We continued our Thursday drive, meeting people and praying with them and giving gifts. What was really awesome was when we had God moments in the drive. Here are some of the stories/God moments. One of the first stories was when we met an elderly lady at her home. When we stepped up on her porch we noticed a hole in front of her door. Our thought was that this was a hazard and that she could fall and break her hip. Not having money to help her we prayed and asked God for a way to help her. God gave me the idea to contact a friend of mine from church. When I called my friend, she put me in touch with a young man who had a construction company. After contacting him and sharing the need with him, he offered to build our elderly lady a new porch. All material and labor was totally donated and with in a few days our new friend had a new porch. What we didn’t know at the time was that God would use this act of kindness to begin a good reputation for our ministry.

Another story was when on one of our Thursday drives we met a man who was well know in Arcadia, in fact most people called him the father of Arcadia. He was well known and liked. Anyway the day we met him we saw him outside of his business and we stopped got our of the car and offered him a small gift. We introduced ourselves and he gave us his name. We started to leave when Vicki said wait I need to go pray for him. She went back to where the man was standing and told him she felt like God was telling her to pray for his stomach. She asked do you mind if I pray for you? He said yes pray and then told her he was fighting stomach cancer. God in the moment had revealed this man’s need!

God was moving and leading us as we drove the small town of Arcadia.  We prayed and watched for people that were out and about, staying aware of that small voice that would say this person, stop now.  We met people each Thursday as we drove the town looking for God moments.  Each week we would add people to our list to remember them in prayer.

One Thursday we felt lead to go into the businesses with our gifts and offer a word of encouragement.  We went into Subway and met a lady who worked there and gave her a gift and asked if she would like prayer.  She took the gifts and said yes to prayer, so right there we prayed over our new friend and ask God to meet her needs.  We didn’t know what was going on in her life but our God did.  She told us later that day was a turning point in her walk with God.  If we will be willing to move out of our comfort zone and say yes to God when He taps us on the shoulder, God can meet people in their everyday lives.  It isn’t always comfortable to pray for people at their work but obedience to God can change situations for people.

God was at the wheel in the drive through Arcadia and we wanted to be led and obedient.

The following Thursday we drove to Arcadia with our little gifts to give. The first person we saw was a policeman sitting in the speed trap so we drove right up beside him, rolled down our window with big grins on our faces and offered him a pack of gum and said we wanted you to have a good day so please enjoy this gum and be blessed. With that we rolled up our window and drove away, laughing all the way…mainly because of his confused look. We then started down a new street in Arcadia looking for our next victim. Sure enough God gave us another person to surprise. A young woman wearing short shorts and a tube top was walking towards our car. Rolling down the window we pulled up to her, held out a package of gum and said we’d like to give you a gift. She cautiously approached wanting to know why we were giving away free gum. I got to tell you I thought it was funny that we were luring people to our car with candy. Didn’t moms tell us not to take candy from strangers? Sorry, back to the story. We told her that we wanted to brighten her day and if she needed prayer we would be happy to add her to our prayer list. At this point she began telling us her disappointment with the current church she had gone to and yes, she would like prayer. We prayed, took her name and number and promised to visit with her again the following Thursday. From this point we started knocking on doors and met a few people but then realized that this wasn’t working well because they thought we were Jehovah’s Witness and they would hide from us. So we prayed and ask God to show us people outside in the yards or walking who needed encouragement.

We thought it would be fun to share a blog of our ministries beginning to present. It began with a thought from my sister given from God… a God thought! The thought given, “was wouldn’t it be fun to have a coffee shop.” However, when she called me she said, “hey sis you should start a church in Arcadia.” Which I responded NO WAY! After hanging up the phone I felt strongly impressed by the Holy Spirit to go look at the town of Arcadia. I argued with God. NO! But I gave in and called my sister back. We met at Pop’s in Arcadia and discussed our plans.

My sister in her daily devotion in 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18, felt the Lord was telling her to go about doing good for people. I felt that according to Psalms 3:3 we should help lift the heads of those who were down. So together we came up with a plan to encourage people and bring a smile to their face by giving them happy little gifts. SO IT BEGAN!

We left Pops and drove the town. We decided that we would start the following Thursday passing out little gifts and if the Lord opened the door offer to pray for anyone who was willing. I left my sister and went home. No sooner had I gotten home she called me and said wouldn’t it be fun to start a coffee shop. The idea excited me and we came up with a name for the shop, Hebrews 12:2 Coffee Shop. Crazy thing about this was that neither I nor my sister knew anything about coffee or of starting a shop. Most God thoughts and ideas are way to big for you to do! That is how you know its a God idea not your own.