Aflame For God 13 – A Path To Our Door

“We who want to witness to the presence of God’s Spirit in the world need to tend the fire within with utmost care… Our first and foremost task is faithfully to care for the inward fire so that when it is really needed it can offer warmth and light to lost travelers.” – Henri J. M. Nouwen

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Though in our hearts we had given up on being “in the ministry” during this period as I worked and Lisa homeschooled our children, God in His goodness began to bring people to our door on a regular basis who were hurting, needed counseling, wanted to be saved, or needed a meal. We quickly began to realize the kingdom of God was much bigger than any institutional church, denomination, or organized ministry. Just when we thought we were “out of the ministry”, real, miraculous, ministry began to happen all around us. Every week our little apartment was full of families that needed discipleship, the lost who needed to be found, teenagers seeking God, and folks that just needed a friend. We began to realize that God could bring the whole world to our dinner table if we were prepared, prayed up, and ready to meet their needs through Jesus. That aspect of our ministry has never left us. Over the years literally thousands have sat at our dinner table and been ministered to. Many people in ministry and serving God in local churches around the world today were saved, encouraged, or counseled in our home. Praise the Lord!

One story in particular still amazes me when I think of those days. I had moved up to being a commercial construction superintendent for a major company in Albuquerque, New Mexico and I had a young foreman named Jeno. As was my habit, I had spied Jeno among my laborers as having leadership potential and I made him my foreman. I took him under my wing and began teaching him to be a future superintendent. Over the years I had done this many times and almost always the mutual respect and affection that grew between us eventually allowed me to share Jesus with these different foremen. I’ll never forget the day that as we were inspecting a trench that was ready for concrete, Jeno asked me what made me different, what made me so loving. I told him my story of how I came to Christ and my passion for following Jesus and right there in that trench Jeno asked me to help him get saved. We prayed right there and then. I went home and told Lisa the exciting news and we prayed for Jeno that night. I was shocked the next morning as Jeno came bounding up glowing and telling me that he had gone home that night and shared with his wife word for word as best as he could remember everything I had told him and that she had given her heart to Jesus as well. I was stunned and thrilled. Jeno and his wife started going to church and before long he was promoted in the company and I didn’t see him on a daily basis as I had before. One night about a year later Jeno called me excited out of his mind. He asked me to get Lisa on the phone and he put his wife on the phone so the four of us could hear. Then Jeno informed me that he and his wife had decided to both quit their jobs and they were leaving the next morning with a Uhaul to head to Bible college and begin their life of ministry together and they wanted to thank us for leading them to Jesus and inspiring them to serve God with their whole life. You are amazing God… Simply amazing…

Another wonderful thing was taking place in our home as we ministered to these myriad of people week in and week out. Our children were observing and listening and learning to serve. When they were a little older we taught them to cook and clean and serve and babysit the small children of the families that came through our door knowing this would give mom and dad more “ministry time” with the parents. Our children took this on as part of their work to impact the kingdom and that servant’s heart is characteristic of them to this day. Little did we realize how God would someday impact the world through the families that he brought to our door and through our children who watched and learned and served.

We continued to struggle as I worked to climb the commercial construction ladder and Lisa poured herself into teaching and training the children. At one point things got so crazy that we were homeless for a little while and we stayed in a pay by the week motel room with 5 children and only two beds in the same room. But we always made it fun. We pretended that we were on a secret mission and we had to keep on the move. The children knew it was all in fun but it was so much better than worrying about our conditions. Eventually, in the summer of 1999 we were blessed through a series of miracles and very hard work to buy 4 acres of land in a beautiful valley in the mountains east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. We camped on the land one whole summer clearing trees and putting in the septic system and pouring footings and that fall we put a big extra double wide mobile home on the land and moved in. It was our first real home after 15 years of marriage. Our oldest was 14 and our youngest was 7. We absolutely loved it! But very soon we realized that we as a family had grown quite accustomed to hospitality and the ministry that regularly happened in our home and now we lived at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere and we were very lonely. It wasn’t long however before God heard our hearts yearning and began once again to beat a path to our door. One day our closest neighbor came by and invited us to a little church in the mountains about 5 miles away called Forest Meadow Baptist Church. We gladly took him up on the invitation not realizing that some of the dearest friends of our lifetime awaited us there as well as a pastor whose one visit to our home a few weeks later would change our lives forever. Aflame For God 14 – Exporting The Blessing