Glory To God

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! It has been quite some time since our last post, but I can assure you that it is not from a lack of material. Allow me to start by getting you caught up from our last blog. Elaine and I are both employed now. She works as an assistant to a local shoemaker and I have gone back into security work. We are not homeless and God did provide for us. Cleveland Bethel Church of the Nazarene, the owners of the Poe House Parsonage, has graciously allowed us to begin renting the property from them. This was truly a blessing from the Lord with all of the pieces falling into place at the last minute. Our training courses are coming along nicely and we hope to begin offering them by the New Year.

This month had many events, planned and unplanned, that took place. We began by attending Cleveland Victory Church of the Nazarene and I had the opportunity to share God’s Word with their congregation on October 17^th. The experience definitely took me out of my comfort zone, because I was so used to preaching at Cleveland Bethel. I hope my nervousness didn’t affect the sermon too badly. We also continued our outreach efforts with the HeavenTrain and We Care Connection ministries. You can find some video from our last HeavenTrain outing on YouTube and Ustream. Our We Care Connection outing was exciting because Greg, another volunteer, began using a new tool with the homeless… a lie-detector test. It was a big hit with the homeless and the volunteers alike. Plus, it helped us to segue into evangelistic discussions.

Elaine and I took time out this past month to attend the Esteem the Word Rally at Lighthouse Alliance Church. This was a great day of learning about God and His holy Word. We really appreciated our Bibles so much more after attending this event. You can obtain the audio from each session through Abide Ministries. Our monthly ministry event was planned for October 30^th and we found the perfect opportunity to share the Gospel. Steelyard Commons, an outdoor shopping plaza, decided to have a “Trick or Treat” event that same day. Praise the Lord! Missional Evangelists for Jesus Christ were there with plenty of tracts for all ages. Oddly enough, that wasn’t the end of our evangelistic efforts for the weekend.

After church on Sunday, I was invited to spend some time on the street with Mark Terlecky, the Cleveland Cross Guy. The power of the Holy Spirit flows through this man when he’s out there with his cross. We spent nearly two hours in the cold, windy weather and two witnessing opportunities presented themselves. When I returned home, there was another witnessing opportunity waiting for me in the parking lot! Later that night, Elaine and I decided that we would oblige the children and give out candy. Of course, we didn’t JUST give out candy, but also gave Gospel tracts to anyone that came to our porch. From now on, this event will be called “Tract & Treat” in our house.

There is so much more to tell you, but I’ve already taken up enough of your time for this week. We hope to be more regular with our blog posts now that we can focus more on the ministry. I leave you with this scripture verse, “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are” (Romans 3:20, NLT). Blessings in Christ!