Street Stories - A Ringside Seat To Over 4 Decades Of Taking Jesus To The Streets Of The World

At this time in our ministry, we knew we were called to the streets of America. God was beginning to expand our borders. It reminds me of the Prayer of Jabez, “ Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, 'Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!' And God granted what he asked ” (1 Chronicles 4:10) People that know me well know that I am solution focused on situations that come my way. I am that way even in my real estate career. For every problem there must be a solution! The problems as I saw them were: 1) children were hungry 2) children had lice-infected hair and 3) the children and their parents all needed to know Jesus and that He answers prayers. We took our first little team to Tijuana, Mexico, and we stayed in an empty room of Jesus and Delia Velarde’s home located next door to their church. If my memory serves me well, I think that David Stanley and Linda Stanley joined us as well as our dear friend David Jenkins. We all camped out in one big room together. Our girls must have thought we were on a great indoor camping trip. We brought our sleeping bags and blankets. I’m not much of a camper! Martha and her family had begun a feeding program they ran from the back of their house in the big empty room. They shared with us that teachers and administrators from the local elementary school had come to them to tell them that the children were fainting from hunger at school. Those children who did have something to eat in the morning would only have a tortilla or a cup of coffee. This was gut-wrenching to me to think about these children. My children always had

323

Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software