Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for August, 2016

THE JOURNEY (PART 3)

Posted in Uncategorized on August 27, 2016| 1 Comment »

quill-pen-and-inkwell

WELCOME TO THIS EDITION OF ACTS 29 TODAY

TODAY WE CONTINUE WITH PART 3 OF THE JOURNEY.

# 3. Faith Steps. The vision is initially walked out with steps of faith that are “certain” to lead to God’s blessing on life, ministry, family, and all areas of life. So, with confidence I launch out. And, indeed, God always honors our faith and some wonderful things do happen because of it. He is faithful, but He is still in the business of shaping me big-time!

LARRY WRITING NOW.

After returning from India it was tough being in the States again with all of its prosperity, unbelievable wast, and a country where they spend more on pets than helping people who R starving to death.

e4cbda39533197eed6d75c95b650ba66

It took me some time to re adjust, but in time I did, but I would never ever be the same after those 2 trips abroad. In 1976 I got married and started a family of 2 girls and 1 boy, I was a Pilot for awhile but there was so many Pilots after the Vietnam war that it was hard to get work, so I went into being a residential remodeling contractor.

house-remodeling-1

It was the beginning of a faith filled wonderful life as a believer in Jesus, and surely I would have MY BEST LIFE NOW. LOL (laughing out loud)

Fast forward 18 years, and it was an incredibly busy 18 years, working and raising 3 children. I had been thru 3 or 4 church splits and one that disappeared completely, I had learned that not all believers behave as the Bible says they should, and that life can be very full of challenges that R hard to deal with.

WorkLife

Long story short, the marriage of 18 yrs ended up in divorce, (probably all my fault) and at the same time my only brother and best friend died of a sudden heart attack at 52 years old, and I had been driving semi-trucks for a number of years because of slow construction work and I left that job also.

Divorce-Image    cemetery_stones_0   Semi-Truck-Safety

This was a very extreme tragic time in my life, but when they zipped up the body bag and put my brothers dead body in the back of a black van, and I watched as the tail lights disappeared into the darkest night of my life, the HOLY SPIRIT SAID TO ME

31B44B8800000578-3469420-image-a-85_1456766339649

IF YOU R EVER GOING TO DO WHAT I HAVE CALLED YOU TO DO…………………..

NOW…..WOULD…..B…..THE…..TIME….

I had read a saying that: The tragedy of life is not that it is over so quickly but that we

WAIT SO LONG BEFORE WE START TO… LIVE IT.

sleeping in church

is it over yet

Something happened inside of me, and I no longer had any fear, no fear of living, no fear of dying, just no fear of anything. My brother had fears of many things, but he made over 100K a year and had every investment known to man and yet he died at 52 and never did so many of the things in life that he thought he should do.

I was all out of excuses, I had no wife to blame, no job to blame, n0thing and no body left for an excuse anymore. this was the beginning of ……….

LIFE AFTER YOUR LAST EXCUSE

topoftheworld

It was time to step out of the boat and walk on the water by faith with Jesus, and I knew I was suppose to B involved in missions. Shortly after my brothers death I was back in India and then Russia and over the next 17 years (and a second marriage) China 4 times, Israel, Australia 3 times, Africa 5 times, Haiti 5 times, Thailand 26 times, Costa Rica 7 times, Panama, and other countries as well.

worldatlas1-276855

It would take a book to recount the many marvelous miraculous things GOD did on those trips abroad, and my faith steps were very richly rewarded. All of this of course is the very condensed version as its for the blog and I like to keep these short and to the point.

One thing I will say about faith is IT IS NEVER ACTIVATED WITHOUT ACTION.

WITHOUT WORKS (ACTION) FAITH IS DEAD.

GOD made this very plain to me one day when I was flying out of (CNX) Chiang Mai Thailand to (PDX) Portland Oregon. I had to go up 1 floor for departures from where I checked in at, and when I got to the escalator it was not moving, so I stopped for a second and then thought well I have to go up to the second floor, and if its not working I can still walk up the steps and get to where I need to be.

Before my foot touched the first step, it started moving like normal, it was hooked up to a sensor so that when it was not being used it would stop and thus save energy. When someones foot when thru the sensor to step on the escalator it would activate the energy source and operate like normal.

escalator-2-master-for-idiarist

The HOLY SPIRIT SAID TO ME…..this is a perfect picture of faith being activated, many people stand around at the bottom and say its not working, how can we do this? and many other excuses. But when someone dares to step out in faith, even when it looks impossible, the POWER OF GOD IS ACTIVATED and you R effortlessly taken to the next level, that’s called OPERATING IN THE POWER OF ANOTHER. Same as when I fly on the plane, can I fly or is the plane flying? well I can not fly, BUT THE PLANE CAN…..AND IF I CAN GET ON THAT PLANE ….I CAN FLY TO…BY THE POWER OF ANOTHER (THE PLANE) AND HOW MUCH EFFORT AND POWER OF MY OWN DOES IT TAKE TO FLY ALONG AT 35,000 FT AT 550 mph, ABSOLUTELY NONE.

12865952375_93566ffa5b_b

PETE WAS WALKING ON THE WATER BY THE POWER OF ANOTHER, BUT IT WOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ACTIVATED ……UNLESS HE STEPPED OUT OF THE BOAT FIRST.

walk_by_faith_peter_walking_on_water-1024x892

Ok I could go on 4 hours and hours, so thanks 4 being here for this part of my journey.

NEXT TIME: Vision thwarted OR the death of a vision.

and remember…..NO ONE CARES HOW MUCH YOU KNOW

UNTIL……THEY KNOW HOW MUCH YOU CARE.

Larry

Read Full Post »

my journey (part 2)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on August 11, 2016| 1 Comment »

quill-pen-and-inkwell————————————————————————-

2. Vision. From passion it seems easy enough to develop some sense of vision and even an action plan. The challenge is that the early years are often a mixture of a lot of my own ideas sprinkled in, maybe, with some of God’s. Think of Moses trying to free his people by killing the slave master or Joseph trying to explain his dreams to his brothers. Well-intention ed, but…

Larry writing now.

After  couple of years in the building where the Church was gathering on Sundays I could see that I wasn’t going to B able to just sit and warm a pew 4 the rest of my life.

sleeping in church

The one thing that did get my attention was when the missionary’s would come thru and show their slides (pictures on a screen from a slide projector) of the work in other countries. I was fascinated with this mission work as it seemed to B more like the book of Acts, they were actually out doing the gospel.

14

Toward the end of 1974 I had an opportunity to go to Mexico for 30 days with 2 other young guys and a former missionary to Mexico. We flew from PDX (Portland OR) to MEX (Mexico City) got a car and drove all the way down to Guatemala. We stopped and preached at different places all the way along, went deep in the jungle, heard explosions from communist rebels blowing up banks at night, and many other adventures along the way.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I experienced really having to trust GOD with my life and seeing his power at work in peoples lives first hand, it was an amazing experience.

When I got back home just before Christmas I had another mission opportunity, this time to go to India for 30 days 2 weeks after Christmas. I had saved up some $$$ to buy a piece of property but decided to use it for the India trip instead, and so glad I did.

I flew from Portland, OR to Vancouver BC to Toronto, Canada to Paris France to Tehran, Iran to Bombay, India to Madras India and then down to Kerala state. We did crusades most of the time and saw many healing s and demonic deliverance’s.

12865952375_93566ffa5b_b

I was the youngest at 24 years old on the team of about 15 people, and when we landed in Bombay and got off the plane I was in shock at the poverty I saw. People who were born on the street and would live their whole life and die on that same street. Garbage trucks would go thru the Bombay streets picking up garbage and the bodies of the people who did not respond to a swift kick, as many people had died during the night. It was a wake up call like no other.

c6ecd847226dbb850c5d852dbcd5849d

One day I was watching the very poor people going about there daily routine in the beautiful country side in the south of India, and I wondered who had it worse, the people who were poor and scratching everywhere to find food to eat and live even tho they seemed happy…..or the people in the USA who were running around frantically trying to make more $$$ to buy more and bigger things to impress people who don’t even like them.

On my way back home we spent a few days in Bombay and I was walking on the beach on my last night there. I came upon a boy of around 10 years old and he had a monkey on a string and a box in his hands. I had saved all of my change on the trip so I could give it to someone before I left the country, and I had it all with me at the time. When I would drop some coins in the sand the monkey would find them and take them up to the boys box, this was the boys most blessed day as I dropped all of the coins over a period of time in the sand and the boys box was running over.

young-man-with-a-dancing-monkey-juhu-beach-mumbai-india-dkat30

As I watched the sunset that evening it occurred to me that at 24 years old I had more than most of these people would ever have in a lifetime. Because I work on a traveling construction crew I had 2 of everything, one where I worked and one back home.

It was then that I knew that I wanted to help those people that were so impoverished and had no one to help them, I wanted to help in foreign countries  where the majority of the people lived but had little. It was on the India trip that VISION was born.

15427163379_122b8f1520_b

Wanting to do and doing R 2 very different things and I did not have a clue of how hard it would B and what it would cost me in the future to actually step out of the boat and walk on the water.

next time # 3 faith steps.

Thanks for taking part in my Journey, and remember.

NO ONE CARES HOW MUCH YOU KNOW…..

UNTIL THEY KNOW HOW MUCH YOU CARE…..

Larry

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: