Here are some people recently touched by messages that God gave us for them:

1) On my way home one late Saturday morning, I noticed a group of people standing outside of a tiny local church building. Some of them were waving sign boards. I felt moved to speak with them, but I had just finished working out and I was very sweaty, so as soon as I reached home (which was just around the corner), I told Don about it.

He purposed to leave straight away to go chat with the people, but he was delayed, and by that time I realized that the Lord wanted me to go too, so I quickly freshened up and hopped in the car with Don. Before leaving, though, we all prayed together that God would make it very obvious who it was in particular that He wanted us to speak with. We declared that surely there would be at least one person with a humble and hungry heart.

As we neared the church, we saw that it was now empty outisde. As we did a u-turn in front of the building, a lone older man spied us and started to follow where we drove to. We parked on the adjacent street and, as we crossed the road toward the church building, the man passed us, noticeably wanting to say something to us, but seemingly unsure as to how to engage us (and perhaps a little unsure of our intentions).

We eagerly said hi and asked what he and his church buddies had going on. (They were doing a back-to-school backpack drive.) The man was really happy that we had stopped to talk, and we all walked back to the church building, chatting as we went. We ended up spending about an hour with the man, sitting off to the side in front of the church, encouraging him with testimonies from our Books of Acts style ministry (after quickly learning that he was already born of water and of the Holy Spirit and recognized the importance of praying in tongues).

After our awesome discussion, we gave him our details, and to our joy, he left a message later that day, saying he’d love to meet again and hear more. So, Don met with him on the Monday and God built upon what He had started in this lovely man two days prior. On the Saturday, he had told us about the recent burden that was troubling him - that God was asking him, “Besides going to church, what are YOU doing in your personal life to serve Me and help others come to know and experience Jesus?” So, when Don and I suddenly turned up and started speaking with him directly, he absolutely knew it was a special message from God for him!

2) Don was recently at a local laundromat, washing some items that we couldn’t manage to deal with at home. While there, he overheard a lady saying “Amen!” to another lady a number of times. So, during a break in the conversation between the ladies, Don said to the one, “You must be a church-going lady!” This led to a great discussion with her and then later, to another discussion with the other lady and her 9-year-old son (who had also been listening). In fact, it was the boy who was enthusiastically engaging with Don. He had lots of comments and questions, truly hungering to know more about Don’s miraculous experiences with the Lord. The boy was very mature and clearly hard a heart for Jesus and God’s Word. Don encouraged him lots, and we are praying that he will go and seek the Lord diligently of his own accord.

3) Don was at a tile store and got chatting with the owner after he mentioned a number of issues he was dealing with in his life. At first, based on what the owner was saying, Don didn’t think he would be open to hearing any of his testimonies. Nevertheless, Don spoke up, sharing with him first-hand experiences with God that have miraculously helped and blessed our family over the years.

The owner then called out to one of his employees to come join the conversation. The owner encouraged the employee to share details of a recent serious accident he had experienced. At first, the employee was hesitant, but after the owner explained what Don had been talking about, the employee opened up. In particular, he had to have his spleen removed, but he had afterward declared to his boss (the owner) that God would heal him. At the time, the boss had emphatically expressed his doubts, but now he was quietly considering things as the three of them chatted some more in the tile store.

Don gave them both one of our church website cards, and it will be interesting to see how things progress from here seeing that God surely had His beautiful, perfect hands upon the entire afternoon . . . .