Shortly after I received an invitation from Lisa’s pastor in Michigan to come and preach at his church. I was excited to meet him and Lisa’s family and friends. I had been asking the Lord what He wanted me to preach and one day as I was walking around a high school campus praying for the teens there it struck me that the reason most Christians weren’t reaching people for Christ was that they didn’t fully grasp the gravity of three things. I felt that if people had a clear vision of the horrors of hell, a clear vision of the glories of a transformed life in Christ, and a clear vision of standing before the judgement seat of Christ and giving an account of how they had used that transformed life, their lives would be different than most of the Christianity I saw around me. I was excited about preaching this message for the first time at Lisa’s church. I was also excited because most of Lisa’s family didn’t know Christ and she and I were praying that they would come to hear Lisa’s “beau” preach and God might do something mighty on their behalf. We caught a ride with some other college students and headed for the Detroit area. We had a wonderful time with Lisa’s church and got to meet her family. I preached my heart out that night. The sermon was entitled Get A Vision (the audio is below) and God blessed it and many came to Christ that night, some in Lisa’s family. It was glorious. I’ll never forget what Lisa’s pastor said to me after the invitation ended and all of the people went back to their seats. He looked at me in amazement and said, “son, just never get to where you think it was you that did this.” I said, “yes sir”, and I have kept that promise. Glory to God alone for His mighty works. The original audio of that message is below.

God continued to bless our ministry at Teens Unlimited. Many days and nights I would walk to the different high schools in our part of town and walk around the campuses asking God to give me the souls on those campuses. One day to my utter amazement the Sr. youth pastor told me that God had burdened his heart for all of the high school kids in Springfield and he asked me if I would hold a city-wide youth evangelism meeting for Teens Unlimited. He said that he would get the pizza and everything just like Jerry Johnston was doing around the country and we could invite all of the teens in the city to come and I could preach to them. He said that we could have an all night prayer meeting the night before and just see what God would do. I was delirious with excitement. I ran back to our little group of prayer warriors and told them about the plans. We began to plan, promote, and pray. We prayed all night the night before and then worked all day the next day to get ready. The night finally came and there in the stands were all kinds of kids from all over Springfield. I was so weak and tired I was really worried but I stood up and preached my heart out all the time begging God in my spirit to do something amazing for these young people and to lift up the name of Jesus. To my great delight, when I gave the invitation teens started streaming to the front to be saved. I remember praying with one young man from the local football team and when we finished praying he jumped up and beat his chest and said, “I got it! I got it! I’m going to heaven now!” It was a miracle night. Cheerleaders, and jocks, and druggies, and just kids of all kinds got saved that night. Our faith was growing and we knew that God’s word was true. The original audio of the message is below.

Shortly after the Pizza Blast as we called it, the Sr. youth pastor announced that we were going to be taking a mission trip to the inner city of New York in the next few months. We sent off to all of the gospel tract societies in America I think and asked for free tracts. In the end we collected just at 1,000,000 tracts to take on this trip. We did car washes and fundraisers to raise the money to go.

Before we left in July however, I wanted to take Lisa home and meet my folks and friends in New Mexico. We had borrowed a car and gathered up all the money that we had for gas. We did the calculations and knew that it wasn’t enough to get us the 850 miles to my house but we really felt that God was in this trip so we set out by faith, trusting that He would provide along the way or stretch our gas mileage. We headed out and made it all the way to eastern New Mexico before we ran out of money and gas. We pulled into a little gas station in Tucumcari and decided to go into the Denny’s and use the restroom before we decided what to do. We bowed our heads and asked the Lord to provide. I went into the men’s room and when I came out there were four men talking to Lisa and she looked a little pale. I walked over and introduced myself and realized that they were asking about the Teens Unlimited logo on our shirts. Lisa and I explained about our ministry and that we were going home to see my folks and then returning to go on the mission trip to New York City. I’ll never forget the feeling in my stomach when one of the men reached in his pocket pulled out his wallet and said, “here, I want to give you a little something to help out with your ministry” and handed me a $20.00 bill (just enough to get us home). My head was swimming and I wanted to run out the door and put gas in that car right then before that $20.00 disappeared or something. Then the man said, “hey can I buy you something to eat?” Lisa and I hadn’t eaten for a couple of days because we were saving all of our money for gas to get home but I was so excited about getting out there and putting gas in that car and getting on down the road that I told him no thank you. Lisa kicked me under the table and gave me a look like, “what are you saying? I’m starving” 🙂 but I was ready to go. She never has let me live that down. We said thank you and slipped out of the Denny’s and headed home praising God! The most amazing thing about this story is that some years later I would be interim pastor for a time at the Temple Baptist Church in Tucumcari, New Mexico and the man who gave us the $20.00 was a member of that church and he sat under my preaching for a time and I got to tell him what a miracle that money was for us.

We enjoyed 2 weeks at home and then back to Springfield and then off to New York City. It was a marvelous trip. We got to sing and preach on the streets and we handed out all of our 1,000,000 tracts in just a few days. It was astonishing. I remember a busy intersection in the Bronx. We would have 4 people on each corner with an armful of tracts handing them out to people as fast as they could for hours and hours. Sometimes a line would build up as the people were waiting to get whatever the young person was handing out. Many times they would stop and read it right there and we were able to engage them in discussion and lead some of them to Christ. There was a little church plant in the Bronx called Lighthouse Baptist Church and I got to sing there one Sunday night. I also got to preach at a church in Saddlebrook, New Jersey just outside of the city. It was a blessed time. We also did some sightseeing and Lisa and I stood on top of the World Trade Center and dreamed of the day we would hold city wide evangelistic campaigns in major cities all over the country. Our minds, hearts, and dreams were expanded.

We came home to Springfield, and with the approval of our Sr. pastor, Dr. W.E. Powell, who was also chancellor of our college we decided that we should get married before the next semester started. We set the date as August 3, 1985 (Lisa’s step dad’s birthday) which was just a few weeks away. The teenagers from Teens Unlimited and our Bible college friends rallied around us and we had a wonderful wedding. Many of the people who stood up with us, sang for us, decorated, and more were teens that we had won to Christ that year. The young evangelist who had asked me at the mall “How long halt ye between two opinions?” and his wife were our best man and matron of honor and the Sr. youth pastor walked Lisa down the aisle. The teenagers had taken up a collection and rented us the honeymoon suite at the nicest hotel in town. No two kids were ever more happy to be wed. She was 18 and I was 19 and we were ready to win the world for Christ… together! Aflame For God 9 – A Man Obsessed

“Saturate me with the oil of Thy Spirit, that I may be aflame. Make me Thy fuel O flame of God.” – Jim Elliot

So I kept seeing this redhead in the choir but I was sure that I was imagining that she was smiling at me. As I learned later the redhead’s name was Lisa and she actually was smiling at me and had been watching me for some time. She says that of all the young men in that auditorium, I was the most serious and passionate about the singing and preaching and this intrigued her. Each day when she came back to her dorm her roommates would ask her if she met a guy yet and once again she would explain that she was not there to meet guys but to get prepared for ministry. Finally they wore her down and one day she told them, “well there is this one guy I would like to meet but I don’t know his name.” They squealed with delight and made her promise to point this young man out the next time she saw him. So later that day I come walking into the cafeteria and Lisa pokes her roommate and says, “there he is…” her roommate Karen looks up and says quite loudly, “Matt Bullen!!!??? That’s the guy you want to meet, Hey Matt!! Come over here! So now Lisa is bright red and crawling under the table. It turns out that her roommate is my dear friend Karen from my church. I came up with Karen through Sunday school since we were 4 years old. She is like a sister to me. Lisa is petrified and of course I have no idea what is going on and at the moment. I don’t even recognize Lisa as the girl from the choir. Karen just introduces me to all of the girls at the table and I move on never giving it another thought. But for a week or so after Karen keeps telling me that her roommate likes me and she wants me to meet her. I keep telling Karen that I can only imagine what kind of girl she is trying to match me up with and I want no part of it.

Finally one day we are having a big lunch on the grass in the middle of campus and Karen comes and starts dragging me by the hand to meet her roommate. I reluctantly give in and she walks me up to Lisa and my eyes bug out because its the redhead from the choir! I feel like telling Karen, “Why didn’t you tell me it was the pretty redhead?” 🙂 Anyway, we talk a little but this girl Lisa is painfully shy and so I’m not sure if she is really enjoying this or if Karen coerced her as well. The next day however we got a chance to talk for a long time and tell each other our conversion and following ministry stories. She had been saved out of a horrible situation at the age of 13 had moved in with her pastor and his wife and kids and had lived with her youth pastor’s family some as well and been thoroughly discipled by them. She had been a radical witness in her high school too and had won and discipled many teenagers in her school. We had a very similar passion, vision, and mission in life and I left that visit that night knowing she was the one.

I had a little problem though. I had a girlfriend back home that my whole church thought I was going to marry. I had been chasing this girl on and off since I was in the 7th grade and everyone knew we were going to get married after she graduated high school. (Of course because we were strict Fundamental Baptists, so chasing her meant trying to sit by her in church). Now I had met the girl of my dreams and I was in a pickle. I explained my situation to Lisa and we reluctantly agreed that we should just be friends but neither one of us were very happy about it. We started meeting with some other friends every day to pray and seek God for His power to win souls. I was sharing with Lisa all of the things I was reading about the Holy Spirit and revival and she was getting more and more fired up. She and the girls in her dorm started having all night prayer meetings asking God to revive our college and to give us souls. The more time we spent together the more I knew we were both falling hard for each other and I kept trying to figure out how to get out of the fix I was in. It seems comical now but at the time it was a serious dilemma. When I went back home for Christmas, my girl back home informed me that she had met another guy and that she thought we ought to “date around” while I was away at college. No young man was ever more happy to be dumped!!

During this time another dilemma had been rising up in me. I had loved and soaked up all of the study and the prayer and the seeking God my first semester at Bible college but one thing was eating at me. I had just spent two years in high school winning souls every day, teaching every day, preaching every week, and various other ministry adventures and though I had needed the time with God and the season of searching for His power I was now ready to get involved in some sort of ministry and get back in the action. I had noticed a sign at Baptist Temple where I attended that read Teens Unlimited Youth Ministry. I felt drawn to that sign and I started praying that God would let me get back to winning the lost somehow and that he would let me be a part of that ministry. To my amazement, within a couple of weeks I was invited to be an assistant youth pastor in that ministry and they were also looking for a young woman from the college to work under the youth pastor’s wife and minister to the teen girls. I immediately told them about this awesome young woman named Lisa that I knew who would love to have that position. So shortly thereafter Lisa and I were off and running working in Teens Unlimited and going to Bible college and more miracles were about to begin… Aflame For God – Teens Unlimited

“When the Spirit was outpoured the disciples were all filled with power from on high, the most unlettered tongue could silence gainsayers, and with its new fire burn its way through obstacles as flames fanned by mighty winds sweep through forests.”- Arthur T. Pierson

Read the beginning of the series HERE

I arrived at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri in August of 1984. I was beyond excited and a little scared about being away from home for the first time in my life. The first day I signed up for classes and then I found out that Baptist Temple, one of the churches in the city, was having a two night conference to welcome the students for the new year and Dr. Jack Hyles was preaching! I couldn’t believe it! I was so excited. I went to the meeting that night and my world was wrecked. Dr. Hyles preached on Meet The Holy Spirit and he made the sweet third person of the Trinity seem so wonderful that I wanted to know Him more than anything in the world. I remember walking around the campus until curfew crying out to the Lord to let me know Him like that. The next night Dr. Hyles devastated me with a sermon called The Fullness of the Holy Spirit. He preached about how the power of Luke 24:47 and Acts 1:8 was for today and was for me. He told stories about men like Wesley, Spurgeon, Whitefield, Evans, Finney, Moody, and others who had counted on and depended on an anointing of the Holy Spirit to do their work and of the miraculous results they had experienced as a result. My heart burned as I listened and hot tears rolled down my face. I felt that I would die if I couldn’t have that power from on high to win souls for Christ. I bought both tapes of the messages before I left that night and over the next several weeks I listened to them scores of times until I literally memorized every word. I got a job at night about 5 miles from the school and I would walk to work and listen to those sermons over and over again and cry and pray and beg God to let me know His power like that. I eventually wore them out to where they wouldn’t play in my walkman cassette player anymore.

I began getting up every morning at 5:00 am and I would run to Doling Park and spend a couple of hours in prayer before going to class. I would walk the campus at night and pray until curfew. Then I would sneak out of my bed and steal down to the laundry room after curfew and pray sometimes all night begging God to use me, to make me a preacher, to let me in on a mighty work, to give me souls for His kingdom. I began to fast for days at a time. I lost a lot of weight (and I didn’t have any to lose back then). I was doing well in school and loving what I was studying but I couldn’t get those stories of Holy Spirit anointing on the preachers of old out of my head. I wanted to be used of God or die. It was a sweet time as I got to know the Lord in a deeper way. I had stumbled across Psalm 63 and it became and remains to this day the prayer of my heart.

 
[quote]Psa. 63:1 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. 3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You. 4 So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. 5 My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips. 6 When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches, 7 For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy. 8 My soul follows hard after You; Your right hand upholds me.[/quote]
 

I have prayed that prayer or a portion of it nearly every day of my life since. It truly expresses the cry of my soul.

I began going to the college bookstore and looking for books that would tell me more about power from on high and being used of God in mighty ways. The first two I found wrecked my world worse than I could have imagined. They were both written by Oswald J. Smith, world renowned pastor and missionary statesman, and they were entitled A Passion For Souls and The Man God Uses. Oh my soul! My eyes are welling up with tears as I try to type the titles. Here is an excerpt from the book A Passion For Souls to give you a taste of what God was searing into my soul,

 
[quote]”But oh, to realize and know that souls, precious, never dying souls are perishing all around us, going out into the blackness of darkness and despair, eternally lost, and yet to feel no anguish, shed no tears, know no travail! How cold our hearts are! How little we know of the compassion of Jesus! And yet God can give us this, and the fault is ours if we do not have it. Who is really travailing in prayer? How many, even of our most spiritual Christian leaders are content to spend a few minutes a day on their knees, and then pride themselves on the time they have given to God! We expect extraordinary results, and extraordinary results are quite possible; signs and wonders will follow, but only through extraordinary efforts in the spiritual realm. Hence, nothing short of continuous, agonizing pleading for souls, hours upon hours, days and nights of prayer, will ever avail.”[/quote]
 

I can’t describe to you how my heart burned to have the anointing of the Spirit and see His power and His glory. I went back and re-read Leonard Ravenhill’s Why Revival Tarries and I saw that the first chapter was With All Thy Getting, Get Unction, unction being another biblical word for Holy Spirit power. How my heart burned as I read,

 
[quote]”Unction cannot be learned, only earned by prayer. Unction is God’s knighthood for the soldier-preacher who has wrestled in prayer and gained the victory. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet; it is won or lost before the preacher’s foot enters the pulpit. Unction is like dynamite.”[/quote]
 

I was so desperate to be used of God. I started a journal to track my progress and keep me accountable to my times with God. I also recorded my impressions from God and many, many specific answers to prayer. Going back and reading those journals today I ache for the young man who wrote those words and at the same time my heart is stirred to regain some of that youthful passion and pursuit of God’s power for His glory.

I had been at Bible college for about 3 months and I was very homesick and so was my roommate whose girlfriend was from my church back home so we devised a plan to leave right after classes on Friday and drive the 850 miles home, see our families, go to church on Sunday morning, leave after church and drive back in time to go to classes on Monday morning and this we did. It was a crazy trip but the life changing thing for me was that while I was home for those 30 hours or so someone handed me a cassette of a sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles entitled Fresh Oil and it was about the anointing of the Holy Spirit for power in ministry. It was like pouring gas on a bonfire. I once again wore this tape out over the next few months.

I have always been grateful that God wouldn’t let me go about this. I am grateful that He created a hunger in me for Him that, though at times of discouragement has sometimes waned, has never never left me. He created a fire in my heart and a radical passion to see His power and glory that has never been quenched.

It wasn’t all reading, fasting, and praying though. I had developed a group of friends who were passionate about Christ and we enjoyed many activities together all centered around church of course. Springfield, Missouri is the world headquarters of my denomination at the time, Baptist Bible Fellowship International, and the world headquarters of The Assemblies of God denomination and there were 4 Christian colleges in this relatively small town so needless to say, there was some kind of Christian concert, revival, Bible conference, Christian film series, etc. going on every week and we enjoyed many of them. Every day we had chapel and the college would bring in a different preacher from around the country and the huge college choir would boom out hymns and it was amazing. I’ll never forget them singing The Solid Rock like every day. It quickly became my favorite hymn. I would sing out at the top of my voice,

 
[quote]”My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”[/quote]
 

After battling Satan and his hordes at Manzano High School for 2 years this seemed like heaven. We were seated for chapel alphabetically by last name and with my last name being Bullen I was seated on the second row of the large auditorium. Every day I would glance up into the choir loft at this pretty redhead that was singing in the alto section. She always caught my eye, not only because she was pretty and a redhead but because I could swear that every time I looked up there she was smiling at me. It was a huge auditorium and even from the second row I couldn’t see her well enough to know for sure. I figured it was probably just my imagination but as it turns out… but that is a story for another post. Aflame for God 7 – The Pretty Redhead

Bill Byrd and I received a great blessing yesterday. We were able to spend an hour and a half at the feet of Omar Garcia, missions pastor at Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy. Omar has lead more than 60 mission trips all over the world. Bill had introduced me to Omar’s blog, Go Beyond: Live Adventurously For God about a year ago and what refreshment and affirmation it has brought us on many occasions. Well yesterday we had the chance to visit with him and what a well of wisdom and insight he is! I wanted to share some of the tidbits that I came away with.

First, he explained his passion for “Go Beyond”

In each of our lives there is a line that marks the farthest we’ve ever been or the most we’ve ever done for God and His purposes. Everything on our side of that line is familiar, convenient, manageable, and comfortable. No big surprises, no daunting challenges, no uncharted territory. Crossing that line requires a commitment to venture to places we’ve never been and the willingness to engage people we’ve never met. Only those with the courage to overcome their fears and who have the determination to persevere will dare to cross that line. All others will keep a safe distance away from it.

We must go beyond — stepping boldly across the line in order to advance the interests of God’s kingdom in our world. I have heard people remark about how they long to be a part of something exciting for the kingdom, only to watch them aggressively avoid the context in which these things happen. We must be willing to place ourselves in a context where we will see God work in and through us in new and exciting ways, in ways we never imagined. We must be willing to spend ourselves for God and His purposes — to work toward the day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

Step across the line and Go Beyond. Adventure awaits!

Omar said that danger, and sacrifice, and hardship are on the other side of that line but the miracles are also on the other side of that line… wonderful thought! Another way that he described it that just fascinates me is this, “When Jesus saw Peter, Andrew, and John on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and said to them, ‘follow Me and I will make you fishers of men’, had they not followed and instead continued their fishing enterprise, it wouldn’t necessarily have meant that they couldn’t have still been supportive of Jesus and believed that He was the Messiah, after all, He only asked 12 to “follow” Him in the way that He was asking them to, BUT if they hadn’t left the shore and followed Him think about what they would have missed out on. The Sea of Galilee was their “comfort zone.” Jesus essentially asked them to leave their boats, nets, and the greatest one day catch of fish their little business had ever seen. (Luke 5:1-11) He was asking them to cross the line and Go Beyond. Think of the things they witnessed and participated in though because of that one decision to leave the shore and follow Him. Theoretically they could have still been good believers and gone to heaven if they had stayed at the Sea of Galilee but they never would have known Jesus intimately and they never would have changed the world. Omar said, “We always have to be examining, ‘has this become my new Sea of Galilee and am I now comfortable here and is Jesus calling me to Go Beyond?'”

Second, Omar talked about the difference between being “missions minded” and being “missional.” You can be missions minded and give to missions and pray for missionaries and not be obeying the great commission. Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world.” Missional is when we take ownership of the great commission and we start ministering to people everywhere we go, here and abroad. He also talked about “peripheral compassion” where as we go through our daily lives we keep our eyes peeled for things happening right next to us that if we are not living missional lives and not realizing that we are to be “Jesus with skin on” we could very easily walk by and not notice but if we have peripheral compassion then we see these things and stop and do something rather than just walk on by.

Third, Omar said something that absolutely brought a battle that has been raging in my soul for the last several years to peace in one moment. It was incredible. He used this example. If you ask a person in the west, “who is the best Christian alive?” most people would say, “Billy Graham,” but if you asked a person in the east the same question they would say, “Mother Teresa.” Omar went on to point out that this illustrates the difference in thinking between the east and west. Billy Graham represents “proclamation” whereas Mother Teresa represents “incarnation.” Then Omar said something that blew my mind. He said, “what we need to do is get Billy Graham and Mother Teresa to the altar and get them married because true Christlikeness must be an equal dose of both proclamation (speaking the gospel) and incarnation (showing the gospel).” Wow! That is the answer! Jesus embodied both and so must we. I was reminded of two of my favorite verses in the Bible relating to Jesus, Acts 10:38 “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Mark 1:38 He (Jesus) said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.”

Fourth, Omar shared with us the difference between ministering “Attractionally” and “Incarnationally.” The modern American church, for the most part, employs the strategy of ministering by attraction. Come and see. Come and hear our special speaker, or partake in our many programs, or attend our concert, etc. (But this model, this strategy is never employed in the scripture. Jesus didn’t rent out a coliseum and sell tickets to come see the Messiah. – my thoughts)

Omar pointed out that the strategy of ministering by incarnation (being Jesus with skin on) earns us the right to speak into people’s lives. When we serve and help and invest in people and the community then the church becomes indispensable to the community. Omar gave the example of the time that Gallery Furniture burned down here and because the owner Mattress Mack has given so much to the community, people were donating and helping and pleading for Mack to rebuild because they couldn’t imagine Houston without Gallery Furniture and yet churches close down every week in Houston and no one is pleading with them to stay, no one is saying, “this community needs you pastor” all because the church has not become such a help to the community that they can’t imagine not having them around. Stunning observation.

Fifth, Ways vs. Works. Omar shared with us another nugget which came from Psalm 103:7 He made known His ways to Moses, His works to the sons of Israel. He pointed out that throughout the story of the Exodus Moses is calm and trusting the Lord because he understood His ways i.e. that God is always working even when we can’t see what He is up to. But the children of Israel were always whining and complaining because they were only looking for His works. Three days after they see Him part the Red Sea and then close it upon the Egyptians they are whining about not having water and blaming Moses for bringing them out there to die. The difference between them and Moses was that Moses understood God’s ways and knew that God had brought them out there and that He would see them through (faith) whereas the Israelites were only surviving from work to work, sign to sign (sight). We must learn the ways of God so that when we don’t see His works immediately we can remain calm and strong and keep moving forward. This reminds me of one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It appears in what we call the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. It is talking about the things that Moses did by faith and in verse 27 it says, By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. If we are going to persevere in missions, ministry, marriage, etc. we must see Him who is invisible. We must know His ways.

There was so much more but I will end with one last thing that was very encouraging. Sixth, he talked about being a “bigger – picture person.” This is someone who keeps the overall view of how all the little tasks, little struggles, and little contributions to God’s kingdom add up by the power of the Holy Spirit to make world changing differences. He talked about how the people who hold the ropes back home are just as critical as the ones climbing down the rope to rescue the lost. Omar recently wrote a blog on this very subject and I hope you will go there and read it. It is profound.

We were so blessed to visit with this soldier of the Lord and we look forward to continuing to glean from God’s working in his life and ministry.

Today I want to highlight a young man who has been a great inspiration to my life in the short time I have known him. Tyler Cox is the kind of young man who raises your hopes in the next generation and in the future of the body of Christ. Tyler is in his early 20’s but he has a passion and a vision beyond his years. Tyler and I have been to Colombia together a few times in the last year and I have been amazed at his heart and devotion. I recently had opportunity to interview Tyler about his missions vision. I will share his answers below and then follow that with an article that he recently wrote that really expresses his heart for Christ and the nations. Enjoy.

Tyler what got you interested in missions?

What got me interested in missions was God calling me to go to Brazil which was my first mission trip. I can’t say that at the time I was interested in missions, but when I got back from Brazil that completely changed my perspective. It never really occurred to me that Christ’s passion was to spread His name to all of the earth, and not just America. I have now been on 5 mission trips since then and planning on going on another 2 over the summer. God completely provides all the funds and He is surely glorified.

What was your first mission trip like?

My first mission trip was Soa Paulo Brazil. It was a street evangelism trip with Restoration Ministries. We went out into the slumbs and proclaimed God’s word to the poor and unloved. It was an incredible experience. I saw a lot of things that I never would have seen in the states. Christ revealed Himself to me in a way that I’ve never seen.

How many countries have you visited?

So far I have been on 5 trips. Once to Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, and twice to Colombia. All brought different challenges and different experiences. I’m very humbled and blessed to be apart of these trips. God’s grace has allowed me to cross paths with many great people. People who love and fear God and long for the lost to get found.

What was your greatest experience on the mission field?

I must say the greatest experience I had was the second time I went to Colombia. Going once to a country is one thing, but going twice is a whole other. We visited different orphanages in Colombia. Well, the best experience (and also one of the most joyful moments of my life) was going back to the orphanages and the kids saying “Tyler Tyler Tyler”. It was awesome. They really do remember you. I fell in love with those kids.

What are your plans for the future?

This summer I plan to go back to Colombia (which is now becoming a second home to me haha) in June, and El Salvador again in August. As for my long term plans? That’s up to God right now. I hope and pray that he uses me for great things that will glorify his name. I do plan on getting some sort of seminary degree. Hopefully I will work for some sort of ministry. But God could lead me anywhere in the next couple years and I will go wherever He tells me to go.

This is an article that Tyler wrote shortly after returning from Colombia in January 2011…

“Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters.”- Samuel Chadwick  

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Shortly after school started in 1983 it was announced that Jerry Johnston was coming to our church to hold a week long city wide crusade. We were beside ourselves with excitement. Usually when Jerry went to a city he would hold LIFE school assemblies in every high school in town to talk about suicide and share his hope in Jesus Christ. We were enthralled that he would be speaking at Manzano High! But as Albuquerque, New Mexico is not in the Bible belt and not used to such things, Jerry was denied entrance into all of the schools in Albuquerque. So Jerry sat down with my brother and me and said very intently, “If I can’t go into the schools, I want you two and your Bible club to bring the schools to me!” We said, “Tell us what to do!” He gave us boxes and boxes of tickets, brochures, and posters and on them were printed Jerry Johnston Ministries presents PIZZA BLAST. Come here about LIFE and get all of the free pizza you can eat. And it gave the date, time, and location. He looked us in the eyes and said, “I want all of these tickets and posters and brochures scattered all over Albuquerque and I want you guys to have 1000 teens here on Friday night!” (This was on the preceding Sunday). We told Jerry, “Don’t worry sir, we will have them here; you can count on us!” We left that meeting excited and scared to death! What had we just said?! We went to school the next morning and sat our Bible club down and said very intently, “If the schools won’t let Jerry come then we need to…” well you get the picture. We started praying, fasting, and talking to everyone about the PIZZA BLAST on Friday night. We gave everyone of the 4000 students in our school at least one ticket that week and we went to other high schools and mingled with the crowds as if we belonged there and handed out tickets. We attended the crusade each night that week and heard Jerry preach which further inflamed us for Christ. We gave Jerry updates of how it was going. It was so exciting. One night after the service we took the posters to several high schools and put them up all over the place. We had prayer meetings late at night. By now you see our parents, friends, teachers, etc. were scared to even question what craziness we were up to. They knew that God was driving us because they could see the fruit and the transformations taking place.

Friday night finally came. We ran the vans to pick people up. When we got to the 2 thousand seat auditorium it was packed out with teens and adults. I could see classmates everywhere and I knew that God had answered ours and Jerry’s prayers. The place was so packed that I had to sit in the aisle at the back which was great because I could see everyone in front of me. When Jerry started to preach I felt a wave of the the Holy Spirit sweep across the room and I knew God was going to do something big for our city and for our school. I also felt a deep burning, churning, warfare type urge to pray. I started praying like I had never prayed before. I started begging God to give us souls for our labors. I prayed so hard that I got physically ill and had to step out for a moment and get some air. My youth pastor came to see if I was ok and I remember saying, “I just want to die if God doesn’t give me souls.” We went back in and I continued to pray. When Jerry gave the invitation, hundreds of people flooded to the altars to receive Christ. It was the greatest thing I had ever seen. I saw some of the worst kids in our school getting saved that night. I was awed by the power of God and His goodness. I can’t remember how many young people from Manzano trusted Christ that night but it was over 100. We were given the decision cards (which had a space for which high school you attended) from all of the students at Manzano that came forward that night and we began to follow up and work at discipleship. We rejoiced with Jerry, our church, and our Bible club that God had done beyond what we had hoped.

We quickly realized that we needed more than Bible club each day and youth group on Sunday to disciple these kids and the rest that were still being saved in the Bible club each day so we started a Monday night teen church and called it Youth On Fire. We met in the gymnasium of our church which was providential because the gym, called the Dennis Elliott Memorial Youth Center, was built in memory of my uncle who was killed by a drunk teenager in 1970. My uncle who was 18 lived across the street from me. He was a sold out Christian young man and my hero. He’s the first person I ever remember telling me about Jesus. He died when I was 5. There were over 1000 people at his funeral and the church built the gym in the hopes that it would help get young people off the street and that is exactly what Youth On Fire was about. We would meet every Monday night from 7:00 – 9:00 pm. The first hour we would play games and have sports and then the second hour we would have worship and preaching. It was an awesome ministry. My brother and I would trade off preaching each week and later when we had some preachers boys rise up out of our group of converts that we were discipling they would alternate preaching with us. We had people saved (adults and teens), we counseled, fed homeless people, had all night prayer meetings, and so on. We were going going going and God was blessing our youthful fire and devotion with growth and great results.

As the school year came to a close I began to think about my future and I began to pray that God would allow me to attend Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. Many of my uncles and cousins had attended there and I wanted to go there so bad. I had a little money from working with my dad in construction but I needed more finances and a way to get there. My brother and I shared a car but I needed to leave it behind so that he could continue Manzano Bible Club and Youth On Fire while I was at college. Not long after I started praying my pastor called me in and told me that some one had decided to anonymously support me $100 a month while I was at BBC. Praise God! I also found out that two teens from our church and a street girl that had been saved there wanted to go also and I could ride to college with them! I’ll never forget how excited I was getting ready to go and what a surreal feeling it was when I hugged and kissed my family goodbye and headed east for Bible College. I didn’t know what the future held but I sensed that it was going to be amazing and I was not mistaken… Aflame For God 6 – God’s Knighthood For The Soldier-Preacher

“Set a fire down in my soul that I can’t contain and I can’t control… I want more of you God.” – Will Reagan and The United Pursuit Band

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Our Bible club was underway and within a couple of months we were filling up the youth ministry at our church with teens who were being saved daily in the halls, classrooms, and library of our high school. Our youth pastor eventually convinced the church to designate two 15-passenger vans with drivers and every Sunday morning we would make the rounds and pick up “our kids” from the Manzano Bible Club. The most we ever brought on one Sunday was 42. It was exhilarating being on God’s team and seeing Him respond in big ways as a result of the simple childlike obedience of a few teens to speak about Jesus to someone everyday… and pray like crazy ☺

It wasn’t long before we were getting invitations to go speak at other churches and ministries about what was happening at Manzano. The first one I remember was especially exciting because it meant traveling with our youth pastor to another city about 200 miles away. We were to share our story at a church called Tabernacle Baptist Church in Roswell, New Mexico. (The amazing providence is that less than 3 years later I would be the youth pastor of this very church and God would launch an amazing ministry there… but that is for another post) On the way there our youth pastor asked us if we knew how to prepare a sermon. I answered, “Sure! You just pick a subject; find every verse in the Bible that relates to that subject, and preach about it.” Brother Rick very patiently agreed that was one way to do it but would we like to learn about using an introduction, 3 point outline, illustrations, and conclusion. We said, “great!” so the rest of the trip he mentored us in sermon preparation and delivery. It was such a blessing! We poured our hearts out and came home rejoicing. We were now itinerant evangelists just like Jerry Johnston! ☺

Not long after this, Dr. Jack Hyles (now in heaven) was preaching a conference at our church and so we took off from school to go. On the way to the conference I stopped and bought my first necktie. (In the picture below) My youth pastor taught me how to tie a single Windsor knot and I was ready for the conference. It was a blast and I remember sitting there with tears running down my face amazed that I was having this much fun at a preaching conference. Wow! Things had sure changed in my heart. There was this longing that can’t be described by words to preach and be used by God to transform the hearts of people the way my heart had been transformed. Dr. Hyles from that moment on would have a dramatic impact on my life and thinking.

Another thing that happened at this conference was I noticed that my brother and I were the only ones at the conference who weren’t wearing suits. Consequently, the next week we had our mom take us to Western Warehouse (we were still cowboys after all) and we each purchased a three-piece western cut suit. We polished up our cowboy boots and we were ready to join the preaching circuit. ☺ I have rarely felt as exhilarated as I was the first Sunday I walked into church with that new suit on. I can still smell the wool.
 

Not long after, my pastor, Dr. Curtis Goldman (now in heaven) asked me to preach for him on New Years Eve 1982. I couldn’t believe it! Our church of 1000 people was huge to me and I was so excited and scared at the same time. I prayed and fasted and studied for days and felt the Lord leading me to challenge the congregation with the fact that Jesus had said, “If the world hated me it will hate you.” As I looked at the church and the Christians around me and as I read and studied the Bible, the largest dichotomy that I had observed was that the Christians I knew, for the most part, were not turning the world upside down and were not being persecuted for it. The Sunday came and I stepped into the pulpit and experienced something for the first time that I have enjoyed many times since and came later to understand as the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I preached my heart out on The Persecution of the Righteous (actually audio HERE) and explained to the people that a direct indicator of whether they were following Jesus or not was the amount of or lack of persecution taking place in there lives. I shared passages such as

 
[quote]Luke 6:22 – 26 22 “Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. 23 “Be glad in that day and leap [for joy], for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets. 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. 25 “Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe [to you] who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. 26 “Woe [to you] when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.”[/quote]

I challenged them to look at their lives and ask themselves the question, “Does the world hate me?”
 
[quote]John 15:19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”[/quote]

I was surprised at how many people came to me after the message and said that they were really challenged to look at their lives. Praise God! I was equally surprised at the number of people, whom I looked up to, who came to me and warned me to be careful of taking my newfound faith too seriously. I was satisfied in my spirit that I had spoken the truth in love and I trusted God to give the increase.

 

I spent the rest of that school year building the Manzano Bible Club, preaching where and when I could, and reading and studying and listening to sermons like a madman. Some of the books that touched me deeply early on were Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, Why Revival Tarries, Sodom Had No Bible, both by Leonard Ravenhill, God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew, Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray, and biographies of George Mueller, Adoniram Judson, and William Carey. These books painted for me a radical Christianity that I didn’t see around me and I longed for it. As David said in Psalm 63 I thirsted for it as in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. As I tried to live what I read in the scripture and these books the persecution at home, school, and church was intense at times. I continually discovered though that the overwhelming joy of following what the Bible said over what man said and the joy of seeing God’s fingerprints all over our ministry as a result overcame all discouragement. The school year ended and I spent the summer working in construction with my dad.

 

That summer, July of 1983, I also returned to Singing Hills Youth Camp and once again Jerry Johnston was there but this time he was aware of our ministry and we were able to spend some awesome time with him and at the end of the camp he invited us to come on stage with him and share our testimony of what God had done the previous year! It was heady stuff getting to speak on stage with the man whom God had used to lead us to Him. He was also going to be speaking the next week at the camp and he invited us to come back and share our testimony then also. As it so happened, our uncle’s church from Dodge City Kansas was going to be there and our cousin was the youth pastor. Their hearing our testimony lit a fire in their teenagers to go back to Kansas and turn their world upside down for God. Little did I know that less than 4 years later I would be a youth evangelist and would be holding a week long revival in that Dodge City church. But that is a story for another post. We went back to Manzano that next year even more on fire than before and I will share about that in Aflame For God 5 – Youth on Fire.

 

Todo gloria a ti Dios! All the glory to you God. This entire trip has vastly exceeded our wildest expectations and today was the crowning glory. I will attempt to share how awesome our God was today but as you know He defies words. Several weeks ago our brother and fellow board member Shoby had lunch with a Colombian man, Jair, who is in ministry in Houston and the Lord really knitted their spirits together. When Jair found out we were coming to Colombia he sent Bill Byrd the name of his former pastor and his wife here in Bogota. We connected with the wife, Lilliana on Facebook and they were very excited to meet us and invited us to their church today. When we called Lilliana yesterday she said, “Oh, I have been praying and praying that you would come!” They started this church 10 months ago and it is thriving. It is called Comunidad Cristiana Fundamentos. Three of the Goddaughters were able to come with us and so we arrived at this church about 10:00 am. Other than Lilliana, Jair’s friend, whom we had spoken to on Facebook, we knew no one there or so we thought. How wonderful for God to surprise us again because as we walked in we saw several of our dear friends from Fundacion Nuevo Mundo! We hugged and then met Lilliana and her husband Pastor Hector and many new friends there at the church. It was beautiful. There were even a couple of our young friends from the safe house that always visit on our mission trips. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked over this beautiful congregation of Colombian believers whose faces were beaming because they were so excited that the Americanos had come to worship with them today. Shortly after we walked in I got another surprise. Pastors Hector and Lilliana asked me if I had come prepared to preach the word today. At first I thought they meant a small testimony about Orphan Hope so I said, “Sure, how much time do you want me to share” To my great surprise and joy they said, “Oh, 30 or 45 minutes would be fine.” I immediately thought, “I wish I had brought some sermon notes.” Then I looked down and saw my laptop bag in my hand and laughed at myself because I have all of my sermons on my computer. Praise God! Be ready in season and out of season… I quickly shot a text to everyone in my family at home and said, “Pray for me, I’m about to preach on the waterfall of grace in a church in Colombia!” Then I turned to my dear brother Luis and said, “Are you ready to preach with me?” And like he always does he said, “I got your back brother!” Whoo hoo! We gathered for worship and the pastors daughter led worship with her guitar and it was so anointed I started weeping and I thought, “Lord, how am I going to preach if I’m crying like this?” It was indescribable worshipping with these believers. The songs we knew but they were in Spanish but they had the words up on the wall so we were able to sing along fairly well. There was reading of scripture, and exhortation and then it was my turn. Luis and I stepped up and began to share about the amazing grace of God. The Holy Spirit helped us greatly and there were amens, and applause, and tears, and raised hands and it was a blessed time as we shared a Cascada de Gracia or Waterfall of Grace. You can click on the title to hear the sermon. I shared my testimony and then told about my 8 trips to Colombia and of our vision for the nations. Luis did a tremendous job translating for me and then also gave his testimony of standing on the stage at our Share the Hope event in December and looking out at 340 Texans who were gathered to help the orphans of his country and how that moved him and touched him. The people were very moved by his story. After a few people gave testimonies about the message. One lady stood weeping and told us that she had been orphaned at 7 years old and that she was so grateful for what we were doing for the orphans in Colombia and she wanted to help. Another lady was crying because she had her son taken away three years ago and now she has given her life to the Lord and been transformed and she is working to get her son back. She said she wants to help. A man stood who is one of our friends from the orphanage and told how wonderful the work we do is and how the children wait out the months until we return again and how happy we make them. Then a lady came forward with a little boy in her arms that suffers from hip displacement and asked Luis and I to pray for his healing. We laid hands on him and prayed. Then the most amazing thing happened. Our friend from Nuevo Mundo stood and she was weeping and she looked straight at me and said, “I want to praise God for Matt’s heart and for the vision that this ministry has for Colombia. 16 years ago when I was a new believer I heard a foreign preacher in a conference say, ‘I believe that God is drawing people form around the world to Colombia because it is going to be His headquarters for reaching the rest of Latin America. I believe there is a great revival coming to Colombia.'” and then she continued, “I have been praying for 16 years for that revival and I believe that you are the answer to my prayers.” I looked over at Dave and Gail Beach because it was almost word for word what we had said to each other before coming on the trip and it was almost word for word with what Ed said to us on the plane on the way down. Dave’s face was bright red and he looked at me and I looked at him knowing that the hair was standing up on the back of his neck like it was on mine. Bill was smiling from ear to ear. I looked over at Luis and he just shook his head and smiled. We then spent some time hugging and kissing everyone in the room (which is Colombian custom) and then getting photos with everyone. It was over the top blessed. We sat down with Pastor Hector and Lilliana and talked about the future. Amazingly enough, he is also a psychologist who works in an orphanage and she is an educator. They offered their help and time and they want to come on the mission trip in June. It is unbelievable how precious these people and their two daughters that we met are. They will be great assets in our ministry. As we broke up our meeting with them we made plans to bring our whole team to their church on June 19, 2011 and invite some other local Christians that we know here in Bogota and bring in lunch and have a wonderful day of it with God’s people here. They were very excited and asked me to preach again when we come. I agreed but we told them that we also want to hear Pastor Hector as well so we agreed to split our time and both bring a message that day! I can hardly wait! Praise God! The next personal blessing was as we were walking out Luis called me over and introduced me to Sophia. She shared that she is a linguist and a translator for the Colombian army. Today was her first time at the church and she called it a miracle that she was even there. She told me that she started weeping when I prayed before my sermon and didn’t stop until the end. She said that when I prayed for the Holy Spirit to anoint my lips and their ears that she felt the presence of God surround her. Then she said something that was very touching for me personally. She said that the part of my sermon about multi-generational discipleship and the fact that one family can change the world really impacted her because she believes that the revival that is coming to Colombia as shared in the prophecy by the other lady must begin in the family and she was glad that I told about my family because God has prepared me to heal the families of Colombia. Wow!! What a service!

What sweeter way to start the day than having a group of orphan girls come bouncing into the hotel just as we were finishing breakfast? We shared hugs and kisses all the way around and then pulled out the gifts that we and others had sent for the girls. It is a joy unspeakable every time we are in the presence of these sweet little forgotten lambs. I was touched beyond words when my sweet Goddaughter Ginary, who just spent 3 weeks with my family in December, squeezed me tight and said, “I love you” in English. No success, money, position, rank, or earthly treasure can compete with the joy these children bring me and the rest of our team each time we are here. They were delighted with their gifts and we shared some catching up stories and then it was time to head out to our first meeting with the girls in tow.

We had received word that there was a safe house (there are only 3 or 4 in all of Bogota) that we hadn’t heard of or visited before and so we headed out to find it and see if we could tour it and find out how they run their home. We pulled up to the nondescript brick building tucked in a row of similar buildings along this street. We rang the bell and to our utter surprise and amazement our sweet friend Lilliana opened the door. She was as shocked to see us as were to see her. What a sweet little providence that in a city of 8,000,000 people, we go to a strange house and our friend answers the door. Lilliana used to work at the girls orphanage in Madrid that we always visit on our mission trips. She was a big help to two of the girls that are or will be adopted soon. Anyhow, unbeknownst to us, Lilliana had began working at this new safe house 4 months ago because it was much closer to her home. She gave us a tour of the home and shared with us many important pieces of information that go together like a giant puzzle with the other things we have been learning this week. We really admired their model and many of their strategies. It was a very profitable meeting. They also have orphanages as well and she begged us to bring our team to their orphanages the next time we come.

We took the girls to lunch and then to the park for a relaxing afternoon of horseplay, and hugs, and jokes, and some testimony. It never ceases to amaze me at the transformation in these children just because we have reached out as the hands of Jesus to love them and share with them our passion for God. My own Goddaughter Ginary has become a secure, content, and hopeful young woman since my family met her and made her a part of our long distance family 2 years ago. Ginary grew up in the dump rummaging for scraps. Consequently, when I met this beautiful girl she was completely illiterate. Because she was excited to have a Godfather and wanted so bad to be able to communicate with me she finally agreed at the age of 15 to start school and learn to read and write. Now she is well on her way and very motivated. She told me today that she can’t be with me tomorrow morning because she has school but she will come after lunch when school lets out and spend the afternoon with me. Wow! Such a change in a short period of time. The love of God demonstrated through His children is a very powerful agent of hope and change. Praise God.

Luis Escobar’s dad lives 1/2 the year in Bogota and the other 1/2 in Florida and he was in town today so Luis invited him to join our merry band for dinner. We had a marvelous time and it was really sweet to watch Luis’ dad enjoy the girls and perhaps catch a little of the vision of what his son is trying to do for the children of Colombia. He ended up buying our dinner and assured us that we would see him again. What a blessing!

It was a wonderful day and we came back to my room for some strategy and prayer and then off to bed. Thank you all who are supporting us in so many ways. We love you all.

Another wonderful day today in the presence of the Lord and some of His choice soldiers. We started out the day with a meeting at the national headquarters of ICBF. We met with the head of adoptions for the nation of Colombia and her assistant for 2 1/2 hours regarding our upcoming Texas Vacation Program. We obtained the answers to many of our questions and learned many new things about the vacation and adoption processes in Colombia. Some amazing statistics came through today that play right into everything Orphan Hope is working on. There are 27,000 adoptable orphans in Colombia between the ages of 8 and 15. The shocking thing is that this represents only about 20% of the total number of children in orphanages in Colombia and that larger number only represents the small portion of orphans who are in orphanages. No one knows the number of orphans living on the streets and in the sewers. Children On The Brink estimated the total to be 577,000 in 2005 but the people we have talked to here say that it is in the millions. This is why we must continue to bring mission trips here and have vacation programs and facilitate adoptions. And here is the reason we must have safe houses once the children age out of the orphanages at 18. Every year in Colombia 5000 children age out, 800 a year in Bogota alone. 15% of these kids will commit suicide within two years and another 60% will end up in prostitution or prison. This is why we are here. We must work and push and pray to help these beautiful children to find Jesus and have a life in His grace. We cannot look the other way and pretend that it is someone else’s problem. God has clearly called and equipped us to turn this country upside down for Him and we must obey.

We had a marvelous meeting and they were very complimentary of our vacation program last December and the adoptions and Padrinos that came out of it. They said that the older girls who couldn’t be adopted came back on fire for education and felt like they were not alone in the world! Then they said something that we kind of knew but it stunned us to hear them say it. They said, “You know, before you guys started coming Colombia’s Padrino program was solely internal in this country. Then you Texans started coming down and becoming Padrinos and then you helped us develop a program so that we had a defined, national Padrino program, and now we are taking that program to other agencies and other countries from what you guys started here.” We were stunned. God took some ordinary guys and gals over the last 4 years who came to Colombia and fell in love with some kids and wanted to have a way to take them out of the orphanage and spend family time with them and were committed to coming again and again and used them to change the program of an entire nation and develop something that will impact hundreds of children in the next few years. Who says ordinary people can’t change the world?

We left there giddy with what God is doing for us at national government levels and went to have lunch with 2 dear brothers from Fundacion Nuevo Mundo that we partner with here and we spent the whole afternoon learning from him about safe houses and orphanages and Jesus and spiritual warfare and facts and figures. It was amazing! We strategized about how we can work together in Bogota to impact more children. It was over the top anointed and we left there with a greater sense of urgency and surety that we were on the right path and working with the right people. We left there giddy with the possibilities and rejoicing at the people and counsel and help and resources that God continues to send us as we take one step of faith at a time. On the way to the restaurant for our dinner meeting we babbled about multiple safe houses and short, mid, and long term missionaries and interns and bringing radical sold out for Jesus college kids down to work in the streets and alliances with Christian ministries and Tres Dias Colombia and how it would be our training for servant leaders and on and on. “I AM the Lord! Is there anything to hard for me?” Dream Center Bogota anyone? 🙂

At our dinner meeting we met with the directors of two orphanages and our in country team and just had a wonderful time of fellowship and fun. We talked about old times and dreamed about the future and God just strengthened these relationships all around. It was a blessed time.

We came back to the hotel beat but blessed beyond words. We all gathered up in Luis and my room for prayer and some more dream building and strategizing and then drifted of to bed. God is doing this, it is huge, and we are tremendously blessed to be a part. Thank you all for your love and prayers.

We all said, “What a miraculous 48 hours this has been and we have 48 more hours to go! Tomorrow we go to visit a new safe house and learn from them and then we are having lunch with the Goddaughters!!! and spending the rest of the day with them. Sunday we have several ministries to meet with and the Goddaughters will be with us all day. Praise God.