Back Off One Week

WARNING this is obviously another long message.

Lord willing I will begin to also share Short Daily Summaries starting tomorrow.

That will be a stretch for me, but this is the season for God to stretch me.

Pray for me to capture the essence of my daily journey in a few bullet points.

Then if the reader wants the details there will be a link to the related blog post.

This message and others like them are like a journal entry of my adventure.

At some level I see myself at a missionary.

I am not a typical missionary.

I had considered going with many agencies for many years.

Instead I believe God has called me to pioneer a hybrid of online and offline work.

The Internet tools will be employed to educate and serve people offline.

I have set up a blog with all emails sent in recent days.

I will post future ones there.

Posts appear on then blog from most recent to oldest.

It might be best to read it from older to newer.

Then the reader can notice the changes in chronological order.

FYI I am writing these messages both for current and future readers.

During the coming months and years various people will want to read these posts.

I will be asking many people to volunteer their time.

I will be asking many people to donate generously.

Some of them will be asking who is this guy and where did he come from?

I will have a short presentation about me and my background with a link to this blog to get the details.

Here is the archive of these messages named Guide Me Jesus.

http://guidemejesus.blogspot.com/

RECAP

First let me recap recent developments.

After God blessed me by a person to sponsor the Motel room I sent the update.

I walked from the community college to the homeless shelter to get my duffel bag.

I walked from there back to downtown.

That was a sweaty and fatiguing walk.

I bought some Epsom Salts at the CVS.

I got on a DART light rail to Burbank Station.

I then walked carrying my duffel back.

Note that it has rollers but they did not work well on every surface.

I needed to carry it over places where there was grass and dirt.

I say all this to give context to why I had more leg cramps last night.

That journey took three and a half hours.

It could have been done is much less than an hour using a car.

I am not complaining but noticing the big difference.

The first thing I did was to take a hot soaking bath with the Epsom Salts.

Then I went to bed and I fell into a deep sleep.

There were a few noises here but those rare noises were easy to screen out.

I slept soundly for about 10 hours.

When I got up I saw dark bags under my eyes for the first time in my life.

I felt very weak and sore all over.

The generic Tylenol was used to mask the pains

I moved very lowly around the room.

I felt frail and mentally out of it.

I took another hot bath with Epsom Salts in the morning.

During this day I have taken short naps.

It was raining last night and this morning.

After the rain quit I went for a walk in the area.

This Motel 6 is on Regal Row nest to the I30 freeway.

This area has many office buildings.

There is a service station near here.

It is the only store in sight.

I bought some V8 and Gatorade.

I bought their last banana. 

I had read that bananas have the potassium to relieve cramps.

The Gatorade was a huge help.

It is their 03 restore version.

It was wonderful to feel that Gatorade going through my body.

I read online that leg stretches help relieve leg cramps.
I have been doing several set of those against the wall.

Pray for God to make a way for me to get good quality potassium supplements soon.

AFTER ONE WEEK

Here is the deal.

I believe and fully expect for God to open doors for me.

I look to Jesus Christ, my Good Shepherd, to guide me daily.

I believe as I abide in the True Vine I will bear much good fruit.

I expect there will be more than enough money for the next phase.

At this moment I do not know what the next phase will be.

There is a real possibility that things will not work out as I expect.

I am taking action based on my faith.

That faith will please God and I will enroll many more prayers.

Here is the worst case.

After one week I am willing to return to the homeless shelter.

I promise to seek a job at least 4 hours a day until I get one.

There are many stores and eating places downtown.

The other hours I will seek a roommate, loan or other alternatives.

In that setting I can find a job fairly fast but it will not pay much.

There is a long delay from starting a job and getting the first paycheck.

If necessary I could stay at the homeless shelter for 10 dollars a day.

I examined my left arm this afternoon.

There are dozens or small red spots on it.

They are not on my right arm.

I do not know when that started.

I am not concerned today.

But I will monitor it closely.

Thankfully my sinuses and ears are better.

I am willing to risk my health to take the advice of friends after one week.

Those friends keep saying I need to just get another job fast.

They say to set the vision for ministry aside for now.

CALLING

The job that I just had was supposed to be a base to meet my needs.

Then from that I could have launched the ministry.

But I got tangled up emotionally helping the residents.

At first I invested lots of extra time serving and assisting residents.

I saw that as a great discipleship ministry and neglected launching the ministry.

But one by one those I had helped the most returned to abusing drugs.

I felt deeply depressed and discouraged.

Then the expectations on my time to provide transportation kept increasing.

I kept setting modest goals for the ministry and not meeting those.

I was often dealing with deep depression.

I have been coping with depression and despair for decades.

One of the ebooks I will publish will contain practical tips based on what worked for me.

I came on this blog post or an email I sent out in April about the time of my birthday.

When coming up on my sixty first birthday I felt blue due to where I was in my life.

http://jsosmallstones2014.blogspot.com/2014/06/birthday-blues.html

Most of the Christians I know are married with children.

Note that I was engaged 3 times but never married.

I do not have a spouse or any children.

All that I have been living for, since 1977, is to launch a ministry.

Most who read this message have heard parts of my calling.

I have often written about how to harness communication technologies.

There are proven tools and processes used by the business community.

I will work with many and various others to serve those in severe poverty.

I seek to better educate subsistence farmers, orphans and rural pastors.

I plan enroll college students to volunteer to help create the educational modules.

These will begin in English and then be translated into many languages.

Many of those will also have audio and video versions because many are illiterate.

I have hundreds of pages of notes about this.

I have lots of presentations I made over the years.

I failed before to launch this because I feared rejection by wealthy people.

That fear is still with me and I will need to walk through it.

But the Holy Spirit has been prompting me to use crowd funding.

That has become much more popular online in recent years.

That way many people can give a little and it adds up.

Pray fervently for me to effectively use this platform to raise more than enough money.

Indigogo www.indiegogo.com

The Lord keeps reminding me to America has God Talent.

There is a stage where many people got their break through.

Remember Susan Boyle who was discovered there?

I believe that in one week I can leverage crowd funding to pay for my needs.

I will move out from the missionary housing to another location for the next phase.

Years ago a church planter wisely told me people give to vision and not to need.

So I will cast the vision as clearly and passionately as possible.

God will motivate many generous supporters to contribute.

This enterprise that has lived in me for many years will finally become public.

God began this good work in me and He will bring it to pass.

I am the workmanship of God and he has good works for me to walk in.

I came to faith in Christ in 1977.

I have been fully committed to Him.

I have been following Jesus Christ one day at a time.

That which God put into my mind and heart will soon begin to manifest.

I thank you for your prayers in the past.

I request your best prayers for the next week.

Pray for a smooth transition from the motel to the missionary housing on Monday.

Shalom