We’ve finally been able to find a suitable place to establish our church ministry work here in Florida! It’s a great place for prayer group, baptisms (once we get the pool installed - for now we’ll use the bathtub), counseling brethren, venturing out into the streets to share the Word of God, and generally growing toward the Kingdom of God together.
So much work for the Lord has already happened as a part of our moving and settling in here…
1) We shared our stories with the closing agent and ended up praying with her straight after the signings. We had met to go over the paperwork in a hotel lobby, so when we were done, we asked the hotel staff if we could use their conference room to pray. It was just the six of us praying in the huge empty room! The closing agent received the Holy Spirit that day and then ended up coming by the house once we were moved in, so we got to have some more prayer in the Holy Spirit (i.e. in tongues) at that point. She said that since we’d prayed together the first time, she’d been struggling to relax and allow the voice of the Holy Spirit to flow, so the second time of prayer was really helpful for her - she felt she achieved a breakthrough and was very excited to go and pray in tongues every day.
2) I mentioned using our soon-to-be pool for future water baptisms to the cleaning gal that the seller had hired. She was very intrigued, especially since she had recently been baptized, just a few weeks ago. I also mentioned Acts 19:2 and the Holy Spirit anointing to her, which she said she had yet to receive. I gave her our website and she later texted to say she really wanted to have us pray with her. We did so when she came back to finish stage #2 of the cleaning. She was very humble and eager to please God, so she was filled with the Holy Spirit virtually straight away, fluently praying in tongues. She also willingly received all of the follow-up counsel we gave her in terms of living out the ways of Jesus and being a strong Christian example, which was wonderful!
3) After bringing over all of our initial belongings from the hotel, we had to travel to Tampa to retrieve all of our stored goods - two lockers worth! On our way there, the truck rental place had to redirect us to an alternative depot seeing that the truck we’d booked never showed up from the previous customer. Before even driving away to head to the other location, we said to each other, “Maybe there’s a reason…!” And, there was very much a reason!
As we pulled into the other depot, we saw a storm chaser truck parked out front. The driver was still in the vehicle, so Don and our daughter went over to chat to him. When Elisabeth returned to our vehicle, she mentioned the Bible she’d spied sitting on the dash of the storm chaser’s vehicle. So, when Don went back to give him a card and take a photo with him, Don asked him about the Bible. This led to a great conversation and after a short while, we all ended up laying hands on the guy outside his truck, right there in the parking lot. We prayed over him and he received the Holy Spirit. We also prayed a second time, to help him get even more comfortable with praying in tongues, and to pray for God’s hand upon his future.
4) We needed to replace the window shades, so we booked consultations with two shade companies on two separate days. Each time, we got chatting with the salesperson, and they both ended up receiving the infilling of the Holy Spirit during their visits to the house. The first rep had a strong heart toward the Lord, and after he received (praying in tongues as proof), he tearfully shared with us a very significant prayer he’d prayed to God within the last two weeks, in addition to a number of other recent situations he had put to the Lord. So, he could most definitely see God’s hand upon us all coming together, praise God!
The second rep had a mix of a Baptist and Mormon background. At first, he was relatively skeptical and cautious, but as the conversation progressed he felt humbled by the Word of God and wanted us to pray over him. After someone receives the Holy Spirit, we always try to pray with them a second time before they leave, to get them even more comfortable with praying in tongues, so we did so with this rep as well. We also encouraged him to get properly water baptized which we pray he will follow through and do in obedience to the scriptures.
