An amazing weekend

The weekend of August 29-30, 2015 will be a memorable one for me and many individuals. This testimony of what our Lord did has it all. Be warned, its a long story but I am promise you that you will be blessed by the end. So, I had planned on working on the family rally wagon because the Lord blessed us with enough money to buy some parts that it needed. I ordered an external transmission cooler, some new horns, and HID headlight bulbs and ballasts for the blacked out headlights I bought a couple years ago for the car. Mind you, I am not so much of a car guy anymore. I use to be. Cars were my passion, hobby and god. But God changed all of that once I got born again. I still like cars and I know how to work on them a bit, but my passion is now for Jesus. This particular weekend my church witnessed a Godly couple get married and I also planned on going to church and going to the mall with my brother in Christ Gabriel and our sons to share the gospel at the mall.

Saturday, August 29th. I went to a prayer breakfast. I had inquired about becoming a Gideon. The Gideons is an evangelical organization that gives free bibles to people who cant afford them or who need a bible. They have become famous because in some hotels rooms you will find a Gideon Bible in the room. A gentleman I know from my church called me and told about it. I was the youngest guy there, and I am not that young anymore. I am 36 years young, 37 this coming November. Its okay, they made me feel very welcome. It felt good to be surrounded by other believers who were like minded. I ordered a pancake breakfast. When it came time to pay, I noticed that my debit card was not in my wallet and I don't carry cash. I should have took this as a sign of the kind of weekend I was going to have. Well I waited until everybody left and I asked the manager if I could leave my phone there as collateral so I can go home and get my card. My wife had it. I came back and paid for the meal and went to the auto parts store to get some tools. I got home and got myself ready in my coveralls and gathered all my parts and tools.

It was ridiculously hot out side as it usually is here in Mesa Arizona and I don't like to work on my car in the heat and I had anticipated the repair to not take a long. The heat here is dry and it will zap out all your strength from you in a snap. Before I got to work, I prayed that God would give me strength, wisdom and patience to get the job done. I did the hard part first, the transmission cooler. It was a messy job and a bit more difficult than I expected. I will confess that there were times I got a bit frustrated, complained and laid on the ground in exhaustion. But the Lord would remind me to praise Him and He would give me strength to go on. Also my wife would come down and give me water and later brought the fan down stairs for me. What a wonderful and thoughtful wife I have. Thank you Lord for such a Godly woman. So I got it done installing the transmission cooler, so I thought. This will be mentioned again later on in the story, make a mental note. Once the cooler was in, I installed the new Hella super tone horns for the car. Its me and my wife's favorite modification by far. I recommend everyone to upgrade your horns to these babies because people will move out of the way when they hear these horns go off.. So then I did the headlights. That took longer than I wanted plus by then I was really tired and I began to get irritated. Oh, I almost forgot I had a wedding to go to that night and I had to finish with enough time to clean up and arrive on time. Thank God I got it all done in time, cleaned up and went to the wedding.

The wedding was great. Two people I admire because of their faith got married. Jesse and Heidi. I know Jesse from men's Bible study, we have gone out preaching together. He also gave me some fantastic advice that I will never forget. Last year at the Arab festival Jesse and I were on the evangelism team. It was tough crowd and I also was still not so confident in my preaching skills. We sat down for a break from all the walking and we started talking. I shared that sometimes I get a bit preachy with my kids. Jesse told me to keep on preaching to them because even though they may not understand what I am talking about now, later they would. He told me his parents would minister and preach to him and his siblings while they grew up. He said most of the time he didn't know what they talking about but as he grew in faith, the Lord began to take those seeds his folks planted when he was a child. This young man is a mature man of Christ. His wife Heidi, I don't know her very much but from what I do know of her, she is a Godly woman. The Bible says that a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. One time at a men's bible study family night we prayed for one of the brothers wife who has problems with her stomach. Heidi say something in prayer to the Lord that became a part of my prayer language and I have mentioned it before. This is who I copied it from. "Lord I believe but help me in my unbelief". These two are a great couple that was predestined before the foundation of the world and I wait with anticipation to see what the Lord will do in their lives. I cried at their wedding. One thing I want to mention, at their wedding reception, they had some really cool Bible tracts. I took a few and later on in the story, one of them would be used to lead someone to the Lord.

Sunday, August 31st.  I woke up for first service. My wife and kids stayed home because they didn't wake up when I did. The message our Pastor had was simply put, amazing. The Lord was working in my heart through this message about the high cost and honor of discipleship. Following Jesus may come at a high cost but our salvation came at an even HIGHER cost. The Lord calls us to follow Him, to be His disciple and take His yoke. Early in the the ministry of Jesus, He was followed by large crowds who wanted to see Him work miracles and listen to Him preach. They left everything and followed Him. A blind man was healed and began to follow Jesus. Several women followed Jesus. But the large crowd began to dwindle when the cost got too high. In Luke 18:22, just tells the young rich man to sell all he owns and give tit o the poor and follow Him. But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. A scribe in Matthew 8:19-20 told Jesus he wanted to follow Him where ever Jesus went. Jesus said to him "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head". That scribe was never mentioned again the Bible. In John 6:66 "After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him". Jesus didn't come for a huge following. He came for followers who are willing to take up their cross. To come after Christ whole heatedly. To push aside a "self centered" life by denying yourself. Deny what? Your agenda, time, money, leisure, career, and priorities. Taking up your cross isn't something that should be always associated with sadness or grief. Taking up your cross is saying "yes" to prayer, Bible reading, God's prompting, service, fellowship, time, talent, treasure, sacrifice, and suffering. In Romans 8:17-18 it says"Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later". I decided to say "yes" to taking up my cross. Little did I know that only a few hours later, I would be put to the test.

So after church me and my brother in Christ Gabriel met up at the mall. Earlier in the week he mentioned he wanted to go to the mall and take our son's with us to show them what it looks like to go preach the gospel to the lost. My son Santino is 7 and Gabriel's son is 6. Our first interaction we had was with a man who couldn't talk and had a cane. I believe he was deaf also but could read lips. Gabe asked him if we could pray for him. We laid hands on him. When I touched this man I was reminded about the deaf and mute man Jesus healed. I recall praying that his ears would be opened and that he would be able to speak clearly in Jesus name. I recall hearing Gabriel praying for this mans leg and salvation. We didn't see a miracle but he did take a King James Bible we gave and he allowed us to pray for him. We got the first person out of the way and that was good. We walked around and Gabriel gave a woman who was sitting in front of a barber shop a tract. As we looked back, we could see that she was reading the tract. Praise the Lord. We got our sons involved by sending them out with tracts in hand and they delivered a couple tracts to a couple who were at the mall. I admire their child like faith and obedience. They didn't question nor complain. They just did what we told them to do. A short time later, we met up with a security guard who Gabe talked to earlier in the week. He was nice Native American man. His name was David and he was having problems with his son. Lift him up in prayer if you can.

So we walked upstairs and we ran into that security guard again. He was talking to a young lady. She just got discharged out of the hospital and had no way back home to Globe , AZ. She came to the mall to see if by chance she would run into someone she knew from back home so she could catch a ride. The security guard asked us if we could do something. This was Gods prompting. She told us she just got out of rehab. She blacked out and woke in the hospital. She had also been suffering from seizures. So Gabriel and I laid hands on her and began to pray. The Lord told me to command the demons to come out in Jesus name. I was reminded about the story of the boy who suffered from seizures and Jesus healed him. She was weeping and the more we prayed for healing and commanding demons to leave in Jesus name, the more she wept. I felt really hot and tears were coming from my eyes. This was intense! As my brother and I were praying, we started to hear a woman's voice pray with us. It wasn't the voice of the woman who we were praying over. Someone walked by and saw what we were doing and she joined in. That was awesome! So when we were done, I asked the woman we prayed over for her name.  Her name is Mary (please pray for her). I asked her how she felt. She said she felt a lot better and that she had been delivered. The Lord told me to ask if she wanted to be born again and she said yes. Gabriel handed me one of the tracts from Jesse and Heidi's wedding because it had the sinner's prayer in it. So we lead this young woman to the Lord and now she is a child of the one true living God! Hallelujah!

The next thing that needed addressing was getting Mary back home. The Lord was prompting me to take her. I called my wife to get the "okay" because I cant make these kind of decisions with out her consent. Its dishonoring to her. When I told her what I was planning, she hesitated. I told that I'd give her 5 minutes to pray about it and see what the Lord says. I talked to the woman who joined us in prayer. Her name is Ellen. Ellen said her church doesn't go out to preach out in public. She is looking for a church that does that. We invited her to come to our church. Ellen also said she would be interested in joining us one time and that we should ask the Lord if it would be His will, she will come and join us. Ellen talked to Mary and bought her some food. During that time I called greyhound and they had no buses going to Globe. I checked with Amtrak, they don't go through there. The Lord planned this so that me and my wife Erin would be the ones to take her home in our car. Erin calls me back and she said "Lets do it." I was so excited and happy. I got to minister to Mary and she was receptive and she was reading the Bible we just gave her. I went home and my wife and my daughter Jocelyn came with us. Santino went with Gabriel and Benicio to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Later on, Gabriel told me that Santino hugged him at Chuck E. Cheese. I asked my son about that and he said he was very grateful to Gabriel for bringing him to Chuck E. Cheese and that is why he hugged him.

So we get on the freeway and about 10 miles into the trip we stopped at a Chevron in Apache Junction. Got some gas and some food. Mary said she felt weird having us pay for her stuff, but we told that it was okay. Of course we didn't mind because the Lord had blessed us so that we could bless her. We got back on the freeway and all of a sudden, disaster struck. Remember that I said earlier that I thought I was done installing the transmission cooler? Well, all of a sudden the car just revs up and the car is slowing down. I look back , I see a plume of white smoke. I knew what it was. Something happened to the transmission cooler. Some how we had enough momentum to get off the freeway, and pull off at the next exit and into another Chevron gas station. I get out, Erin pops the hood and cooler looks fine. So I look under the front of the car....the undercarriage is lathered in transmission fluid and one of the lines came off. All the transmission fluid was gone. The clamp was defective. I thought I tightened it down all the way and come to find out, it stopped turning. I tried to turn this clamp when I took it off the hose and it wouldn't turn after a certain point. I felt embarrassed. I wanted to freak out and get angry. Which is what I use to do before Christ. How did I manage? With prayer and praise. Even when things seemed out of control, God was still in control. Every spiritual attack of discouragement was met with praise and prayer. Next time something doesn't go your way, start praising, quoting verses and praying. The enemy doesn't want to drive you to worship the Lord and the attacks will have NO power over you.

I needed a new clamp and I asked Erin to go and ask if they had a screw driver and hose clamps. She was praying that the Lord would some how provide and He did! They just so happen to sell hose clamps and a set of screw drivers. With the new clamp on, all we needed was transmission fluid. I asked Erin to go check to see if they had some. She prayed and yes, they had a bunch of it. But, it wasn't the right kind. This all happens just as a cashier is getting off shift from that Chevron and she offers to take me to the auto parts store for a long funnel and transmission fluid. The Lord used the time while I was repairing the car so that my wife could minister to Mary. I got the funnel and 5 quarts of transmission fluid and filled up the transmission, cranked the car on and took her on a short test drive. Praise the Lord the clamp held and the car was running fine. I picked up the girls and we were on our way. The rest of the way there my wife and I ministered to Mary. She listened. We arrived in Globe, we all swapped phone numbers, and we hugged good bye.

The drive back we were just so filled with joy for EVERYTHING that happened. Yes, even the car going out of commission for a bit. It was the way the Lord planned it. He called me, Gabriel, Erin and Ellen to serve and we responded. We were told to sacrifice and we did. Was it all worth it? Absolutely. Because of all of this, someone got born again. The Lord was glorified and there was a party up in Heaven for Mary.