During our previous journeys and on this one so far, God has been our shield of protection. He keeps directing our path. Most of the path have had lots of good shoulder, and that makes me very happy because I can park, on the side of the road and provide Nick with food, water and a place to rest for few minutes.
When the weather has been cold or nasty with heavy rain and even snow. God keeps directing us to safety, to a Wal-mart or a church parking lot.
One of the things that keeps coming up on this particular walk, is that we need to become knowledgeable of what God tells us in his Word. The word tells us:"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. " (Isaiah 55:8)
Sometimes when we read Scripture, we do not understand and we get discouraged, however, if we ask the Holy Spirit of God to help us understand, He gives us that understanding.Reading Scripture and being in touch with God, is like dating.
We begin to understand and know the person we are dating by our daily contact and communication with him or her. It is the same with God, as we stay in touch with Him through His Word, we begin to learn more about His love for us, about His character, about His grace and our faith begins to increase. Through Jesus Christ, God has taken the initiative in this relationship, do not let it go by.
You have heard it say: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16, 17). It is true!
We also have hear that: Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17). So my question to you and to myself is who and to what have we been listening to? Lets begin together and start listening to the Word of God to increase our faith.
Even in Genesis, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit; they found out that they were naked, because they had eaten of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When God came looking for them, He called,"Where are you?" Adam answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." And He said, "Who told you that you were naked?" What voice have we been listening to. It is time to change our radio station and learn more about the God who created us out of love. It is not religion, it is a relationship.
As we have been doing these walks across America, each one has had its own personality and they have been very different from each other. However, the one constant that I can see is that we get lonely some times. As we walk and we move away from our friends and family, the distance grows bigger and bigger.
But this past week has been seven days of serendipities. Even though I had to work on taxes and year-end stuff for Breath of CHRIST Ministries, it was good to see our friend Lorri from California, and visit Joe Osteen's church (Lakewood Church) last Sunday. The music renewed my spirit and the message really spoke to both of Nick & I.
Thursday afternoon, our Goddaughter was in the Houston area and she took some time to visit with us. We had a fun time and we laughed a lot.
Then on Friday, we visited with our friend Ida Lou, who we met two years ago in Israel. She prepared for us a very tasty lunch. We sat around the kitchen table and had a lovely time.
Seeing friends from home and visiting in a friend's house does not happened very often as we travel America, but when it happens we are very grateful. We know people care and it caresses our hearts.
And even though you may not be able to visit with us in person; your phone calls, emails and text messages do make a difference.
"I am so glad, I am a part of the family of God".......
I thank the Lord for all these years of learning, growing, loving. He is the one who gives us the understanding to be the best person we can be. As Nick and I celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary, I begin to understand that God has to be in the center of all of our relationships. Without God we let circumstances get in between of our relationships and misunderstandings increase instead of His love.
A few things you may not know about our marriage is:
1.- When we got married, we were living in a tent trailer....looking back I believe that was our training for these journeys we have been doing for the last 9 years.
2.- When we got married we only had 5 people at our wedding including the Pastor and the two of us...the other 2 people where my uncle Hector and a friend of ours who was Nick's best man. They took us to a Mexican Restaurant to celebrate the occasion...that was our reception!
3.- We did not have rings. They came five years later, when I asked Nick what he wanted for his birthday, he said "I want us to have wedding rings." So, we got them.
4.- We did not have a honeymoon...after the wedding. After the ceremony and the lunch, Nick and I went to Target to look for couple of dress shirts for him because the following Monday, he was starting a new job.
So, five years, after our wedding we got the rings. When we celebrated 15 years of marriage, a friend of our send us to Hawaii to a writers conference, so Nick could start on his book from our first journey....so we decided to take that as our honeymoon.
Finally, two years ago as we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, I had the blessing to have our reception and the cake with my family in Mexico City. My friend Pat, gave me her wedding dress and we had a marvelous time.
I guess it does not matter how we do things as long as God is in it; we will be blessed. He delights in blessing His children. I am sooo thankful to be married to Nick and to know that God holds us in the palm of His hand.
At the beginning of the month our friends Pat and Don invited us to go to a 3 day conference to go see and learn from Pastors Bill Johnson and Keith Miller, in the Dallas area. It was a very interesting and enlightening time. We were looking forward to the conference, because Bill Johnson is a man full of the Spirit of God. The weather had been so nice, 70 degrees and sunny, however, when we got to Dallas the weather made a very sudden change and it got sooooo cold it snowed on us, for 2 days, brrrr!
One day during our stay in Dallas, my friend Pat handed me a bag with many items inside of it. It had some correspondence, bills, a couple of CD's and a book called "Chronicles from His Garden" by Lillis Boyer.
Well, few days ago I began to listen to one of her CD's; it was the one with instrumental music, my favorite, because this particular CD helps you focus on God. It places you at His feet to praise Him, to love on Him and to thank Him for all the blessings He gives us every single day.
As I continued to listen, I picked up Lillis' book and began to read. Several pages into it, I started to have some feelings, that I usually try to hide..... Wow, wow, wow! Alert, Alert.... I am feeling jealous by the experiences she was describing in her book. The envy list lengthened....it came so rapidly and suddenly that I was having problem focusing on anything else but ME.....
Lord... why don't I ever experience anything like that? She had all these wonderful experiences with God and gardens and waterfalls, amazing colors and heaven. How come other people see things and see the glorious part of the heavenly realm?... and on, and on, and on I went! I was in the middle of this one sided conversation with God when my phone rang.... it was Nick; he called me because he needed a meal break....ooops! I was so into my feelings that I forgot to go get Nick. I immediately went to get my baby and I prepared him a snack. While he was taking his meal break, we talked a bit about my experience. As soon as he got back on the road, I got on our computer to check on my Facebook and my email.
I was about to access Facebook when I heard from inside me: "twenty-nine, thirteen." I looked around and out of my mouth came ... "What?" Again inside me I heard "twenty-nine, thirteen." I thought, "Is this a date?"...no, we only have 12 months. "Is this a time?"... no, we only have 24 hours in the day. Is this a lottery number... "twenty-nine, thirteen.".... then inside me once again I heard..... "Deuteronomy 29:13". "Read, Deuteronomy 29:13!" When I read it, it seemed to be incomplete so I started to read on verse 12, which reads:
12 You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the LORD your God, a covenant the LORD is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, 13 to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Wooooow! God is speaking to me...... I could not believe it. I was nervous; excited and I started to cry as I felt as small as a flea....I could not believe that He, The God of the Universe, was speaking to me! He listened to my complaint and He answered my request. So I got on the drivers side of the RV and quickly drove to get Nick. As he came for his other meal break, I shared with him about what God had told me.
When I was telling him about the scripture, I placed both of us in the scripture and I mentioned that His promises were for Nick and I. He knew immediately what I was trying to do. So he said to me. "Lucy, that promise is for you. God is speaking to you. He is your God and you are His" Well, when he left. I continued to read in Deuteronomy 29:12-15, in my Bible and to my own surprise....here is what God said to us!
12 You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the LORD your God, a covenant the LORD is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, 13 to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 14 I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you15 who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God but also with those who are not here today.
I felt in my heart that ALL the members of our family and our descendants have this promise. He is our GOD and we are His people!
Open your heart today and listen to the still small voice of the Lord and see what He is saying to you. Don't wait... He wants to bless you. He loves you! He likes you! He delights in you! He is yours and you are His!
I love to see the hand of God in every area of my life. Last week we had the opportunity to travel to Las Vegas to see family, check on Alex's health and also we were able to drive to California for couple speaking engagements.
God really moved in the hearts of the people and my heart gets full of joy as I see the the Spirit of God blessing His people. We heard that it was snowing in the San Bernardino mountains, and since we wanted to get ahead of the "bad" weather we drove back to Vegas on Tuesday to see the family.
We arrived at the Comfort Inn and Frank, our son, called to let us know that we would be seeing them that evening. Well, little did I know they (Chris and Frank) had planned on taking us out to dinner. They blessed us by taking us to theWolfgang Puck at the MGM casino.
Frank and Chris's friend Cody is the chef there and we were treated like royalty!
For appetizers we had mini crab cakes, beef kabobs, a tray with a variety of deli meats and cheeses, potato chips with blue cheese dressing, and much more.
We also had Chilean Sea Bass that was superb and a beef dinner that was out of this world. The food just kept coming to us, it was sooo amazing! For dessert we had a delicious pumpkin cheese cake with raspberry sauce and whipped cream as well as a marvelous chocolate souffle. I wish you could have been there.
I don't think that King David, nor Solomon had such a wonderful and delightful spread. Really, we are blessed and highly favored. I just need to thank Chris and Frank for loving on us.
In the society we live in, it seems that we are never happy with ourselves. If we have curly hair, we want is straight. If we are short, we want to be tall. If we have brown hair, we color it blond, or red, or maybe purple.
I have heard people say that the grass is always greener on the other side. Well, I can attest to that! A few days ago, Nick stopped for a meal break, and few minutes after he left the RV, a police officer stopped him about quarter of a mile across from where I was parked on the side of the road. I grabbed my binoculars and I was trying to see what was going on. All of the sudden I saw the officer with his head bowed. Nick was praying with and for him.
I immediately started to talked to God about it. I said to God, "It is wonderful the work that Nick is doing; he is being obedient to you and he gets to talk and pray with people...it is amazing how you move through him when we are on the road." Of course right after that, I started to tell Him all the things that I was not doing. I said, "Lord, I am not walking, nor praying for people that much. I have not prayed for an officer since we moved from Kansas to Oklahoma....and I am just here, doing house work on the road. Yes, I know that I am praying while Nick is walking...but Nick, is the face of the ministry, he does the dramas and is a very good speaker and writer and he has a great gift of communication." And before I could say anything else, God spoke to my heart.
"Lucy, before you go any further, let me tell you, that Nick, could not do this journey without you. He needs you to support him, to take care of him, to pray for him and the people he is going to meet and not every one has your patience. Besides, the RV is your prayer closet. You talk to Me, you sing to Me and you worship Me. This is the place where we both meet every day. You bring your petitions to Me and I listen and answer your prayers."
I totally felt like the Israelites, I forgot! For some reason, we usually do not see God and His hand working in us and through us, until after the fact. We...I guess I mean I... need to take time every day to count my blessings, no matter how small I think they are. If it is a blessing, it is not small at all because God is in it. Wow! I do not know where I have been. Sorry, Lord and thank you for waking me up!
It seems that for the last 10 months I have been on an emotional roller coaster. Last January, Nick broke his two front teeth....that was a hit of $3000 in debts....in February, Nick had a five day hospital visit due to dehydration and that was about $22+K for five days; since we do not have insurance, the hospitalization treatments and services just kept adding up.
In February we were blessed by good friends from California who donated to Breath of Christ Ministries a 1977 RV for our 3rd Walk Across America for Christ....well, our friends are good Christian people with wonderful hearts...what they did not know is that the RV was not as road worthy as they thought. We had an adventure of replacing the engine, the radiator, airbags, shocks, and more stuff than I care to remember.
Our wonderful friend Bob Leavitt, made a point to help us with this RV and he got a new stove, he rebuilt a new bed for us and created office space for me to be able to do my work while on the road. He also replace a sealing fan, the shower and put 3 mirrows in the RV so I would feel more at home. He gave all of himself for us to be able to go on the road. He gave his talent, his time, and cash out of his own pocket for us to keep walking for God. This project took several months and still the RV was having problems. I can hardly describe all of it. It would take another year to tell you all the details.
By the end of March, Nick and I found ourselves in a quicksand of debt, we were stuck $40,000! It was not a pretty picture. We tried to figure out how to get out of it, because of all the repairs on the RV, plus the hospitalization and the dental was a combination of expenses we had not planned on. We did not know what to do, we were confused, stressed and overwhelmed. So, Nick said to God in a prayer....We do not know what to do, Lord but our eyes are on YOU! (2 Chronicles 20:12)
I mentioned to Nick that at the end of March, I had celebrated my 50th birthday and in Scripture it talks about the Year of Jubilee....on the 50th year. So I explained to Nick that I was going to claim my birthday as my year of jubilee and I was going to believe for our debt to be forgiven. He just looked at me with tender eyes like saying....Okay dear, whatever you say. I knew that God could do it. I knew that He loves us. I did not know when or how He was going to do it. However, I did not want to open the door to doubt, but some times it creeps in.
One day in May, Nick and I drove to our mail box, as we did several times a week. As I went to pick up the mail, I was opening the envelopes of donations and I handed Nick all the bills. He opened one from the hospital and it said: "Dear Nick..." well, we thought when you are in a first name basis with the hospital..we saw it as trouble. However, as Nick continued to read we discovered, that the hospital had forgiven $20000 out of the $22,200 we owed. The Monday prior to receiving this letter from the hospital, we had received a donation of $2000, so we only paid $200 for that bill.....Is GOD faithful or what??? I was so overwhelmed I was crying and thanking God all over the place, the people at the mail box just looked at me and did not know what was going on......I marvel at our Lord. He loves us sooo much it is....Amazing!!!! The best part of it all is that He loves you too!!!
People like you also sent gifts to help us out so we could do our walk for Christ and we thank you, because we know that God had provided for you and He placed us in your hearts for you to give. Thank you soooooo very much. We ask the True God that He prospers you for your obedience and faithfulness.
Through the guidance and love of God we paid off the other part of the debt. Since late October we have been debt free!
On August 31st, we started our 3rd Walk Across America for Christ, however as you have learned through our news letter, emails, facebook and blogs. We had continued to have problems with the 1977 RV. It got so bad that the toilet was not working, then we had a water leak that created mold on the carpet, the black water came in the RV some how and it was bad. Then the generator needed a new starter.
By the end of September we had a propane leak and we almost met our Creator. I got very sick....a few days later Pastor Harold from South West Community Church and the church family, purchased a 1994 Winnebago for us to continue on this journey because they felt the other RV was not safe to drive any more.
November first. our son-in-law had and accident, he fell from a 2 story building and broke his back. As I write this he is not able to have any feeling from mid-chest down, he is in the hospital and has a tracheotomy.
We do believe that the same God who has been with us all along and has gotten us out of debt....He is the healer and will bring restoration to Alex. We stand on God's promises and we know that He is Faithful and He is the healer. (Psalm 103)
The storms of life come and go, but we know the One who calms the storms and we stand on the Rock.We are in God's side and we know that He is able and willing. He is faithful and true, therefore, we shall not be moved! (Psalm 16:8, Psalms 62.6, Acts 2:25)
