351- Prayer and Support

351 – Prayer and Support

April 3, 1989 Monday

Prayed believing prayers & verses. Still uptight. Everything is difficult!

In the afternoon I picked up Dennis Bennett’s book, 9:00 in the Morning, which Linda lent us. It is the story of his baptism in the Holy Spirit. Cried. Began praying in tongues.

Everything lifted. I became a changed person.

Till later… when I focused on the house mess. We have extra furniture from Deborah, clothes from Beth—aaaaaa! This place is too small for all of this!! Began praying in tongues again.

Yesterday I really looked at the boys’ Sunday schedule and marveled.

Sunday morning they have Sunday School – I teach Daniel, Dan teaches Mark and Stevie. There are no other students. Timmy goes with Helen’s class. Then the kids sit through the worship and teaching of the main service.

We go home for lunch and are back at the church at 4:30 for a meeting, then service at 6. There is no planned activity for them, yet they are amazingly content. Supernaturally content. God, you are supremely gracious as we go through these things.

April 5 – my 44^th birthday

God came through via Karen! She sent $50! We all went out to pizza!! Thank You so much, Jesus!

April 6

Victorious day!! Got prayer from Dan and good support from God!

345 – My Faith Gets Shaken

March 16, 1989

One night, ten years ago, when we were attending Bible school in Germany and I was anxious about the well being of my baby in the womb, and I was crying out to God, He gave me this verse. It is a precious promise that the children I bear are blessed by God.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
For He has strengthened the bars of your gates;
He has blessed your sons within you.
He makes peace in your borders;
He satisfies you with the finest of the wheat. Psalm 147:12-14

March 17, 1989

4am awakened with a distressing physical symptom.

Confused. If I cannot believe that all of the way we’ve come in this baby issue was Your leading –how can I believe You about Your leading to homeschool, Your leading that we are going to Japan….

Will I now have to question everything else that we are doing by faith?

Back to bed.

Felt waves of comfort and grace!

Dan was compassionate. He quoted:

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:18-19

Dan came in later and said, “In some way that only God can do, this whole experience you are having is going to confirm our calling.”

I talked to God.

Dan said, rest and pray in the Spirit all day, not in words that could express doubt and fear.

So I began my day expecting Jesus to be very near to me and very real. Bless You, Savior.

The thought also came to me: to have another baby is not a selfish desire of mine—that is a lie. To have been home already for ten years and if I had another baby, it would add five more years to the tail end of that. I know myself well enough that I know I would not choose that. Yet, if a baby is God’s will for us, I would gladly do this for Him, for His will, for His plan.

This lifted me also, encouraged me. It is the will of the Lord I am seeking. Yes, my heart is pure about this.

329 – Tongues for Six Hours

November 19,1988 West Wendover, Nevada

A town on the border of two states! West Wendover, Nevada, is contiguous with Wendover, Utah. The population is a few thousand. We spent the night. We were on the last leg of our journey home to Reno.

Before us we had a decision to make.

Dan’s father had a friend that needed someone to house sit for him in Reno.

Dan’s friend John had a project and wanted Dan to work for him, in Reno.

We had the opportunity for free living quarters and a waiting job. The temptation to settle down, be in our home church once again, and for Dan to have an immediate income was enticing. We were tired of traveling and weary of living with all of the uncertainty that was involved with a faith walk. BUT………

BUT we felt intensely interested in going to San Francisco to work with Japanese people. Dan could teach them English [which he had done in Japan several years before], and we would begin building relationships with Japanese people. We had the strong goal of going to Japan.

The Lord brought to Dan’s mind that one of his instructors at Elim said that when in a decision-making quandary, praying in tongues would bring the knowledge of God’s will.

So we determined to pray in the Spirit from West Wendover to Reno, a 6-7 hour drive.

We did.

It cleared the air and we felt much stronger about proceeding to San Francisco. We would leave the familiar and the comfortable and follow the leading of the Spirit.

We parked the motor home at Dan’s brother’s house and we were reunited with his Dad and his wife, Tutu, Auntie Yvonne and Gramma Fern, who all had homes nearby.

The next day, we went to church, Life Center, and we were reunited with our faithful friends. It was a special time for us all.

The church was sponsoring a missionary conference, so we decided to stay in town in order to attend it.

J&J invited us to come and stay at their house—INSIDE!! How could we refuse? We stayed with them for eight days, then went back to Aug’s for several days. We had lots of invitations for dinner.

December 1 Reno

Dinner with friends, Auntie Bev and Chuck. Chuck told us the story he had recently heard of Lillian Trasher. She went to Egypt in the early 1900’s, by faith, not knowing any of the details. A dying woman gave Lillian her baby and that was the beginning of an orphanage, which continues to this day.

December 7

At the Missionary Conference, we heard that in Sri Lanka, a Foursquare missionary has adopted 40 unwanted children. God told him, “You will be the father of many, and they will become the pillars of the church.”

December 11

During pre-service prayer at church I had been asking the Lord for a prophetic word of direction. Dan Brophy brought it.

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

These stories of orphans and adopted children stir me and keep the baby vision burning in my heart.

305 – It’s Coming Together

July 25, 1988

The Lord has provided the Pletcher’s house for us to stay in from the time we have to be out of our house for the entire two weeks until Dan is off his job at SouthCo! They are leaving on vacation August 17 and will be gone for two weeks! They have been our longest NY friends. The day after we arrived, Cheryl came by with treats for us and they quickly brought us into their family. They have been faithful and devoted friends.

My doctor turned a checkup about my ankle into a physical for the Elim Fellowship application. $136 – Praise God.

In my devotions today, God gave me a promise for our family’s health on our trip:

I am the Lord who heals you. Exodus 15:26

July 26, 1988

Insurance for the motor home is $271 for a year through a company in Lima. Thank YOU!

Another encouragement for the trip: The Lord delivered his people out of the enemy’s hand as they prayed and kept their trust in Him. Exodus chapter 17

The-Lord-is-my-banner! Exodus 17:15

Banner means: He is my hope and my refuge and my praise!

July 27, 1988

We are sending out a newsletter to our friends to advise them that we are leaving New York. Dan said to keep it short because we have so many gaps in THE PLAN!! Thank you that You know what we are undertaking better than we do and You will enlighten us as we go! I feel we are to concentrate on one step at a time.

A command: Do not be afraid! Exodus 20:20

July 28

Up at 3-4am to pray in tongues. God showed me I didn’t believe He was very reliable and why…I turned it over to Him, and I got release.

An uplifting reminder: The Lord is their strength, and He is the saving refuge of His anointed. Psalm 28:8

255 – He Must Prune Me

January 24, 1987

By God’s wonderful and bountiful grace, I was 1 ½ hours in prayer from 5-6:30am.

This seems crystal clear:

John 15:2 Every branch that does not bear fruit He takes away – anger, selfishness, egocentricity – and every branch that bears fruit He prunes it that it may bear more fruit,

I see that my ministry with children (in public school) bore fruit—but all of these succeeding years have been a pruning process to get me out of me and into Him so that MORE fruit can come to His glory and honor and use.

Although today he prunes my twigs with pain,

Yet doth his blood nourish and warm my root:

Tomorrow I shall put forth buds again

and clothe myself with fruit. -Christina Rosetti

249 – There is Payoff for Praying in Tongues

December 30, 1986

These verses blessed me:

Luke 24

v 16 But their eyes were PREVENTED from recognizing Him

v 31 And their eyes were OPENED and they recognized Him

v 45 Then He OPENED their minds to understand the scriptures.

God was in charge of what they perceived.

I believe I can pray and ask Him to let my eyes recognize Him and to let my mind understand the scriptures. I know I need inspiration and revelation.

It occurred to me this morning that after I had listened to the Gloria Copeland tapes and had begun praying in the Spirit in the early morning for an hour, one Saturday morning very early Carol K, an older woman in our church, called. She had never called me. She offered to give me a ride to the Ladies’ Meeting at church. I had been feeling hesitant about going, but had turned it over to God. But God had prepared me for her call because her name had come clearly to my mind a short time earlier.

THERE IS PAYOFF IN MAKING THE SACRIFICE TO DO DEVOTIONS REGULARLY AND LONG.

THERE IS PAYOFF IN PRAYING IN TONGUES FOR ONE HOUR IN THE MORNING.

OH GOD. LET YOUR SPIRIT RULE IN MY SPIRIT IN THIS SO I WILL DENY THE SLEEPY, LAZY, STRONG FLESH AND GET UP!

v 49 And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed in power from on high.

The promise was the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues.

208 ~ Glorious Times

208 – Glorious Times

September 20, 1986

Yesterday God called me apart!

I walked at noon toward the school but then turned and walked up the hill and into a field of waist-high wildflowers: yellow and purple. Bordering the field on one end were deciduous trees of every changing color. On my left, a quaint old red-brown farm house. I stood in the rain under my little blue Japanese umbrella and read Galatians in my Phillip’s pocket Bible. I had been needy, crying out to God. Through Galatians he reaffirmed:

* do not hold man’s approval in high regard—only God’s approval

*you are not under the law but under grace

* your righteousness is not of the law by your good deeds, but by faith in Jesus Christ

* walk in faith

It was a glorious time.

Dan wanted me to go to Elim to the prayer meeting. So I did. I’m often hesitant to go out on my own, especially driving the country roads at night.

As I drove on campus to the meeting, Tracey Belcastro had just pulled in. We walked together and sat together with her husband and interceded together and talked afterwards. She is a person I have been wanting to know. We have agreed to be prayer partners. God is gracious.

God lifted me through worship and then blessed me with a new release of my prayer language in intercessory prayer. He is so precious.

On Friday, God touched me in an interesting way: In my prayers before the home school meeting, feeling desperate for peace in place of anxiety, I felt a sensation on my head just back from my hairline moving from the right temple area, across to the left. Hmmmm. At the meeting I was freer to be me than I have been in ages—with no second thoughts or deep introspection. Praise Jesus.