May Vacation 1999 - Our Steps Ordered By The Lord! - Personal Homepages - http://maxpages.com/louicia/May_Vacation

Steps Ordered By The Lord May-99

Hello friends in Christ, fellow laborers together in Christ Jesus,
I want to thank you for allowing us to share with you of the great love of Jesus. Yes, we are serving a God that blesses in His Precious wonderful way. We don't always understand His power or workings. His wisdom and His love and mercy unto His children.

We knew that it was time for a vacation and after seeking His will, left on a Thursday evening in the rain for Texas. (The rest of our trip was great weather, and it rained all week at home.) We spent the night at Rolla, Missouri. We had hoped to reach Springfield or Joplin.

Arrival in Denton, Texas was about 6:30. They had just begun to wonder if we would make it to eat supper with them. Wonderful supper! We visited with our middle son and family, checked out the computer, sent some email and went to bed.

The next morning about 11:00 we headed for Brownwood, Texas to visit our retired Missionary friends. My husband and they had been friends since he was in Korea in the Army. He had gone to Japan to visit them on R & R. They became very close during this time and they had also visited with us while on their tours away from Japan. She sure can cook some good Japanese dishes.

They were so surprised as they had assumed that our son was coming since he had called to verify they would be home and when they saw us they were almost speechless as they had been voicing to God their wishes to see us.

They had recently lost their son Vernon, due to Agent Orange and also a grandaughter, Jana, in December in an auto accident. So, in their grieving they felt that we could sympathize with them and understand what they were going through more than some others as we had experienced the loss of our daughter and her whole family three years ago.

Their anniversary was on Tuesday and she asked that we stay over until then and we purposed to take them out for dinner at noon. There we met the owner of Channigan's Chinese Restaurant. We still keep in touch by e-mail. Channigan's is a great Chinese buffet and is it wonderful food. Stop there if you are ever passing through.

Anyway, we went to church with them and were privileged to hear their pastor speak. They have a very nice church and we enjoyed 2 great services there.

She had some of Janette Oke's books and I got into those. I hadn't been into them yet and now I have another favorite author for fiction.

We got to know and love their daughter and husband who live next door and their very cute son, they call Sammo.

After dinner, we left for Arkansas we were beginning to feel the urgency to be on our way to visit a couple we had met on the internet through "Daily Joy", a part of Charisma online under SpiritLedWoman. That is a long trip and there was a lot of repair work going on at that time. We were able to have supper again with our son and family before continuing on our trip.

We felt that God wanted us there in Arkansas at a certain time (just before church service) and we didn't know why we had to arrive only at the time God wanted us there. When we got there the address was not quite correct but we found it after making a phone call. These wonderful people are pastoring and we felt God's love in each of them instantly. We arrived into Manila, Arkansas a little after 4:00 P.M. Wednesday and was in service with the Supt., a mighty talented and spirit-led man of God.

We are positive God sent us there to encourage those young pastors just before the meeting. They have 3 wonderful children.

Well, they said they didn't know why God would lead us there on that particular night as they were having a business meeting. We said only that God wanted us there.

Their Superintendent, handled the meeting very wisely. I am sure we learned a lot from it, so the reason to be there was two-fold. Also, by having strangers in the midst, it made a restraint on some of the emotions that wanted to run rampant. We praise God for the opportunity to be there and for being able to help encourage this young couple. Isn't it interesting how God uses the Internet to send you on His mission?

We left after the service and went into Tennessee, via Missouri, (only way to cross the Mississippi River in that area) to spend the night. The next morning we left for Murray, Kentucky to visit the ones that were on our list. We pulled into Juanita's, a friend from 1963, she had attended the church we pastored then.

We knew she didn't require a special notice, so pulled into her drive about 11:00. She had on some black-eye peas and cornbread and so we enjoyed that for lunch. For an early supper she fixed a beef-stew and biscuits, (no one makes biscuits like she does for me.)

We visited on their patio out back and really enjoyed ourselves. Then I called a classmate who my sister had happened to get her address and I had wanted for so very long. I had not seen Faye since about 1951. We found where they live and they are in process of building a very nice home and will be moving into it before long. We both caught up on a lot of history. She has 6 children and I forgot how many grandchildren. What a wonderful visit we had for a couple hours. Then the phone rang and my husband's niece from Mayfield, had caught up with us and so we left to visit with them while they were in town.

They met us at Big Lot's and were hungry. (We certainly weren't!) So we took them out for supper and really had an enjoyable visit. One of her sons was with them so we got a good visit with all 3 of them. We drank a soda and enjoyed them so much. When it was time for them to go home, we looked at the sky and saw a lot of daylight left and realized it was only 4 1/2 - 5 hrs home, so why linger? So, off we went!

The Lord had made it possible to see all 3 families that we were directed of the Lord to see before we had left home. We got home Friday a.m. at 12:08.

Friday we made our hospital visitations, our daughter-in-law's mother and a friend, Gloria, that was in for therapy.

Sunday night service we had two services. A second group came in late and we had another service for them. Preached a message that the Lord gave me while we were in Texas. A three-year old girl came up to be prayed for and the anointing was so strong that she fell to the floor as the pastor touched her and another sister came up and got a double dose and she was slain in the spirit for quite some time. Joy was restored to another man. The sweet presence of the Lord was so precious upon the people.

Monday night was hospital visitation again. Tuesday we received word that the one in the hospital had gone to be with her Jesus. We are so happy that God ordered our trip so that we could be home when this happened. God is so Good. Every day was ordered and we tried our best to do what He wished for the day. We desire another of His trips!

lcartright@comwares.net

Visitors: 01034

Page Updated Thu May 9, 2002 8:11pm EDT