RESCUES #123-127 Candace Achia, baby Chloe Lokawa, Andrew Ichomar Lokawa and Gideon Kiyong.

On December 16, 2021 about 9:00pm, raiders came to Loyakaromoe village. In the conflict, Hellen Nakiru, who was large with child was shot and killed leaving 5 orphans 2-years-old to 13-years-old.

Their teenage uncle has been trying desperately to take care of Anyakun, Achia, Kiyong, Ichurar, and Ilakawa and today the 4 younger ones made it to Mission Moroto and are clothed and eating a sugar cane snack.

They are now home at Mission Moroto praise the Lord. We are praying for more sponsors for these precious children.

READ HERE ABOUT SPONSORSHIPS

RESCUE #122 Welcome Mark Meveku!

He and his brother John Matao recently lost their single mother. She was working in the mines nearby and was killed in a collapse.

They are now home at Mission Moroto praise the Lord. We are praying for more sponsors for these precious children.

READ HERE ABOUT SPONSORSHIPS

RESCUE #121 Welcome John Matao!

He and his little brother Mark Meveku recently lost their single mother. She was working in the mines nearby and was killed in a collapse.

They are home at Mission Moroto now praise the Lord. We are praying for more sponsors for these precious children.

READ HERE ABOUT SPONSORSHIPS

I am Longoli Joseph. Before I came to Mission Moroto I was a boy shepherd. Our family had 4 children of which I am third born. The fourth born after me died of disease.

One day the raiders came to our corral and stole our animals. They also shot down our mother and we buried her.

Our grandfather took the 3 of us to the bush and in the bush we started trapping wild animals for survival.

When I grew to the age of 9 years my uncle came and took me to his home to take care of his baby. I stayed there 2 years and then was chased from the home by my uncle’s wife because of my uncle’s beatings.

Then my married sister took care of me. One day my father visited us and told me to go to Pastor Noah and Simon for help. I came and they asked me my name and when I told them they said that their head boy is also called Longoli Joseph. That was 2015.

First, I want to thank all the Mission Moroto members for what they are doing for it is not their will but God’s will. I want to thank all the Mission Moroto members very very much for what you have done for my life. Thank you for all the teaching and for the gospel. May God bless you as you continue ahead. Amen.

Love Longoli Joseph

Hello our donors from America. I am Lopirin Emmanuel. How are you?

When I was little my father died and we remained as 3 in the house.

My mother took me to boarding school but couldn’t pay the fees so I went to graze animals. So I was a boy shepherd and grazed animals for two months and then Pastor Ewaru Noah and Simon got me.

I thank God for what He has done for me. May God bless all our donors. Thank you our Donors.

Thank you, Lopirin Emmanuel

I am Joseph Lopeyok.

Our family, we are blessed with three children. I am third born.

As I began to grow I started making charcoal for the survival of the family.

In addition to that I started the life of being a shepherd boy looking for animals which is common for boys in Karamoja. I started school at Nawanatau Primary School in Moroto direction from P.1 to P.3.

In 2018 I went to Pastor Noah’s place to meet and I asked for his help and he told me to water his plants every morning and evening for two weeks and then he told me to come to his home in town on Monday and the next day he took me to Mission Moroto and helped me and introduced me to the organization and included me with the boys being helped there.

I joined Rupa Primary School where the rest of the boys were studying. A month later, I heard that Bill our founder had died. I and the other boys were very sad but we kept on praying to God because we thought no one would help us now that Bill had died. We kept praying and then God sent us Rebekah and all of you to help us and that is my life.

God bless you and Pastor Matt and Mum Lisa, Lopeyok Joseph

I am Paul Maruk. Our family is blessed with three children. I am second born.

As I grew I began making charcoal for the survival of the family. Later, I joined Archer Primary School for the first half of the first term. I went back to be a boy shepherd herding animals for one year.

Then I went back to the village and spent my time just looking for something to eat because life was very difficult. After that I went back to school my mother died and life was again very difficult.

Then Pastor Noah helped us and built us a semi-permanent house for us to live in. Then Noah brought me to his home in town. Then I stayed in town with Pastor Noah for one year and then he brought me to Mission Moroto in 2016.

At Mission Moroto I was helped as one of the boys being helped there and I joined school and am continuing my studies.

Thank you, Maruk Paul

I am Lokol John.

In our family, we are blessed with four children. I am third born.

As I began to grow I started the activity of mining gold near our village as a servant of the family.

In addition to that I started the life of being a shepherd boy looking for animals for one year.

When I started at Rupa Primary School, I was able to only attend for the first term. Because of poverty in the family, I had to drop out.

I started giving all my time to just looking for something to eat because hunger had grown in our family. That made my life and my education difficult.

My village was near Bill’s (Mission Moroto’s late founder) church so I started coming for prayer on Sundays and I joined as a member of the choir for Sunday School.

One day in 2016 I asked Pastor Noah for help and he told me to come to Mission Moroto. I was helped and was included as one of the boys. I helped to go back to school and finish my studies.

Thank you, Lokol John

My name is Loyep Daniel. (Pastor Matt calls me “Daniel the Giant” because I am taller than him.)

This is how I got to Mission Moroto (formerly MIPP Homes)

I was taken from the street. My mother chased us three boys from our home because we had no food.

Now Mama Rebekah feeds me and also Papa Noah.

We suffered so in the street but now our sponsors support us as the children of God.

May God bless your support.

Thank you, Loyep Daniel

I am Walter Thomas Lokwii

First and foremost I was a boy shepherd.

The story from my mother is that in 2005 my father died. I continued life with my mother and eldest brother.

In 2014 I joined P.1 at Nadunget Primary School.

In 2015 my mother also died when I was in P.2 and my brother and I remained alone.

In 2019 my grandfather talked to Pastor Noah about me and I was able to join Mission Moroto in 2020. It used to be called Mission Prayer and Praise Home. They took me to study at Rupa Primary School in P.6 but due to the inconvenience of corona virus we cannot attend right now.

Thank you, Lokwii Walter Thomas

I am Teko Angel Gabriel and here are some of the unbelievable ways I entered to Mission Moroto

When I came here I had a friend and I was a shepherd boy and I decided to come to Pastor Noah because I had no one to care for me.

I had once attended school but because of lack of money I failed to finish my studies. My parents were making charcoal to survive.

I praised God because he led me to this place and I am now able to go back to school again. I thank God because He brought me here and I know He has a reason for bringing me here.

Thank you! May Almighty God bless all of our donors from America for supporting us. Thank you!

Love, Teko Angel Gabriel

Dear donors and sponsors, I am Raphael Atol and I send you greetings to the United States and may God bless you all. Here is my story since my birth.

I was two days old when the raiders came and killed my father. My mother was in the house breastfeeding me so we survived. When I was two-years-old my eye became infected and my mother couldn’t find medicine for it. I wanted to die. I lost my eye. She took me to the hospital and I became ok.

My mother would go to the mountains and get firewood to sell to support me. One day she ran into the raiders and was killed. When I was 14-years-old I went to boarding school. I started primary 1 and went through primary 7. My mother died when I was in primary 5 so I had no one to support me with the requirements. Then our donors came and I am now in 8.1 at Nadunget Secondary School. I thank God that he directed our donors from USA and help us in Uganda. We are very happy now in Karamoja. I love being one of the choir directors for the Mission Moroto children’s choir.

When I was two days old I lost my father. I never saw his face. I grew up without a father but now God has become my Father and I have entrusted my life to Him. I thank the people of USA AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL OF THEM AMEN!

Love, Raphael Atol

I am Angel Gabriel Ilukol from Kaabong District. The story from my mother is that when she was pregnant with me there was no sign of pregnancy. Her stomach was perfectly flat unlike my brothers and sisters when her stomach was very big.

She felt sick and was admitted to the hospital. She grew thin and when the nurses were massaging her stomach they said she had a stomach disease. Later, they realized she was pregnant and they told her that she was going to die or the baby was going to die. By God’s grace I was born and we both lived.

Later, as I grew I felt sick and was admitted to the hospital. My body didn’t have enough blood. They went to all my family but my body rejected all of their blood.The brother of my father was also admitted to the hospital and sacrificed his blood for me. It was a match and I was healed.

Thereafter at home we went to collect Tamarind fruit. I would climb up to the very tips and get the fruit. I was sitting on the highest branch and there was a large stone below and I fell. I was saved by God. Two weeks later, we walked 4 kilometers to a river to fetch water. We were attracted to a fig tree full of fruit down by a pool in the river. 5 of us went down to get the fruit. I climbed up into the tree and began throwing down fruit. Suddenly, a crocodile came up from the pool and shook the tree and I fell but I caught my self on the lowest branch by my right hand. The tree was shaking and I was growing tired of holding on. The water was boiling and went from white to green and then the tree stopped shaking and I was able to grab on with my legs and jump to the river bank.

Thereafter, they took me to herd goats but my heart wasn’t happy as I saw others going to boarding school. I forced myself to go to boarding school and my eldest brother hated me for it and told me not to come back home. It was 2008 when I joined school. The teachers loved me as I was working hard to please them. Even holidays the teachers traded taking me home to stay at their house. I finished my secondary school in 2014 and managed to get 19 aggregates Div II.

I felt again sick with a disease I don’t know what up to now. I kept coughing up blood and was admitted to the hospital and I got healed. A certain soldier wanted to sponsor me but my father refused. He said he already had a sponsor for me from Moroto. I came to Moroto in 2015 and my new sponsor was a white lady named Gabby. She disappeared with my paperwork. I sat at home for 2 years. In 2016 I met Pastor Noah and he told me to come to Rupa. I came and got to meet Bill (now in heaven). Bill was sick so he couldn’t take me in. Noah and Simon told me to go work that land at home and they would work on a way forward for me. In 2017 Noah told me to go join Joseph Longoli and John in school at primary 7 where I managed to get 16 aggregates. Then we joined Nadunget Senior Secondary School in 2018 up to now. That’s why I give thanks and glory to God for the wonderful life He has given me and delivered me from all those former troubles. Thank you, Angel Gabriel Ilukol.

Hi pastor Matt, here is my story about my life – By John Sugar Lochugae

Our family is bless with ten children and I am the third born. I was not born at exactly time of 9 month as is normal for women, but mine was unexpected at around 7 to 8 months. l grew up not someone very strong. When I was 5yrs, l was introduced to the life of being Shepherd looking after the animals which was a must for every Karamoja boy to do. l did that for 3yrs. When I reach 9yrs, my dad took me to school which l really wanted in my life. l joined Rupa primary school near our village. l studied in that from grade 1 to grade 3, and l was influenced by my friend to join KDA primary school in town, we move from village to school for about 8km. l studied in that school 2011, and in 2012 l went to next class, as we’re studying.

Unfortunately one day, during break first time in school we had a play of score game. We were using stones as goal poles but during the play it happens that they came toward our goal and I wanted to defend the goal. I missed to kick the ball and I fell down badly on stone goal poles on my back. I got up in great pain but I didn’t know that I was injured badly. My hip bone was about to come out of its position. We went back to class and when we came out from class, the pain was increasing from my leg. I started limping when walking. My friend saw me limping and ask me what happened to me. I explained to him. He told me that if it worsened to go back home. The next morning pain was worse, so l when back to the village. l walked for 8km from morning to sun set which increased the pain more. When I reached home, my dad asked me what happened to me from school. I explain to him. The next morning I couldn’t move or walk any more. I just lie in the hut house all day with too much pain in my leg. Because of the poverty that we had in the family, my parents couldn’t afford transport for transporting me to the hospital. Instead, they used a wheel barrow for transporting me to the nearby health center which was about 5km from the village. This also increased the hip bone coming out of joint. On reaching the health center, the nurse attempted to treat me but they couldn’t manage. They transferred me to Moroto Hospital. On reaching there l was admitted. A lot of diseases attacked my body. l started diarrhea. I was feeling pain in my side and my head that made me not want to eat any solid food or even water. It was difficult to take. I developed skin rush. The hip bone was totally out of it position, pain was excruciating. My body grew thin. I went into a comma. No one believed that I will live. My grandma visited me in hospital all she could say was, “If he dies, bring him home. My mother also couldn’t believe I would live. My friends also couldn’t believe. All they could do is to cry when they saw me on the bed. My father could just monitor or check on my heart and eye when I am sleeping. I suffered for three weeks in that condition. When the Sisters of Charity, who use to visit the sick from hospital, saw me lying on the bed, they were surprised to see me. They help me and took me to Matanya Hospital, but even in Matanya Hospital the nurses wouldn’t believe that I was alive. I was treated from Matanya on the diseases in my body but they couldn’t manage to work on my hip bone. I became well but l used crutches or supporters for walking. The doctor told us that I needed big work on my injury, but because of poverty, we had no money for going to big hospital. I was discharged and we came back to Sisters of Charity. We explained to them what they had said, they said that they can’t help us any more, and they took us back to the village. So when I reached the village everybody was surprised to see me. Those who saw me in the hospital and my condition couldn’t believe that it was me. Those who were unaware of my injury would see me on supporters walking and all l could say to them was that I am alive although this happened to me. So I took a year with someone helping me.

after me spending one year in the village without support, my grandmother got connected with other older woman who use to go and pray at Bill’s church at Mission Moroto. My grandmother also joined and attended every Sunday they could go. So one day my grandmother ask me to go with her for prayer at Bill’s church on Sunday. So I agreed on Sunday 2013 February. I went with my grandmother to Bill’s church. We walked about 3km, when we reached the church, Bill came with his boys he lives with, we had prayer. After the service, my grandmother ask Bill with support from pastor Noah to help me. We explained about how I got the injury, my situation, and they told us to come the next Sunday so we went back to the village. The next Sunday, we came for prayers, we had prayer then after the service Bill called us and told us that God had told him to help the boy that was me, my grandmother became so happy and me too. That was the first happiness in my life and it was great news and a smile lit up my face. So Bill took me to his home in town. The next day he took me to Corsu hospital in Entebbe Kampala. I had my first surgery for the replacement for hip bone, but the doctor received the hip bone when it had spoiled and was infected because I declared for one year. So the doctor decided to remove it, so Bill flew back to USA immediately. l was admitted at hospital and spent three weeks then was discharged. I came back home to Bill’s place and stayed there. I started walking without supporters or crutches but I was limping because my left leg was 7cm shorter than the other that makes it difficult in walking. I joined Moroto Municipal Primary School where the rest of the boys were studying in 2013 for grade 3. In around December 2013, Bill came back from USA. He saw the way I was walking and one day Bill ask me that do you want your legs to be the same level as normal? Then I say yes, so he took me back to Corsu hospital for the lengthening of about 7cm from my leg that the second surgery. It made my leg straight that I couldn’t bend it for almost one year, when I was on my treatment. Bill felt sick and he went back to USA for two months and he came back home to live with us. One day, I saw Bill reading a Bible. I thought it was just a book. I went near him and he had me sit down. He explained to me more about Jesus, God, Bible, believing in God, God’s goodness in my life, he even told me that God is the one who told him to help me, so he gave me a Bible he wrote on it, “John this Bible will keep you away from sins or sins will keep you away from the Bible. That night l went to my bed l remembered all the situation l went through and l thanks God for saving my life. I started growing with the word of God in school, home, teaching other boys. I stayed with Bill after the second surgery. I started walking without crushes but my knee was not bending. I was left with one more needed surgery which has not been done to this day. Again Bill felt sick badly, and we kept on praying. He went back to USA in 2016. We stayed with pastor Noah for three years when Bill was sick in USA. We prayed so hard with the boys for Bill’s life but in 2019, Bill died. I thought there no more life for me until Rebekah came to help us. I was naturally gifted with talents of running, playing soccer games, jumping, but I got injured at earliest age of 10yrs so it has spoiled it all. But we are back alive with Rebekah here and you too. Your love, help, kindness… We love you. Please share with the rest of the people my story, thanks, God bless you

Love John Sugar Lochugae

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”

– Ferdinand Foch

Read the beginning of the series HERE

When I awoke in that hospital bed in the ICU on May 4th, 2017 and began to understand how broken my body was and that I was nearly blind, one of the first things that came to my mind was, “Well Lord, I may not be able to preach ever again or go to the nations like I’m used to but I can still pray.” I lifted my right hand to my forehead in a salute and said out loud, “Yes Sir, Captain.” There was a great contentment in me at that moment but I couldn’t have known about the grand smile that must have spread across His Fatherly face at that moment because He knew that in 2018 I would set a personal record and preach on 4 continents in one year. How GOOD our God is and how unsearchable His adventures for us.

Of course, North America was the first continent in 2018 and my family and I were crazy blessed to speak at 8 different 3-day retreats with 6 different 3-day communities. Only heaven will be able to tell all of the God moments and life changes that happened at each and the life-long friends we have made but this may illustrate just two of the many stories sent to us of how God used these retreats to radically change lives. I was speaking at another 3-day retreat this month and a lady came up to me and showed me a beautiful tattoo on her otherwise clear forearm with the name and colors of her 3-day retreat last spring as she said, “This may give you a little idea of how your messages impacted my life on that weekend.” Wow! Only Jesus… Another young woman from that same spring retreat sat down with me last week and shared how she is going to graduate from university in May and found her own non-profit ministry and begin to go to the nations. Wow! Only Jesus… I am beyond humbled and blessed as I look forward to many more retreats in 2019. “Yes Sir, Captain.”

As I wrote in the last post, Asia was the second continent. Heaven only knows all that is coming in 2019 through those relationships.

Another thought that came to my mind that morning in the ICU was, “Well, I guess Project Shield, our safehouse initiative in Colombia for street girls, will never be finished because I’ll no longer be physically or financially able to lead the charge.” But God! Once again He must have smiled because the third continent I preached on last year was South America with my Pastor Frankie Mazzapica of Celebration Church of The Woodlands and God put a great desire on Frankie’s heart to take the lead in establishing the safehouse in Colombia! Praise God! Every two weeks he, other Celebration leaders, my dear Colombian friend Pastor Jordan, and our daughter, Ginary video conference together and plans are moving forward! Only Jesus…

Again as I lay in the ICU that morning I thought, “Well, I guess Mercy’s House, our partially built school project in Liberia named in honor of our Liberian daughter, Mercy Kandakai, will never be finished because once again I’ll no longer be physically or financially able to lead the charge.” But God! The fourth continent I was blessed to preach on in 2018 was Africa and I was able with my daughter Rebekah, friend and partner in Mercy’s House, Bruce Marshall, and director Pastor Martin Paye to visit the village where we were building Mercy’s House and meet with the chief and elders who assured me that Jesus raised me up from my deathbed just for their village because they need Mercy’s House to educate and disciple the next generation of their tribe. Wow! Only Jesus… Bruce came up with a brilliant plan where if we raise just $75 per student we can finish our school for 360 kids and change a generation and we are making progress! Only Jesus… You can keep up with all that is happening at Mercy’s House at www.mercyshouse.org

Look out 2019! “Yes Sir, Captain”

“Do you want to have a heart always on fire for God? Do you want to know the continuous anointing of the Holy Spirit? Are you anxious to be used in the service of your Lord? Would you always be aflame with the power of God? …Perennial revival is only possible where there is continuous brokenness of heart which comes from making it a point to be alone with God every day.” – Oswald J. Smith

Read the beginning of the series HERE

At the end of the last Aflame For God post I wrote, “We don’t know yet what the next chapter of Aflame For God will look like but we are confident that it will be MIRACULOUS!!! STAY TUNED!!!” How prophetic those words were!!!

Understandably we breathed a giant sigh of relief when the clock chimed midnight on New Year’s Eve 2017. It had been a crazy year of trials and miracles and we were ready for 2018, and though still in recovery and reeling some from the flood, we were excited for a new year. Then January 4, 2018 the Holy Spirit woke me up at 2:30 a.m. I prayed for an hour expecting to go back to sleep but at 3:30 a.m. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. A fire was burning in my soul to not quit, not give up, not assume that my only ministry now would be prayer for the nations. I got up, grabbed my laptop, and began to create a radical “Mission Critical To Do/Prayer List” for 2018. By 6:00 a.m. I had it finished and my heart burned so.

The item at the top of the list was a crusade in Pakistan. That had been the next place I was invited to go when I fell. In fact, two days before I fell, my son, Luke, and I sat on our balcony and he committed to go with me to Pakistan. So one of the things that I put together in my new late night list building was a budget of $12,000 to go to Pakistan. We had no money and no idea where it would come from but began to pray hard that God would allow me to preach for my first time on the Asian Continent in 2018. Rapidly, the money began to come it without us telling anyone but God and very soon we had $12,000! Then we began to realize that it would take more like $22,000 and sure enough more began to come in miraculously and my health and strength grew as well. I was so proud of my wife, Lisa, and daughter, Rebekah, as they wholly embraced this vision and began to work hard to bring it about. We put out a “fleece” to the Lord. “If our Pakistani Visas are approved we will know that this is Your will and Your plan.” Sure enough, quickly our Visas were approved. One morning as we walked into church a dear brother, Shaun Breeden, asked me, “Where are you going next?” I said, “Pakistan” He said, “J.J. and I are in! We’ll video document the trip and I’ll help fund it! Ok if I invite myself?” We said, “SURE!” Praise God!! Miracle!! The next week, through a series of miracles, we had lunch with a Facebook friend, Ruben Rasaili, from Nepal, a country that had been on our prayer list for years and while we were enjoying an anointed conversation during lunch, Ruben suddenly asked, “Nepal is close to Pakistan, why don’t you hop over and hold a crusade for us in Nepal?” We quickly crunched the numbers and realized we could do it! Long story short and numerous trials and miracles later we flew out on March 28, 2018, one week shy of a year from my nearly fatal fall and miraculous recovery to Pakistan! And then the next week to Nepal! BUT GOD!!!!!!

Oh how we prayed for a fresh anointing! We arrived in Pakistan at 5:00 a.m. on Good Friday and at 8:00 a.m. I was preaching to a packed church of Christians and the Sr. Pastor assured me that the sermon was being broadcast on their Christian television station, Isaac TV, to 47 countries. WOW! Praise Jesus. The grandest surprise came on Monday as we drove out to a more remote portion to preach a crusade among a 90% Muslim population. Imagine our thrill when we arrived and 6 men wearing black T-shirts with white letters which said “church security” escorted us to the open air meeting with AK-47s slung over their shoulders and as we walked rose petals rained down on us from all of the adjacent roof tops and people stepped out of the crowded passageway and laid sewn flowers around our necks. Nothing could have prepared us to step into the clearing and see upwards of 5,000 Muslims standing before a stage waiting to hear from us! I preached my heart out and my wife later said she could literally feel the Holy Spirit blowing across the crowd. When I asked them if they wanted to give their whole life to Jesus, all 5000 lunged forward with an audible gasp raising their hands to heaven. MIRACLE!!! The next night the same thing in another city, and the final night the same again. Only heaven knows all the little and big miracles that aligned to make this trip happen. The flames are spreading.

Next we flew to Kathmandu, Nepal then drove 7 hours through the Himalayas to a remote area and over the next several days preached among the Hindu “Ratcatcher” tribes of Nepal and once again the blessed Jesus surprised us with many many coming to Christ. Not reluctantly or skeptically but hungrily and eagerly. One day we were blessed to teach a whole church full of pastors that had come from as far away as India and the Holy Spirit moments are too numerous to name but suffice it to say that God took the trials of 2017 and turned it into the chance of a lifetime! Glory! Only Heaven knows what’s next…

Aflame for God 27 – Four Continents

“I will know by the gleam and glitter of the golden chain you wear, by your heart’s calm strength in loving, of the fire you have to bear. Beat on, true heart, forever; Shine bright, strong golden chain; and bless the cleansing fire and the furnace of living pain!” – Adelaide Proctor

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Early in January 2017 We met and all agreed that 2017 would be the year of miracles. We even made this video to share our heart’s dream… But we couldn’t have known…

In late January Levi and Rebekah headed to Zambia, Africa to minister and in early February I flew to Bogota for a 3 week pastor training and crusades in some of the hard places of Colombia. In June of 2016 my son-in-law Oscar introduced me to Carlos the head of outreach for YWAM in Colombia. Who said that he had many jungle pastors and smaller towns on the West coast of Colombia that needed help, but no foreign pastors they had asked where willing to go. Oscar said “Ha dad will go anywhere” and so we booked a trip for February 2017. The Holy Spirit flooded these meetings. We had an amazing time in the jungle training these pastors. Then came a huge city wide crusade in the big mountain town of Montelibano. They set up a large stage in the street on the first night we preached to over a 1,000 people in the street. Many gave their lives to Christ that night. The second night we preached to 1,500 people and the third night over 2,500 people showed and hundreds were saved or rededicated their lives to Christ. In total we shared the gospel with over 5,000 people in those 3 days. Brooke, Oscar, and I were bursting with joy and rejoicing at what God did in this city. Over the three weeks there, I was deeply convicted that this type of training and crusade program needs to be happening all over the world. This is my future plan for my part in Mission Critical. Thrillingly I was invited by 18 countries this year to do that very thing but then…

March was all about awesome and anointed Tres Dias retreats and getting Mercy’s House Liberia up and roofed. It was so thrilling to see the walls go up. When we got the roof on I was going to Liberia in May to hold crusades and see the project! I was also planning and praying for a trip in June to preach to tens of thousands in Pakistan, a pastor training and crusade trip to central Africa in August, and so on! But then… tragedy…

On Tuesday, April 11th, 2017 I left the house for a routine inspection of an office building to make a little money to help finance our ministry. I set up my ladder and then remembered that I needed to send the last $1400 to Liberia to put the roof on Mercy’s House. I pulled out my phone, opened the money transfer app, sent the money, put my phone back in my pocket and climbed the ladder. I don’t remember anything else but I fell sixteen feet and landed on concrete. Miraculously there was a lady there who saw and called 911. EMS had me to Memorial Herman Hospital in the Woodlands in 11 minutes but with all of my injuries the doctors told Lisa, my wife, I wouldn’t survive. Shattered face, 3 brain bleeds and a closed brain injury, 8 broken ribs, broken collar bones and sternum, busted shoulder, blindness, 3 broken vertebra, internal bleeding that eventually killed my spleen and part of a kidney and on and on… But God!!! My warrior princess wife, family and dozens of church, Tres Dias, and other brothers and sisters in Christ began flooding the hospital and prayers and messages began coming in from around the world. My son-in-law and daughter, Oscar and Brooke, flew in from Colombia, Mercy and her fiancee Bobby came down from Arlington, namely, the army of God showed up and began to pray a hurricane of prayer around me and very quickly “the tide of the battle began to turn.” I was out cold in ICU for 25 days battling pneumonia, sepsis, urinary infection, blood infection, a hemothorax lung , a pneumothorax lung and more but God’s army stayed with me and prayed continuously throughout those 25 days, Lisa posted prayers every day on facebook that electrified people around the world. My sister Michelle heroically guided Lisa through the whole process of dealing with the hospital. The people of God began giving tens of thousands of dollars to take care of me. Miracles!!!

On the night of May 3, 2017 the hospital told Lisa, “Please just put him in hospice and let him die.” She went home cleaned up and was in her prayer closet praying that God would wake me up when suddenly her phone rang and it was our pastor, Frankie Mazzapica. He had been supporting and encouraging my family through the whole disaster and he called to get the latest. Lisa told him about hospice and then said, “Pastor, if he would just wake up everything would change!” He said, “Well, we’ve seen God do many things in his favor already. Let’s pray he wakes up.” They prayed. Lisa drove to the hospital, walked into my room, and I opened my eyes and said, “Hello beautiful!” “She said, “It’s you! it’s really you!” I said, “Yes, why am I tied to this bed and where am I? BUT GOD!!! Miracle!!!!!! My doctor’s and surgeons rushed to see me and exclaimed, “Holy ________! Your a miracle! Oops excuse our language!” We all laughed. I was so happy to see my family and hear the amazing stories of all God had done to rescue me. A week later I went to rehab and 17 days later I came home to recover. I quickly improved so much that I was able to preach at my home church Celebration Church of The Woodlands on August 9, 2017 and people all over the world watched the video. Miracles!!!! Then… disaster again…

On August 17, 2017 Hurricane Harvey had pounded Houston until our kids came to our rescue and evacuated us to Willis north of The Woodlands. That night our house flooded with 5 feet of water and everything we owned in this world except a bag of close and laptop for each of us was destroyed. BUT GOD! Immediately our church and Tres Dias brothers and sisters began to help out and currently we are sleeping on a nice air mattress at our oldest son Luke’s house. There are now 5 adults and 5 grandkids 7-years-old and under living in a one bath house and we are having the time of our lives. I was blessed to preach at the second anniversary service of my daughter Mercy’s African church in Fort Worth and she gave me perhaps the sweetest introduction I’ve ever had. See it HERE. We don’t know yet what the next chapter of Aflame For God will look like but we are confident that it will be MIRACULOUS!!! STAY TUNED!!!

Aflame For God 26 – The Flame Spreads To Asia!

“You never have to advertise a fire. Everyone comes running when there’s a fire. Likewise, if your church is on fire, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it.” – Leonard Ravenhill

Read the beginning of the series HERE

January 1st, 2016 I spent New Year’s Day praying about what the new year would look like. 2015 had been so hard charging that I was sure 2016 would be more of a year of prayer and study and saving up money for another hard charging year in the future. Wow! Was I wrong! We started out the year with nearly no funds but I felt strongly that we should have a mission trip to Colombia in June and I had promised Pastor Ndagijimana the year before that I would come and do a large crusade in Rwanda in July of 2016 so I began to pray for these two and assume that not even those might happen this year. I made three prayer lists. 1. Daily Needs, 2. Crazy Prayers (BIG things like those two trips that I was asking God for), and 3. BIG HARRY AUDACIOUS Prayer List (Stupid crazy big things that I was asking God for but would’ve been embarrassed for anyone to know about). The spring went by quietly as I had suspected but we did get to financially help our friend Pastor Paye in Liberia put a roof on his church and get the plans and budget drawn up for Mercy’s House Liberia so that was good. Then God did some things so BIG and HARRY that they hadn’t even made it onto my BIG HARRY List!

The first thing God did was to gather together the largest mission team we had ever had to go to Colombia and for Lisa and I the biggest shocker was all of our children in the U.S. except Mercy were able to sign up for the trip and then God miraculously supplied their finances. It was mindblowingly awesome to arrive in Colombia and be met by Brooke and Oscar and our Colombian children Juan David, Ginary, and Heidy and granddaughter Adara. To stand in that airport with 8 of our 9 children and two grandchildren on a mission for God was craziness! We had a marvelous week with our sons Luke and Levi rotating everyday giving a wonderful devotion in the morning and then setting out for orphanages and street ministries to love and serve and share Jesus together. Our son-in-law Travis sharing his testimony with the children, and so many other things was surreal. Only God. It was heavenly! The crazy blessing of getting to stand at the top of a mountain overlooking Bogota and have this photo taken of all of us except Mercy, our daughter-in-law Misti, and some grandkids was unspeakably wonderful.

The 2nd mind blower God pulled on us began one night as we drove to go meet some precious friends for dinner. I had been praying hard for 18 months for this large crusade in Rwanda and we were now just 4 weeks away and I didn’t have a dollar to my name. It gave me a headache but as my wife drove us to meet this couple for dinner I messaged Pastor Ndagijimana in Rwanda and said, “I’m so sorry brother. I want to come so bad but I haven’t received the finances I have been praying for so I thought I should let you know now that I can’t come next month.” He almost instantly replied, “I’m sorry too. But I trust God. I’m sad though. There were many many people waiting for you to come.” I cried, pounded on the dash, and put my head in my hands. My wife said, “What’s wrong baby?” I told her and she said, “Well God’s timing is perfect. You did your best. That’s all He expects.” We arrived at the restaurant, had a wonderful dinner and then… our friends handed us an envelope and said, “This is really why we wanted to have dinner. Please open it.” Inside was a card that read, “Dream crazy dreams.” And inside was a check for $50,000 for our work in Liberia and Rwanda!!! My mouth fell open and I exclaimed, “What the heck?” They laughed. It was the most money I had ever held in my hand at one time in my life. We cried and hugged and headed home.

I quickly messaged Pastor Ndagijimana, “Hold it!!! A miracle just happened! Don’t cancel anything! I will be there!” He wrote back, “Praise God!!!” In a rapid series of other miracles my daughters Rebekah and Brooke, and son Levi were able to have provision and time to go and we flew to Rwanda July 13, 2016. Miracle!! We met with Pastor Ndagijimana the first day and he blew our minds with a status report of Mission Critical International Rwanda (MCIR). In the year and a half since Rebekah and I first came and began to back him Pastor Ndagijimana had planted 5 churches in different parts of Rwanda and the government had approved them as MCIR churches named Celebration Church after our beloved home church in the Woodlands, Texas. He had purchased two plots of land around Kigali, the capital city, for Mercy’s House Rwanda and we had crusades set up in each of these new churches and locations. Over the next three weeks so many miracles happened I can’t list them all. We preached and sang all over the country, hundreds upon hundreds were saved and over 100 were subsequently baptized. People were healed, land was donated, and on and on. When we got home we hired the contractor and started building Mercy’s House Liberia! Way bigger than anything on my BIG HARRY list… Yes…

The 3rd BIG HARRY was on my list. We had been praying for a year for our daughter Brooke to marry my best friend, now son, Oscar and God outdid Himself on August 20th, 2016 as our whole family once again traveled to Colombia, gathered in a quaint castle, and I was supernaturally blessed to walk Brooke down the aisle and then officiate at their wedding. Words can’t describe the joy and fun we had that day. A picture is worth a thousand words… Only God!

Aflame For God 25 – Miracles… Disaster… BUT GOD!

“A mighty flame follows a tiny spark.” ― Dante

Read the beginning of the series HERE

I started putting out prayer requests to let our prayer warriors know that I was going to Liberia in October. My friend Bruce Marshall called and said, “Mercy is going with you right?” I said, “Well brother, her passport is long expired and we have issues with her citizenship status and we don’t have time or money to get it all sorted out.” He said, “Matt! She has to go! Hire an immigration lawyer or whatever you have to do. I will pay for it. I will pay for her trip. She has to go!” I gulped and said, “Yes sir, I will get to work on it. Long story short, many crazy miracles came together for this trip. We had to fly her to Washington D.C. to get a Liberian passport. There were so many complications. Finally we found out that Mercy’s blood father’s brother went to law school with the deputy ambassador of Liberia. He heard about our situation. Walked into the embassy and said, “Just add a new page to her old 2007 Liberian passport and I will sign it.” And they did. By pure miracle we boarded the plane on October 8, 2015 which “just happened to be” her 21st birthday and we flew to Monrovia, Liberia! But the miracles were only beginning.

As we were preparing to go, Mercy reconnected with her blood sister, Olive through Facebook, and let her know that we were coming to Monrovia. We arrived in Monrovia and drove to a gas station out in the bush where Mercy’s blood family was to meet us. I will never forget the next few moments. Their SUV pulled into the parking lot and Mercy’s biological father, full blood sister, and two half-sisters piled out all smiles. We embraced with tears in all of our eyes. They kept hugging me saying, “Thank you for saving Mercy!” “Thank you for saving Mercy!” Then Mercy’s sister Olive came up and hugged me with tears in her eyes and said, “My American Daddy!” I thought my heart would burst out of my chest. What a beautiful night. But still more miracles were to come!

Later that week, we had a family reunion at Olive’s house and dozens of Mercy’s aunts, uncles, cousins, and other family members came but the most amazing thing was that her grandmother whom she lived with when she was a tiny girl came. Up until that day her grandmother had believed Mercy’s was dead. For years family told her that Mercy had “gone to America” to get well but her grandmother just knew that this was euphemistic for “she went to heaven.” When they met and embraced that night the angels in heaven must have been dancing and shouting. It was an amazing night. We ate and ate wonderful Liberian dishes and laughed and told many stories. The most memorable thing for me was toward the end of the night when the family had Mercy and me stand and they all lined up and came forward crying to hug me, thank me, and present me with gifts. Then they “gowned me” with the garb of a village chief and declared me an Honorable Paramount Chief of Kalabeh Chiefdom. But even more miracles were coming…

I knew that day in June 2015 when Pastor Martin V. Paye Sr. called me and asked me to preach a crusade and do pastor and youth seminars in Liberia that it was a message from the Lord but I couldn’t have known how thrilling each and every service would be. What a joy to stand on that stage night after night and see the people flood from the surrounding villages and neighborhoods to hear the gospel and then to see the altar packed each night as hundreds came to trust in Jesus. Each day we would visit a different school and share Jesus with the children, hold pastor seminars and youth seminars. The Spirit moved in power and I was overjoyed to be a part. Thank you Lord!

When Rebekah and I were in Rwanda in January we felt led along with our brother Ndagijimana to start a school and call it Mercy’s House in honor of our precious daughter Mercy. Now in Liberia I shared this thought with Pastor Paye and he was all in. God had already supplied $10,000 to buy the land in Rwanda for Mercy’s House and now Pastor Paye told me about some land in Monrovia that would be perfect for a Mercy’s House. As I held little orphaned Liberian children in my arms as they came to hug on me every day, I knew we had to do this! We finished our trip and went back home praying that God would allow us to open a school in our daughter’s home town named after her. Quickly after arriving home we went to Colombia for another wonderful mission trip and then shortly after God provided the money for the land in Monrovia. Mercy’s House was on the move to become a reality. Praise God! CHARGE HARD INDEED!

Aflame For God 24 – BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOD

“Reckon then that to acquire soul-winning power, you will have to go through mental torment and soul distress. You must go into the fire if you are going to pull others out of it.” — C.H. Spurgeon

Read the beginning of the series HERE

In early 2014 I was sitting in my recliner ordering plane tickets for a preaching tour of Colombia in April. My daughter Brooke, who was working full time and in nursing school came over and sat on the arm of my chair and said, “Hey dad, I want to go to Colombia with you.” I said, “Don’t tease me like that, I would love for you to go.” She said, “I’m serious! I have the money. Please order my plane ticket.” And so I did. We flew to Colombia in early April and met our translator Oscar, whom Brooke had never met. The next three weeks were some of the most miraculous of my life as we preached all over central and northern Colombia. In one of the crusades in Bogota, I preached with an evangelist from Switzerland. After one of my sermons he said, “That is the most powerful message I have ever heard. Are you on TV or the internet?” I said, “No sir.” He said, “You will be. The world will hear from you.” I immediately sensed that God was showing me that this was my personal mission critical from now on. You can read my journal of that precious time HERE. Brooke was so blown away by the Holy Spirit on this trip that she came home, quit her job, quit school, and moved to Colombia full time. Not only that, Brooke and Oscar, my translator and best friend, fell in love on this trip and were married August 20, 2016 but I’m getting ahead of myself 🙂

Brooke began working first in a wonderful orphanage in Medellin, Colombia with our dear sister Enith Diaz, whom I call the Mother Teresa of Colombia. God supernaturally anointed Brooke as she moved into this orphanage at 20 years of age speaking only a tiny bit of Spanish in a place where noone spoke any English and within a few months she was completely fluent in Spanish with a perfect accent. Miraculous! Brooke worked there a year touching scores of lives and then moved to Bogota to work for Mission Critical on our Project Shield. Read her miraculous stories HERE!

We had another wonderful Colombia mission trip in September 2013. God continued to tug at my heart for more crusades around the globe and my phone began to blow up with requests for me to come to all 5 occupied continents. So far I had only been going to Colombia but I knew there was more to come.

In November of 2014 our daughter Rebekah had to come home from Zambia on an emergency medical flight. She had been suffering with pneumonia for months and the antibiotics they were giving her at the village clinic wasn’t helping. She could have died. She lay on our couch for 6 weeks as her mom nursed her back to health. One night in late December 2014 we were sitting on the balcony of our apartment talking and praying and she said, “Daddy, you have to come to Africa with me! I want you to see my orphanage and meet my children, you have to preach for Pastor Mbewe, meet Pastor Tendai, and we have to go to Rwanda and preach for Pastor Ndagijimana! Africa seemed to me as far away as the moon. I had never even crossed the Atlantic! I quickly figured out a budget of what it would take to do all that she asked. “Rebekah, it would take $10,000 to do what you are saying.” I said. She replied, “That’s OK Daddy. God has $10,000. Let’s pray right now.” I sheepishly bowed my head and she prayed so boldly that God would give us $10,000 soon so we could go. Then she lifted her smiling face and said, “There Daddy! We are going to Africa!” I gulped and said, “Yeah, great, sure.” We didn’t tell another soul about that conversation and yet two days later a man mysteriously wired $10,000 into my bank account!!!! We quickly bought our tickets and left for Africa in mid January 2015! Oh the miracles! Oh the crusades! Oh the joy! Below is a summary video of that historic trip.

Things began to really explode in 2015! The Holy Spirit put two words on my heart over and over again… CHARGE HARD! And we did. Rebekah and I came home from Africa, spoke at a Tres Dias retreat, then headed out for more crusades in Colombia. Then we went to Belize and preached a week long crusade in the dump on Ambergris Caye! Wonderful moves of God. Then we went back to Colombia with a mission team. Oh what a glorious trip. We went on to Medellin where we were blessed to speak in the one of the most dangerous prisons in the world! The fire fell! We came home and I received a call from a pastor in Monrovia, Liberia Africa, our daughter Mercy’s birth town. “Matt, would you please come and preach a crusade and do a youth rally and pastors training?” I instantly replied, “Yes! I have been praying for 7 years that God would let me go see my daughter’s birth home! October? Yes I will be there… Oh my! God was ramping this ministry UP!!!!

Aflame For God 23 – Mercy’s House

“The furnace of affliction is a good place for you, Christian; it benefits you; it helps you to become more like Christ, and it is fitting you for heaven.” — C.H. Spurgeon

Read the beginning of the series HERE

In the midst of this dark time I was driving one day to go preach and my then 20 year old daughter, Rebekah, was riding with me. She could see the devastation on my face. She turned to me and said, “Daddy, please don’t be so sad.” I said, “Sorry sweetie, I’m trying.” Then she said something so anointed by the Holy Spirit that it changed my life forever. She said, “Daddy, remember, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t see Jesus until they were in the furnace and Daddy, seeing Jesus is worth the fire.” It hit me like a brick! I knew she was right! We had experienced Jesus during this dark time like we never had before and Jesus is worth the fire! I was immediately healed of my discouragement. When I arrived at the place I was to preach I told them, “open your Bibles to Daniel chapter 3” and I preached a powerful message called Jesus Is Worth The Fire. I finished the sermon with the last verse of Daniel chapter 3 which is verse 30 “Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to even higher positions in the province of Babylon.” The furnace is for promotion! The only thing that burns is your bonds! You are thrown in tied up but after the Fourth Man appears your bonds are loosed and you walk out without the smell of smoke on you! This was perhaps the most prophetic sermon of my life and I have preached it all over the world. Our furnace was the launching pad for our greatest most miraculous season of ministry we have ever seen so far.

Rebekah moved to Inner City Los Angeles to work at the Dream Center for a year and quickly rose through the ranks to become a leader there. At 21 years of age she became the “Adopt A Block” leader for Nickerson Gardens, the largest government housing projects west of the Mississippi. God used her mightily there. You can read her blogs from that time HERE. I continued traveling regularly to Colombia, preaching and rescuing orphans. In January of 2012 I decided that I would take one whole day with a yellow legal pad and pen until I could come up with what I thought God wanted me to spend the rest of my life doing in one sentence. After praying and crying all day and writing, writing, writing I stepped outside to prayer walk around the apartment complex. At one moment while praying I stopped, looked into the night sky and said out loud, “Lord, I just want to know what Your mission critical is for me!” I froze. That’s it! That’s what the name of our ministry will be. I ran inside and searched to see if Mission Critical International had already been used as a ministry name and it looked clean! Later that night I identified my one sentence mission critical… “Passionately pursuing Jesus on His mission among the nations and mobilizing others to join us in this thrilling adventure!” That Spring I flew to L.A. to spend a week working in the streets with Rebekah. It was one of the most thrilling weeks of my life and we founded Mission Critical International that week. We worked one night trying to come up with a logo for the ministry with no success. I climbed into one of the bunkbeds in the Dream Center for a good nights sleep and I had a dream and saw our current logo on a billboard. The next morning I excitedly grabbed my Macbook and created what I had seen in my dream. It is precious to us. My son, Luke was so excited when I shared with Him what the Lord had showed me in L.A. He and I worked and worked to develop our website we have today.

2013 was a year of much sickness for me but God was preparing me. He was keeping me hungry for Him. I spent a third of the year in bed and finances were at an all time low but it was the beginning of the promotion for sure. In January Rebekah 24 at the time came to me and said, “Daddy, I know you love Colombia but God is calling me to Africa!” I said, “Great! That makes sense since He gave you an African sister. That has been on my mind.” She worked hard and God provided and she left for Zambia, Africa in February 2013 to live in the bush with no running water, no electricity, and help establish an orphanage! She fell in love with the people, the country, and the continent. She lived there two years. Read her miraculous stories HERE!

Our daughter Brooke, 17 at the time spent the summer in Colombia working in an orphanage. You can read about her experiences HERE.

I was planning in early October 2013 to travel to Bogota, Colombia on a mission trip with my oldest son Luke. My dear friend Bruce surprised me with an invitation to Newport Beach, California the first weekend of September to wed his two precious daughters in a dual ceremony atop a 300 foot long yacht in the harbor. The first of many miracles began when I stood at the altar of Celebration Church of the Woodlands and my pastor, Frankie Mazzapica prayed over me for healing and I never spent another day in bed after that. Then Lisa and I were at the airport getting ready to leave for Newport Beach. We knew God had to be our source because we only had $11.00 to our name, didn’t know how we would finance our stay in Newport Beach, where the money would come from to go to Colombia in 3 weeks, and more. While we were waiting in line to get on the plane I received a message from Colombia that there was violent rioting throughout the country and maybe we should’t come. We took a deep breath, asked the Lord to take over, and walked onto the plane. Everything miraculously worked out and we had a glorious trip to California and then Luke and I traveled to Colombia together and teamed up with a wonderful translator I had met on a previous trip named Oscar Useche. Read all about it HERE. We spent a week in the orphanages and then Oscar said, “I have pastors from 4 churches asking me to have you come and preach while you are here.” I said, “Great! Let’s do it. So Luke, Oscar, and I went to 4 churches in two days. I preached a sermon that God had blown my mind with a few weeks before as I was reading Mark chapter 2. The sermon was entitled The Recipe For A Miracle and God used it on this trip in miraculous ways that I had never before experienced. Whole crowds would flood to the altar at the end of the sermon weeping and crying out loud to God in desperation for Him. The anointing was so obvious that the pastors said, “Please, come back and do a trip that is just preaching crusades!” And so we started praying and planning for such a trip to be scheduled in the spring of 2014.

Spiritual and financial miracles were happening all around us and we begin to see that we were being “promoted to even higher positions in the province of Babylon.”

Aflame For God 22 – Global Evangelism Explosion

“Love is perfected in the fire of God.” – Samuel Chadwick

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Totally unbeknownst to us, my worship leader of our church I pastored was currently and had been for years systematically sexually abusing his two teenage adopted daughters, one of which was our son’s (who was away in the Navy) girlfriend. She eventually cried out to him and then to me, I discreetly confirmed everything, and then brought in law enforcement to investigate. Once he and his wife got wind of the fact that I knew the truth, the war was on! I convinced them to bring the 16-year-old daughter who had cried out to me to stay with our family and after dropping her off they fled the city. They of course were very popular in the church and launched a campaign of lies to try and cover for this horrendous sin and they successfully convinced many of the church of his innocence and that she was a rebellious lying girl and that I was totally in the wrong. It was nightmarish! The battle was terrible! Our church disintegrated before our eyes. I was out of a job as a pastor by late spring of 2010 and our family went through a terrible time. Law enforcement pursued them and eventually after years of evading it the whole story came out finally and the other daughter was rescued.

But back to the girl that they dropped on our doorstep… For the first three months she had such horrible night terrors that she would scream and try to throw herself out of windows and fight us and then pass out and then rise up to fight again. We took every mattress in our house and placed them on the living room floor in a circle around the mattress that the girl slept on and we all slept in the circle around her. Many nights frankly we sat up all night reading the scripture or singing Agnus Dei around her. After 3 months she finally had a breakthrough and settled down to a happy life in our family. After she turned 18 she married our son and they gave us 2 of the most beautiful granddaughters. Sadly, her demons still plague her horribly and she left him over a year ago to be a lesbian and now lives with another woman. We currently have our granddaughters living with us.

But back to the spring of 2010 right in the midst of this battle… Lisa (her first trip) and I went to Colombia in April, 2010 and were able to spend a week with Heidy and another girl Ginary. It was precious and magical and we made great progress in their adoptions. But the war was far from over. Shortly after we returned from Colombia, the turmoil in our home was so great that our African daughter Mercy couldn’t take it and ran away. She was gone for 1 year. Our world stopped turning. The government canceled our adoptions in Colombia. We had our last church service the next Sunday and closed the church down that next week. It was a terrible time… The darkest time of our lives… We lost everything. We lost our adopted children, we lost our house, we lost all of our possessions, we lost our health, and worst of all we lost most of our friends. But we knew we were in God’s will and we kept swinging.

I was dead inside but the only thing I knew to do was keep following Jesus and so I made 3-4 more trips to Colombia taking dozens of people and God poured out His Spirit and many lives were changed. Eventually we were blessed to help over 35 orphans get adopted into Christian homes in Houston, Texas, Praise God! You can read about these miracle stories HERE. I preached everywhere and God blessed mightily. We worked many Tres Dias weekends and we saw many miracles. But our family struggled terribly during this time. For two years I prayed that I could just go to heaven. I was tired of the war…

Aflame For God 21 – Jesus Is Worth The Fire

“Fire is the chosen symbol of heaven for moral passion. It is emotion aflame. God is love. God is fire… It is by a holy passion kindled in the soul that we live the life of God.” – Samuel Chadwick

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Rebekah and I arrived back in Houston that Sunday and our feet were hardly touching the ground. We had spent five amazing days in the presence of Jesus and loving on His lambs and we were full up to the brim. Three days later, as the Lord would have it, I was to speak at a three day men’s retreat called Tres Dias. Ironically, this is the same ministry where I first heard my friend Allen talk about orphan ministry and God got ahold of my heart. I was so excited that I was going into this set of weekends, (the men’s weekend followed by speaking at the women’s the very next weekend.) so full of the Holy Spirit. I felt as if I was floating on a cloud as I arrived at the camp that Thursday. I was oozing joy and excitement and everyone around me could feel it. I was to speak twice that weekend, once on The Means of Grace, and once on The Life in Grace. What better subjects to talk about after just spending a week under the waterfall of Grace in Colombia. I preached my heart out both times and showed a video of the pictures from our trip with a song playing in the background by Steven Curtis Chapman called “What Now” The first line of the song says, “I saw the face of Jesus in a little orphan girl.” The presence of the Lord was powerfully present and I knew lives were being changed. After I showed the video it was time for lunch. As I walked into the lunchroom a man walked up to me with tears in his eyes and said, “My name is Luis Escobar. I am from Bogota, Colombia. I speak both languages fluently. I know the city, the government, the culture. I have experienced the grace of God today, I know God spoke to me today, and I am at your service.” I couldn’t believe it and yet I could. I hugged him and said, “I have been praying for you for six months.” We began then to plan the next trip and we set out to pray about whom the Lord would have come with us. Luis did end up going on that trip and became a huge blessing to me over the years.

We also immediately started working on adoption paperwork for Heidy and Ginary to become our daughters. During this time, someone mentioned to me, “Hey have you heard about National Orphan Sunday, November 8, 2009?” So I started checking into it and found that Chrisitan Alliance for Orphans and Steven Curtis Chapman’s ministry and others had organized a national day to recognize the plight of the orphan and were encouraging churches across the country to have a special emphasis that day. We quickly began to plan and promote Orphan Sunday at Heritage Church where I was pastoring at the time. When the day came the church was filled with people and there were dozens of former orphans from all over the world who had been adopted. Someone commented that it looked like a miniature United Nations that day. It was one of the best days of my life.

There were many other amazing providences that led up to this trip as well. One that especially sticks out in my mind was a prayer meeting that David Richardson, Allen Pate and myself had in my study. We had all been feeling the pressure and the spiritual warfare leading up to this trip and we agreed to meet at my place and get on our faces before God and seek His help and power. Before we began to pray, David mentioned some men that the Lord had laid on his heart regarding orphan ministry. We wrote down three names and prayed for them and for God’s leading. One of the men’s names was Chris Dinkler, a brother that we had met at Tres Dias. It was a powerful prayer meeting and afterward we dried our eyes and hugged each other goodbye. About twenty minutes later, my phone rang and it was David and his voice was shaking and he told me that just after he and Allen left my house, his phone rang and it was Chris Dinkler calling to say that for “some reason” he and his wife couldn’t quit thinking about Colombia and the orphans and that he wanted to get more information about going with us. Chris did go with us on the January trip and I’ll never forget as long as I live the words he said as we were leaving the last orphanage on the last night headed to the airport. We were standing outside the gate of the orphanage on a dirt road in this inner-city slum and with tears rolling down his face Chris said, “The next time someone tells me they want to see Jesus I’m going to tell them, ‘I can give you the street address where He lives’.”

This time my daughter Brooke as well as Rebekah and Beverly made sure I knew they wanted to go. It was a total stretching of our faith because at this time I had been out of work for about 18 months and money was really tight. For just me to go in January would require a huge miracle. We set about to pray for people and pray for money and God answered big. My co-pastor and best friend, Chuck Carpenter, also expressed interest in going but he too had no idea where the money would come from. I began to walk the streets of my neighborhood every night crying out to God to pay our bills and somehow get us all to Colombia in January. One morning my phone rang and a dear friend from a previous church I had pastored said, “I hear you want to take 5 or 6 people with you to Colombia and I want to pay for them! Wow! So all of us including Chuck, Luis, Chris, and several others were going to Colombia!

We had a wonderful trip and I have written about it HERE.

Things were going really well and miracles abounded but something happened just before we left that would prove to be a catalyst for the most difficult period of spiritual warfare we have ever experienced.

Aflame For God 20 – All Out War

“For the sake of the world burn like a fire in me. Light a flame in my soul for every eye to see. For the sake of the world burn like a fire in me.” – Brian Johnson & Bethel Music

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Beverly and I came home from Colombia absolutely wrecked by the Spirit of God. We tried to go back to our life of pastoring and working wherever God provided work but it was no use. For three months I cried at least once every day. I would sit and look at photos of the children in Colombia and weep. My family started asking me, “Daddy, please don’t look at those photos anymore. We can’t stand to see you so broken up.” I remember one day walking through the grocery store and seeing a little brown skinned girl holding her daddy’s hand and I burst into tears. I stopped right there in the store and called my friend, Allen Pate and asked, “Allen, when does the crying stop?” He replied, “Honestly, I don’t know, it’s been three years for me and I’m still crying.” I knew then I was in deep trouble.

I was so wrecked I could hardly function. My elders and the deacons of my church began to worry about me. I couldn’t eat. When I did sleep I would dream about those precious children so desperate for love. It was the most beautiful pain I had ever experienced. Beverly was in the same lovely agony. We were so glad we at least had each other to commiserate with. I began to realize that I was feeling the heartbeat of Jesus. This must be a tiny bit of what He feels for the world! I would try to preach what I thought my congregation needed from the word for their lives but every sermon ended up being about going to the nations. I was eaten up with it, hopelessly addicted, and the only place I could get a fix was a plane ride away on another continent. Also during this time our oldest daughter Rebekah, who was 20-years-old began to bug me every day about when she could go. She was eaten up with holy envy at the newfound passion and hunger that she saw in Beverly and me and she wanted in on it!

My partners in crime, David and Allen, and I began to formulate a scheme to go back. One day I realized that I hadn’t checked my frequent flier miles in a long time and to my great delight I found that I had enough for 2 plane tickets to Bogota! Though we literally had no money and no earthly business turning around and going back to Colombia just three months after that first trip, we went anyway. Like any addict, nothing else mattered now but getting back there and getting a fresh dose of that Holy Spirit gasoline on our bonfire. Rebekah kept saying, “Dad, I have to go or die” and I knew she wasn’t being dramatic. So Rebekah, David, Allen, and I landed in Bogota in September of 2009 with no plan, no money, nothing but a furious passion that could only have come from God. We only knew we were supposed to go no matter what and God showed up for us in ways we couldn’t have imagined.

The first morning we met with some government officials to begin the process of adopting our daughter Heidy. We had been warned that one particular official was very stern and very tough and that we probably wouldn’t make any progress with her so we were praying like crazy when we walked into her office and sat down. Immediately she began to ask many gruff questions about our intentions and what we planned to do. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Rebekah praying like a mad woman under her breath. Suddenly, we felt a Presence enter the room. It was so obvious Rebekah later told me that she was tempted to reach out her hand and see if she could touch Him. As we continued to explain our hearts for these children, the government official softened and even teared up and she told us that she was thrilled with our intentions and would help us in any way she could. She gave us permission to begin the adoption process and even more shocking she gave us permission to take Heidy and David and Allen’s Goddaughters out of the orphanage for a little supervised vacation while we were there. We left that meeting walking on air. The word miracle was on everyone’s lips. And this was all before noon on the first day!

Next we went a visited a little boys orphanage that would later become one of our favorites and then we went on to Heidy’s orphanage. As we drove through the gate my heart began to pound and tears welled up in my eyes. We stepped out of the van and were instantly surrounded by 80+ smiling, hugging, chattering girls. I was frantically scanning the crowd for my little Heidy. What happened next will be seared into my soul for all eternity. Suddenly, we heard a blood curdling scream and little Heidy came running across the yard, leaped over a hedge, and jumped into my arms. I’m 6′-1″ tall and yet she jumped so high she almost went over my shoulder. I fell back against the van and held her as she continued to squeal and yelp with joy, hugging my neck and kissing me on the cheek. When I introduced her to Rebekah she squeezed her like she would break her in two all the while saying, “mi hermana, mi hermana”. Also that day, Rebekah met a little girl named Hasbleydy Johanna. As often happens, they immediately fell in love with each other and before we left Hasbleydy asked Rebekah if she would adopt her and be her Mama. One look at Rebekah’s face told me that she had been bitten by the same fatal Holy Spirit bug and she would never be the same again, hallelujah. Heidy stared in disbelief when we told her to go pack her things because she was going on a little family vacation with us.

The next morning we had a fun breakfast with the girls and then we had an 8:30am appointment with the regional director for ICBF (Colombian Child Welfare) to talk about someday doing a summer camp in Texas where 20 or so adoptable orphans from Colombia could come to the Houston area for a week and stay in the homes of host families who were interested in adoption or just ministering to the children for that week (which we did two years later and 15 were adopted… but I’m getting ahead of myself again). For the next 5 days we had the most wonderful time imaginable. One of the highlights for me was buying Heidy her first ever milkshake. She was so enthralled. Also, Rebekah was able to meet Juan David when we spent the day at his orphanage as well. We left Heidy at her orphanage with a hug and a kiss and a Spanish Bible with her name embossed on the front and the promise that we would be back soon… even if we had to swim the gulf of Mexico…

Here is a small excerpt from my journal the last night,

 
[quote]Rebekah broke down pretty bad as we drove away. She, of course, wanted to bring the whole orphanage home with us. Well if I don’t get on the plane right now I will have to stay in Colombia… Wait, why would that be a bad thing??? 🙂 Oh yeah, they probably wouldn’t let me live at the girls orphanage anyway so I better go![/quote]
 

As our plane left the runway, I looked over at Rebekah with tears running down her face and I knew that Beverly and I had a new addict on our team.

Aflame For God 19 – Recruiting Jesus Addicts

“Oh that I could do more for Him, oh that I was a flame of pure and holy fire and had a thousand lives to spend in the dear Redeemer’s service.” – George Whitefield

Read the beginning of the series HERE

I was so busy trying to survive and shepherd my flock and family that it wasn’t until the night before we were supposed to leave for Bogota, Colombia that I sat down and looked it up on a map to see where in the world it was located. I had never been outside of the U.S. except childhood visits to Juarez, Mexico and on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Beverly, who would turn 18 on the trip had never even flown on a plane before. We had no idea what lay in store only a vague lingering sense of God’s hand in all of it. We landed in Bogota, Colombia the evening of June 19, 2009, went to the hotel, and as we got out of the van my dear friend Allen Pate turned to me and said with tears in his eyes, “You are going to love this Matt. This is like Tres Dias on steroids.” And he was not wrong. In truth it was like pouring gasoline on a bonfire.

We were mesmerized by all of the sights and sounds as we drove to the first orphanage the first day. Bevy and I were quite nervous as we walked into Amparo De Ninos orphanage but suddenly 80 smiling little boys surrounded us and took us by the hands to show us their home, a giant, dilapidated monastery on a hill surrounded by stunning views of mountains and farmland. There is no way we could have known that the little 10-year-old boy who first took Beverly’s hand within seconds of our first visit to an orphanage on our first ever mission trip would forever change our lives. He literally never let go of Beverly’s hand the whole two and a half days we were there and it nearly killed her to leave him the last day. She later would say that the supernatural love that she felt in her heart for this little boy made her understand for the first time in her life God’s love for us and she dates her true conversion to Christ from this experience. She was a changed girl from that moment on. An inferno had been ignited in her teenage soul. That little boy’s name is Juan David and today he is our son. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Each day of the trip and each day of the subsequent 20 trips we have made to Colombia… but I’m getting ahead of myself again… I have written an email journal home and eventually blogs detailing each days events and miracles and below are my journal entries from that first trip.

 
[quote]Day 1 June 20, 2009
We had a wonderful day today! We went out in the country to the boys orphanage “Amparo De Ninos” (Protection of the Boys). We spent the day loving on 80 orphan boys between the ages of 10 & 18. Everyone of these boys is eligible for adoption and is just waiting for a family to come and take them home. First, we were given the grand tour of “their house” a beautiful and very old Catholic monastery now an orphanage. They showed us their bakery and insisted that we try some of their pastries which were delicious. They showed us their laundry room and nurses station and kitchen and their rooms. It was so precious to be surrounded by 10 or 15 boys at once trying to hug you, hold your hand, and talk to you in rapid fire spanish. I was glad I knew how to say “hable mas despacio por favor” which means “please speak more slowly” :-). After the tour we sat around in a huge circle and introduced ourselves. Then I gave a message from Eph. 2:1-10 through a translator and told them how all of us are boys who have ran away from God and been lost “But God” rich in mercy and full of great love provided a way back to Him through the death of Christ on the cross and now He calls us to faith in His son so that we may have a Father (God), a Brother (Jesus), and a family (Christians), and never be alone again. Some boys cried and others smiled and nodded and some fell asleep :-). Then we had lunch and then we split the boys up into 4 teams and gave all the boys on each team a T-shirt. One team was red, one was blue, one was white, and one was gray. Two teams played soccer while two teams played kick ball (which was new to them) all with sports equipment that we had brought to give to the orphanage. They had a marvelous time. When it came time for us to go, they begged us to stay and held onto the van until we drove out of the gates, all the while telling them “Hasta Manana!” (See you tomorrow). One little boy clung to Beverly all day and was really sweet. It was hard for her to leave him. My little friend that held my hand all day was so cute. Tomorrow we will go back there with 200 hot dogs, buns, catsup, mustard, mayonnaise, cokes, and candy and have a feast with them and another man from our group will give a devotion and then we will teach them some new games. Thanks for helping us to get here and for all of the prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 
[quote]Day 2 June 21, 2009
First thing this morning the team had a 2 hour conference with a man who with his wife founded a ministry to orphans here in Bogota call “Alma De Ninos” (Soul of the Children). They founded this ministry right after college and now have 263 orphans ages 10-18 (all eligible for adoption) in 5 different homes that they house and educate. We were very impressed with their work. Tomorrow we will go back to “Amparo De Ninos” (Protection of the Boys) for 1/2 day and then go to one of these “Alma De Ninos” homes that has 160 girls for the remainder of the day. After our meeting this morning we went back to “Amparo De Ninos” again and spent the whole day with the 80 boys there. The first thing we saw when we pulled through the gates this morning was all of the boys in their shirts we gave them playing soccer with the new equipment. It was wonderful to see their smiling faces again. We had a big hot dog cook out with chips and sodas and cookies. The boys never get “seconds” at meals so when we call out that there was seconds for everyone they stampeded. After lunch we played frisbee, dodgeball, and football. Later in the day we went into the old Catholic chapel and had a devotional from one of our team who is in seminary and works for a ministry in Waco. He told the boys that we love them and want to help them but there is only so much that we can do but that Jesus has already borne all of their pain, suffering, and sin on the cross and through faith in His sacrifice they can be healed. We then gave each boy a New Testament in Spanish. I was able to have some deep spiritual conversations with a couple of the boys and pray with them about their fears and struggles. We had many fun conversations as well and Beverly and I both learned a ton of spanish. Beverly is making a list of all the little boys she wants to bring home, boys with names like Anderes Philip, Juan David, Alexander, Diego, and Ramido. I keep reminding her that we still have two girls orphanages to visit yet this week :-). Once again, thank you for making this possible and for all of the prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 
[quote]Day 3 June 22, 2009 was a marvelous day of blessings and much emotion. Today was Beverly’s 18th birthday and I’m sure one that she will remember forever. At breakfast the whole team stood around her table and sang happy birthday and then presented her with a pretty tote bag with her name embroidered on the side. After breakfast we went back to “Amparo De Ninos” for the last time this trip. When we arrived there were no boys to be seen. As we walked into the orphanage they were lined up in the hall and as Beverly entered they sang happy birthday in broken english and clapped and wished her “Feliz Cupleano” (happy birthday). It was beautiful. We took a tour of the grounds this time and were able to see their farming and dairy operation which helps with their needs and they also sell the milk to help with their costs. After some more soccer, we met in the chapel for a final devotion and to say our goodbyes. The young people on our team (Beverly (18), Sarah (18), brothers Matthew (20) and John (17), and Eric (24)) got up and gave testimony to what Christ is doing in their lives and why they came and what a blessing it has been and how they love and will miss the boys. Then I was able to share from John 14 about eternity and how short this troubled life is in comparison. I shared with them that though we may be separated in this life, if we believe in Jesus and turn from our sin, our own way, and cry out to Him, resting solely on His mercy and grace for our salvation, then we will be together in eternity with our Lord. I told them about repentance and faith. After the devotion, 25 boys acknowledged their need for Christ and I was able to pray with them. Then 3 of the older boys got up and thanked us in the most precious manner you can imagine. They thanked us for the love of Jesus that they had seen in our faces and in our actions. They said that though the time we were able to spend with them probably seemed short to us it was like a lifetime to them because it is so rare that they get to experience anything like that. They said that few people in the world would come so far to spend their time with a bunch of orphans and they loved us for it and would remember it the rest of their life. Our sweet interpreter broke down several times and had a hard time translating all that they had to say to us. There was no shortage of tears among us all. We left at lunch with many tears and hugs and sweet goodbyes and promises to come back next year. One little boy who had stayed right with Beverly and I all week asked if I could be his “Padrino” (Godfather) and if Beverly could be his “Madrina” (Godmother). That was hard. We are bringing back information on each boy and have promised them that we will work to help connect them with families who wish to adopt. In the afternoon we went to a new orphanage called “Ciudad De La Nina” (City of the Girl) where their are 160 girls between the ages of 7 and 18. This is one of the orphanages of the man that we met with yesterday morning from “Alma De Ninos” (Soul of the Child). They had an assembly and the girls all sang to us and chanted out a welcome. We introduced ourselves and I just happened to mention to them that it was Beverly’s “Cupleano Hoy” (Birthday today) :-). So 160 girls sang happy birthday in spanish, and beat on the tables, and clapped and Beverly blushed intensely and then proceeded to walk over and give me a well deserved punch in the kidney :-). We handed out a stuffed toy to each girl and told them that we would be back tomorrow to have an American cook out and spend the whole day with them. More chanting, clapping, and beating on the tables ensued. Many of the girls came up to thank us and give us each a big “abrazo” (hug). Five beautiful little girls surrounded me and asked if I had any daughters. I told them that I had 4 daughters including Beverly and then they asked me if I would like some more daughters because each of them are waiting for a family to adopt them. That was hard. We left there and went to dinner at the home of the lady who works from this end to help the “Here I Am Orphan Ministry” (our team) to work in these orphanages and acts as the guide on the trips. We had a wonderful Colombian dinner and rich Colombian coffee and then she pulled out a beautifully decorated chocolate cake and we all sang happy birthday to Beverly one more time. As she blew out the candle, Beverly wished out loud that we will be able to help some of these children, perhaps through adoption ourselves, in the future. We sang some worship songs and went back to our hotel asking God for strength and courage to once again be the hands and feet and arms of Jesus to the 160 girls at “Ciudad De La Nina” tomorrow. Once again, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for supporting us in this work and for the many prayers. Many Blessings, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 

That night when we got back to the hotel we tried to Skype with the family back home so they could sing happy birthday to Bevy but all she and I could do was cry and blubber about what we had seen and felt. Our family on the other side of the computer screen couldn’t figure out what was going on with us… but soon they would… but I’m getting ahead of myself again..

 
[quote]Day 4 June 23, 2009 Today was another amazing day. We went back to “Ciudad De La Nina” (City of the Girl) to spend the whole day. This is the orphanage with 160 of the cutest girls ever seen that we visited briefly yesterday. We spent the morning talking with the girls (by now our spanish is getting pretty good) and laughing and teasing while they asked us zillions of questions which we later realized were all directed at whether we would make good adoptive parents or not. They asked us important questions like how many shoes we owned and how much land and how many animals we owned and stuff like that :-). We then had a grand cook out and fed them hot dogs and chips and ice cream with all of the toppings which took hours, literally. They thanked us dozens of times. It was a very happy, happy time. We then moved into the cafeteria and a group of the girls dressed in traditional Colombian dress did several dances for us. It was really beautiful. Next, it was time for the devotion. I shared with them about my family and how that all of my adult life my passion has been to be a good father. I told them how I love my children and how I desire to give good things to them and how I would even die for them. But then I shared with them that the Bible says that if earthly fathers who are sinners give good gifts to their children how much more does the Heavenly Father. I then proceeded to share with them the wonderful news of a Heavenly Father who loves them and who sent His son to die for them and how that by faith they can have this Father for their own and He will never leave them, He will never let them down. We then gave out a pair of brand new tennis shoes to each girl and a New Testament in Spanish. Then it was time for us to go. However, some of the girls got the idea of having each of us sign their Bible for them. So we spent the next 30 minutes with crowds of girls around each of us signing Bibles as fast as we could write our names. It was unspeakably precious. We had to tell them goodbye for this trip and words cannot express the feeling in our hearts as we left those girls, many with tears, promising to do what we can to help them in the days ahead and asking God to watch over them. It was especially hard for me to leave 3 little girls named Jaime, Brenda, and Wendy who had held my hands all day and called me Papa. Tomorrow we go to “Ampara De Ninas” (Protection of the Girls) here in the city which is one of the main reasons for the trip and we will spend the rest of our week there. I can only imagine how hard it will be to leave our new little friends there after we spend the next three days with them but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I have a new appreciation for my Savior who once said, “suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Love and Prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 

Little did I know that the next day, June 24, 2009 would change my life forever. This is the day that Beverly and I met my Colombian daughter, Heidy, and I fell ridiculously, insanely, supernaturally, head over heels in love.

 
[quote]Day 5 June 24, 2009 Today was another example of God’s hand mightily at work among us. We arrived at “Amparo De Ninas” at about 10:00am. There are 76 girls in this orphanage. They were all ready to go to the big city park “just down the road” so we set out walking to the park. An hour and 5 or 6 miles later we arrived at the park. It was a lovely walk in the 70 degree weather with each of us surrounded by girls holding our hands or walking arm in arm and asking question after question. It was wonderful. The park is a gigantic, beautiful, lush, park with two lakes. If walking “to” the park wasn’t enough we also had to walk all around the park and see all of the sites 🙂 which gave us lots of opportunity to talk about the Lord, America, food, music, and so on. The nuns cooked in huge kettles over an open fire right in the park a wonderful “soup” full of beef ribs, chicken leg quarters, bananas, plantain, potatoes, rice and so on. It was delicious and hearty. We played volleyball, soccer, earth ball, ladder ball and shot marshmallow guns at each other. At about 3:00pm the rain came and we had to head back to the orphanage. By the time we got back the rain had stopped so we dragged chairs out into the courtyard and sat around and visited until time to go. My heart was pierced again and again as were the rest of the team as we got to know these beautiful girls and see their personalities and know that if they don’t get adopted the statistics tell us that most of them will be dead within two years of leaving the orphanage. One little girl in particular, named Heidy, followed Beverly around all day and tried really hard to communicate with her. At one point she began to play piano scales with her fingers on Beverly’s arm and suddenly they realized that they knew a universal language, music. This little girl plays the piano, flute, and drums. I had seen her with Beverly all day but I was monopolized by several other sweet girls and didn’t get to meet her until we were almost ready to leave. Someone said that she could sing and so we coerced her into singing for us. When she started to sing I thought that heaven had opened up and an angel was singing to us. We were stunned. As I write this there are chills going down my spine and tears filling my eyes. I know that God has a plan for this girl and I am so grateful that on this day I was able to love on her and make her laugh several times and let her know that she has friends from Texas. Tomorrow we go back to have a big hot dog cookout with these girls and then Friday we will be with them all day as well. I can’t wait to get back there and see all of my little friends. I don’t know what the future holds but I know, God willing, that we are going to have a wonderful time in the Lord while we can. Love and Prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 
[quote]Day 6 June 25, 2009 Today was a happy day! We rested some and saw some sites this morning and then went back to “Amparo De Ninas” this afternoon. It was such a happy day because we had made friends with these girls yesterday and they know that we aren’t leaving until Saturday so they don’t have to be sad yet and so we were able to just be comfortable with each other and really loosen up and have some fun. When I walked into the courtyard I saw that the girls had taken colored chalk and in huge fancy letters written on the asphalt “Mateo, Te Queremos Mucho” (Matthew, We Love You Very Much). The little girl (Heidy) that I told about who was such a singer and musician had drawn a large picture of a girl with a smaller girl with her head on her shoulder and under the larger girl was the name Beverly and under the smaller girl was her name with hearts all around the picture. It was beautiful. We played basketball, volleyball, and sat around and talked a lot. For dinner we had our big hot dog cook out and then made popcorn and roasted marshmallows over the charcoal. Someone brought out a stereo and then it got crazy. In case you ever wondered if Latin girls can dance, I am here to tell you positively that they can and that they are determined when trying to teach us “Americanos” how to as well. I’ve never had more fun in my life. We laughed and we made them laugh. We danced and took crazy pictures of each other until our camera batteries were gone. We talked and played until the sun was way down and it was time to go. Some of the girls made woven bracelets and Beverly knew how to start them so there was literally a line of girls waiting for Beverly to help them get theirs started. Heidy brought her bracelet when completed and put it on my arm. I tried to give it back and tell her it was for her but she would have none of it. All day yesterday and today I kept trying to get her picture but she wouldn’t let me or anyone else. Apparently she is infamous for hating to have her picture taken. Once when I surprised her with a shot she begged me to delete it and so I did. She did allow a picture of her and Beverly with her drawing though and right before we left she came up and said “Una photo de tu y yo” (One photo of you and me) so I was able to get her picture after all. My friend Allen took the shot and I can’t wait to get it from him. I knew that it was a huge gesture of friendship for her to permit it and I will cherish that picture. It reminded me of summer camp when I was a boy and making new friends and having fun and giving yourself to the moment knowing that the week will end but for the moment this is all there is in the universe. I know God put Beverly and I on this wonderful team of people and appointed us for this trip and I can gratefully say that I have soaked up every minute. I came here to show the love of Jesus to these children but what I didn’t expect was to see His love for me through them. Love and Prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 
[quote]Day 7 June 26, 2009 Our final day here in Bogota was very sweet and very sad as was expected. We went back to “Amparo De Ninas” today. The girls were all gathered and Beverly, David, Sarah, and I sang “Here I Am To Worship” for them and then I gave our last devotional from Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I shared with them how the God of hope loves them and has a plan for them. And when they believe the Holy Spirit comes and fills them with hope, joy, and peace. They can search for those things in the world, in things, in human relationships, but they are only to be found in God through His Son Jesus Christ. Several girls prayed with me after acknowledging their need for and total dependance on Jesus Christ for their eternal salvation. After the devotion, the team gave each girl a New Testament in Spanish and a brand new pair of shoes and a stuffed bunny. I should mention here that our team, Here I Am Orphan Ministry, (www.orphanministries.com) bought 361 pairs of shoes this week for girls and boys in every orphanage we visited plus 4 other orphanages that we were not able to visit this time. Then it was lunch time and we enjoyed eating and visiting together. Two girls wrote me sweet notes thanking me for opening my heart to them and for the love that they felt. I have so many little sisters now. Instead of trying to celebrate each girls birthday when it comes around they have two big parties a year, one in June for the January through June birthdays and one at the end of the year for the rest. Today was the big birthday party for the first 1/2 of the year so after lunch our buddies from “Amparo De Ninos” that we visited earlier in the week showed up and the party began. There were cakes and we brought ice cream and toppings and there was a DJ and lots of dancing :-). The kids look forward to this for 6 months and they were extra delighted that we were going to be there to share it with them. It was a happy time. As the day began to come to a close the girls started bringing me their email addresses on scraps of paper and eliciting promises of staying in touch and promises to return and see them when we can. When it actually came time to leave, we gathered in a big circle and held hands and I prayed. I asked God to watch over our friends, to draw them close to Himself, to let them know that we love them and it is because He first loved us, and to hold our hearts in His hand until we see each other again. After the prayer, some of the girls got up and thanked us. Heidy, the little girl that captured Beverly and my heart and with whom we had much fun today, got up and said, “Thank you for coming to show us love. Believe me, your riches in heaven will be great. You have given 365 days worth of love in 3 days. God bless you.” Then it was time to go and girls rushed to kiss us on the cheek and give us hugs. Many were crying as were we. They thanked us over and over again. Finally, before some of the team dragged me into the van and closed the door, I gave Heidy the last of many tearful hugs and we said our sweet goodbyes. I don’t have the words to say what we all felt as we drove away but there was much sobbing and many determined oaths to redouble our efforts to “Vindicate the weak and fatherless and do justice to the afflicted and destitute.” Psalm 82:3 Love and Prayers, Pastor Matt [/quote]
 

As little Heidy and I were giving each other our last tearful goodbyes and hugs and kisses and she was whispering in my ear “I love you, I’ll be praying for you” my friends David and Allen grabbed me by the back of my leather jacket and literally dragged me into the van and slammed the door because we were going to miss our flight. As the door closed and we drove away from Amparo De Ninas, I sat frozen for a moment and then I turned to David and quietly said, “If I have to swim the gulf of Mexico, I’m going to help that little girl.” Then I fell into his arms and sobbed like a baby all the way to the airport.

Here is an excerpt from Beverly’s journal from that trip…

 
[quote]“The summer that I graduated high school I read, “Don’t waste your life” by John Piper. When I read that book God put a fervent desire in my heart to give my life wholly and completely over to God to do with as He would. He stirred a passion in me to do something meaningful something that would impact the kingdom of God for His glory. That same summer God brought a young orphan girl into our life named Mercy. She needed a home and a loving forever family. I knew right away that God wanted me to make a ministry of this precious new sister. And so I spent that year pouring into her the love of God. And then one day my dad walks into the office and tells me about an opportunity he was given to go on a mission trip to Bogota, Colombia and I was reminded of what God had stirred in me the summer before. I had no idea what to expect and sometimes wondered what in the world were we getting ourselves into. The first day we visited a boy’s orphanage. It was very awkward and I did not know what to do with myself. And then one sweet shy little boy kept taking my hand every chance he got and started showing me around. He showed me everything but when he took me to one of the rooms where they sleep and showed me his bed and his little backpack that held all the little toys he owned I wanted to cry. That first day he hardly ever left my side soaking in all the love and affection he could. But after that he began to pull away and I realized it was because he knew we were going to leave and wanted to make it as least painful as he could by staying away. It broke my heart. That night I couldn’t stop thinking of all the little things in life I take for granted. Things like a hug or a shelf full of stuffed animals or a pantry full of food or just family. Over the next few days we visited two girls orphanages. I marveled at how selfless and loving these children were and at how even though we had gifts and food and things to give them what they wanted the most was our love. All they wanted was to hold your hand to make you laugh to hug you to see you smile. That baffled me the most. We were there to serve them and give them love and they were so eager to do just that for us. Telling these precious children goodbye on that last day was the hardest thing I have ever done. God stirred a passion in me when I read, “Don’t waste your life” to do something of worth and value for the kingdom of God. And I have to say I am certain I have found that something. And that something is to take God’s love and the gospel to Orphans and God willing bring some home to teach and train in the ways of the Lord.” [/quote]
 

Beverly and I sat quietly on the plane with copious tears flowing down both of our cheeks. Suddenly she reached over and squeezed my hand so hard it hurt. “Dad, promise me that we will never be the same again! Promise me! Promise me that we won’t forget what we saw, what we felt, and we will go home and do something about it!” All I could choke out was, “Beverly, I promise if we have to swim the gulf of Mexico, we are going to help those kids.”

Aflame For God 18 – Swimming The Gulf of Mexico

“Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire… A man who can speak about these things dispassionately has no right whatsoever to be in a pulpit; and should never be allowed to enter one.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Read the beginning of the series HERE

It was early 2000 and at the invitation of our nearest neighbor, we visited Forest Meadow Baptist Church and immediately fell in love with the church, the people, the pastor and his wife. Very soon after we invited the pastor and his wife over for lunch after church one Sunday. In our usual fashion we visited with them while the children cooked and served and then we sat around and the children shared stories and testimonies and the pastor and his wife were completely blown away. After a beautiful afternoon of fellowship they said goodbye and as they were leaving the pastor pulled me aside and said, “Matt, you have something very very special here in this family that you guys are raising. What God is doing here in your home needs to be exported to the world. You need to export this blessing that God has given you. Can I challenge you in the next year to have as many families from our church over to your home as possible so that they can experience what we experienced today and feel what we felt today and be inspired to raise up a generation of warriors for Christ?” I was stunned. I promised him that we would do exactly that and when I went back in and explained to the family what he had told me we pulled out the church directory and a calendar and began to formulate a plan to have every family in the church over for dinner in the next 12 months. In that one moment of encouragement from that pastor a flame was lit in our hearts to be a catalyst for Christian family renewal and inspiration.

Week after week, chicken dinner after chicken dinner, we began to build relationships with all of the families in the church and God began to do amazing things in us and through us. First, we built some of the greatest friendships of our lives that remain as bulwarks in our family to this day. Second, we began to study even harder than we had before about godly family and marriage so that we could grow ourselves and also counsel and disciple others. We did end up having nearly every family in the church over for dinner in the next two years and we and I would like to think the church were never the same again. We also began to loan out books and tapes from our significant family library and the results were so stunning that we began to buy two and three of everything in our library to give away or lend to our steady stream of hungry souls God was sending to our dinner table.

My health had been dramatically deteriorating for a couple of years and we couldn’t figure it out. I was only 35 years old but was functioning like a 70-year-old man. Finally the doctors told me I had Systemic Lupus and it was incurable. They put me on 11 different medications and within two years I was almost dead. I could barely walk and spent more time in bed than out and that blessed little church and group of friends loved and cared for us amazingly. God only allowed us to enjoy that heavenly mountain valley and church and friends for 3 years and then He moved us to Houston, Texas in a most miraculous way. Even though I was terribly sick, I was still rocketing up in the commercial construction world and eventually caught the attention of the largest construction company in America and through a series of providences that made it clear God was at work I was recruited to build a $220,000,000 Hilton hotel in Houston, Texas to be completed in time for the 2004 Superbowl. So we loaded up and moved to Houston. All the while we felt strongly that God was not primarily moving us here for construction but that it was only the carrot to get us here for some yet unforeseen kingdom plan. And we were not wrong.

Within a few weeks of settling down in Houston we “stumbled” onto a little church plant that was 3 weeks old and immediately fell in love with the people there. Within a week or two we had rolled up our sleeves and dove in. In no time at all the church had 30 families attending regularly and you guessed it, we put into action a plan to have each family over for dinner and love on them and minister to them in any way we could including exposing them to our now mammoth family lending library. We jumped at every chance to do any job in the church no matter how small and we had never been happier. One weekend in the spring of 2004 changed my life forever. As we now had risen to leadership in the church we were sent off to a Christian retreat called Tres Dias as part of our leadership training. I went with an open mind and heart to see what God had for me there but in my wildest dreams I could never have imagined the impact this one weekend would have on me for the rest of my life. I can’t explain exactly what or how but Jesus met me on that weekend so miraculously that I can only say that it was every bit as impactful as that youth camp in the summer of 1982 and I came home a man aflame once again. If you had asked me before that weekend if I was on fire for God I probably would have said yes but time and trouble and illness and the cares of this life had dampened my flame more than I realized but that weekend God blew through my soul with a fresh wind and fanned an inferno that burns brightly to this day. I came home from that weekend with a three part vision. 1. I knew God wanted me to pastor. 2. I knew God wanted me to write a book about godly family. 3. I knew God wanted me to begin speaking at homeschool conferences and challenging parents to raise warriors for Christ.

Shortly after, I became one of the pastors of this booming church of now 300 people, we began to write our book The Blessed Family (now available on Amazon HERE), and I became a regular speaker at the annual Southeast Texas Homeschool Association state conference. Later I would also write a monthly article called Dad’s Corner for The Teaching Pioneer Magazine. I loved preaching more than ever now and like days gone by I enjoyed the Holy Spirit’s power and help but in even stronger ways than when I was a youth. It was thrilling what God was doing all around us. I was still sick much of the time, still building high rise buildings all over Texas, and still ministering to people three and four nights a week in our home but by this time we had an army of precious warriors and best friends in our 5 teenagers who now did all of the work, including our two sons studying theology and working for me building high rises and then God called us to start a church in our living room because we weren’t busy enough! Within 8 weeks that church was running over 100 people and then 300 and then after 3 years we started over with another church in our living room. Through some miraculous circumstances our family was part of a think tank strategizing with the leaders of some of the largest churches in America about how to raise up the next generation of warriors for Christ. Lisa and I were also speaking at Tres Dias weekends twice a year and seeing God work miracle after miracle in the lives of hundreds of people. It was 2008 and we were working as hard for God as we knew how. There are too many crazy God-stories and fierce spiritual battles to tell all of it but suffice it to say we were exporting the blessing in every way we thought possible and swinging our swords at the agents of darkness with all of our might. We were living as radical for God as we could possibly imagine. BUT GOD!… was about to completely blow our minds…

Aflame For God 15 – An Orphan On Our Doorstep

“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

“Nothing but fire kindles fire.” – Phillips Brooks

Read the beginning of the series HERE

We had lain down (temporarily at least) our wild ideas of turning the world upside down. I was working, we had an apartment, and all of our friends, in-laws, and other family were happy that we had “wised up” and were submitting to the status quo of the culture. However, there was still a subversive fire burning in our bones and so we devised a plan for our life. I would work hard at whatever work God sent me during the day and at night Lisa and I would get educated theologically so that we could educate our children to be warriors for Christ. I told Lisa that for every book she read on Christian womanhood, child rearing, women’s ministry, or prayer and wrote a report on the book, I would buy her a new dress. So about two days later I came home from my $5.00 per hour job and she had already read a weighty book and written a beautiful report. I couldn’t believe it! How was I going to buy her a dress? I began, like Laban in the Bible, to change her “wages” seven times but she smilingly assured me that she never intended to take me up on my dress deal. She was as committed to our vision of knowing God and preparing our little family to impact the kingdom as I was and she need no additional incentive but the joy of pursuing God as a family. Within that month she had read 5 books and written reports. I couldn’t keep up with her reading, but I tried hard.

One day when our oldest, Luke, was about to be school age I came home and told Lisa, “I am not sending my kids to these New Mexico schools. The only thing I learned there was self defense. We are going to keep our kids home and teach them ourselves.” We had never heard of homeschooling so you can imagine my wife’s response. I told her that everything man has ever learned is in a book somewhere and all we have to do is teach them to read. She was incredulous but agreed to start teaching them at home. We didn’t have a TV so we spent nearly every evening reading. Every morning she would gather the children around our little table and memorize scripture with them. I bought her a blackboard to put on the wall in our dining nook and when they had mastered a verse by memory she would write the verse on the board. Each day they would review the verses on the board and then begin the process of memorizing a new one. I was working very hard to keep the wolves away from the door and not paying too much attention to the blackboard until one day I stopped and noticed that there were over 40 verses written on that little blackboard. I couldn’t believe it! I asked Lisa, “Do you mean to tell me that you and the children have memorized over 40 verses of scripture?” “Yes”, she replied and quickly to prove her point had the children recite from memory all 43 verses. I was stunned and thrilled. They were 7, 6, 5, and 3-years-old and our 5th baby, Brooke, was an infant. It wasn’t long before they were reciting whole chapters of the Bible from memory.

I had preached at a youth rally in Indianapolis, Indiana and the daughter of an evangelist, Don Boys, was in the crowd and was impacted by the sermon. Somehow I was told that her father was working on a curriculum for something called Home Schooling. He was gathering Christian educators from all around the country to collaborate on it which intrigued me greatly. Later I learned that he had completed it and it was available for purchase. We checked with the laws of our state, New Mexico, learned that homeschooling was illegal, but ordered the curriculum and began home schooling our children nonetheless. We didn’t know another homeschooling family but believed it was God’s plan for our family. Later our kids would tell us that for years they thought we invented home schooling! Later we fought with other home schooling families to make it legal in all 50 states. It didn’t turn out to be the quid pro quo fool proof method of raising warriors for Christ that we had hoped but we are still glad that we educated them ourselves all the way through high school. We eventually built up a library in our home of over 7,000 volumes, many of which our children had read before they graduated from high school. History, theology, biography, Christian living, science, classics, of course some good old fiction kept us captivated day in and day out year upon year and God was deepening us individually and as a family and preparing us for adventures we couldn’t have imagined at the time. Even today though our children are in their 20’s and scattered all over the world, we read a book or two per month together and share our insights, comments, and delights from each book in a secret Facebook group we affectionately call Bullen Book Club.

Many were the months that we didn’t know where the rent would come from but God always provided. There was a large rock outcropping in the mountain foot hills near our apartment complex and I would often go there late at night and cry out to God to provide for my little family. I was working at everything that I could find. Some months the Lord saw fit to let us really be tested. I even spent a night in jail once because our tags were expired on our old ford van that I used for work. But even then I witnessed to the officer that arrested me and everyone in the jail that I was raising 5 warriors for Christ on one laborers income and sometimes buying milk came ahead of renewing my registration. I’m sure we made many mistakes but we were two kids in our mid 20’s with 5 children and a religious conviction against food stamps and welfare and we were doing our best to figure out how to make it all work. God always sent us what we needed when we needed it though and that included encouragement. We lived in a second story apartment and a couple and their 3 teenagers moved in down below us. We began to notice how mature and how sweet and respectful their children were and it wasn’t long before we met them and discovered that they were Christians and that they homeschooled! Wow! Our first encounter with another homeschooling family! They were much farther down the road than us and so John and Kim took us under their wings and mentored us for the rest of the time that we lived there. They were radical! They lived in an apartment so they could use their funds for missions! They were unbelievably wise and encouraging and we owe them an eternal debt of gratitude for letting us know that rather than being crazy, we were actually on the right track. John and Kim and their children are still dear friends today and staunch supporters of our ministry. God is good.

It wasn’t all work though. We had a motto that we worked hard and we played hard. I doubt any young dad ever enjoyed his children more than me. Many were the nights that the water ran down the walls of our apartment as we had water fights. You could always count on getting blasted with a rubber band or cold water dumped on you in the shower or something around our place. Many weekends the older 3 children worked with me on moonlighting construction jobs. I found out later that they would endure the hard hours of labor because I always bought them breakfast burritos on the way to work. We were strict and demanded a lot from our kids but we had tons of fun too and it is the greatest joy of my life that today we are very close and there is deep love and respect in our family and we have the incredible blessing of working together in ministry around the world. But that is later in the story. The other wonderful thing that happened during this time was though we were not in any organized type of ministry, God sent an unending stream of people to our door to be discipled and encouraged… Aflame For God 13 – A Path To Our Door