Acts 29 Today

————————————————————————-

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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