THANKSGIVING!!

Each day when I wake up, I like most of you pray and thank God for allowing me one more day to be here. I thank him for the opportunities he is going to give me to be a light in this community. For my family and friends and usually for the Beautiful day that he has blessed me with. It seems fitting that this week is Thanksgiving and this ties into the Holiday! Sometimes just the smallest thing makes me think about how aware of me God is. He has shown me in so many ways in my time here that he cares about me and my desires, needs, and everything about me. He has blessed me in so many ways with the church family, friends, activities I get to do in my spare time, and the moments when I am completely satisfied reading His word and knowing him more. I pray to be an encouragement to others and that others would be an encouragement to me. This week I want to tell you a story about Franklin. Franklin is a well known man here on St. Croix. If anyone has lived here for any period of time and they don't know Franklin I would be very surprised. I got to meet Franklin through church and usually everyday I am out walking around in the area we call Sunny Isle I cross paths with him. He is an older man maybe 55 or so and he is just an AWESOME MAN. I ran into Franklin yesterday morning when I was opening our gate and he yelled across the street at me and I quickly smiled and yelled GOOD MORNING FRANKLIN!!! He came and we shook hands and I asked him much like I always do, "How are you today?" I love his response every time I ask him he responds the same way with "Living life and ENJOYING it my brother!" I proceeded to ask what his plans were for the day and he said walking around, talking to people about his faith. ALL FRANKLIN DOES IS WALK AROUND TALKING TO PEOPLE, and helping people at their jobs. He will go mop the floors at McDonalds or fold shirts at foot locker, or anything he feels he can bless someone by doing. When I first saw him in Foot locker I asked him how long he worked there and he said, "I don't work there, I just help out."

His concept of "Living Live and Enjoying it" is awesome. I have adopted that thought, because there are so many things in my life that I can enjoy. There isn't any reason to have a bad day, or be stressed out, or even to be upset. Life is something to enjoy and today as I am reflecting upon all that has happened in my life I can say I AM LIVING AND ENJOYING IT!!! God has been too good to me to not enjoy it. My life is to be a life of service to him. I daily want my life to be a living breathing THANK YOU card to God. That is where I want to be. To continually be walking in his Joy, and sharing the love he has for me to everyone I come in contact with!

THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING A PART OF MY LIFE! I TRULY AM THANKFUL FOR YOU, I KNOW I COULD NOT BE WHERE I AM TODAY WITHOUT YOU. YOU HAVE IMPACTED MY LIFE IN A HUGE WAY AND HAVE HELPED MOLD ME INTO THE PERSON I AM!! BE BLESSED IN THIS THANKSGIVING SEASON AND LIKE FRANKLIN LIVE LIFE AND ENJOY IT!!

He must hold firmly to the trustowrthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. Titus 1:9
A call to live a life built upon the foundation of the Word. In all you do, you must seek the face of your Father. "Hold Firmly" it means to not take lightly, to Grasp with force, to not move from, to be rooted in the Word. So that is where your heart is to be. It is the teaching brought forth by Holy Spirit. In all things you must seek the Lord. When the word is securely imbedded in your heart God is able to use you in mighty ways. You are able to encourage others in their faith and able to lead other to a place where they may choose to accept and enter into relationship with God. You will be able to be used to speak truth into the lives of those who are in the darkness of lies. God will use you to combat the enemy, to further His Kingdom. You will grow in Knowledge and Understanding of him which in turn leads to a deeper intimacy with Him. You will know Him, and recognize Him in all things. The reason you were created was to worship Him and proclaim His Good News of love to the Nations!! It is through His written message that we receive His LIVING, BREATHING, SPOKEN WORD and can apply it to our lives.
We get our inspiration for our spoken message of Faith through His Word. We are ALL called to encourage: to urge forward persuade, to call to life those who may have lost sight of the goal, or may have given up. It is the strong that come beside and lend a helping hand in the times of need. We Must speak the truth of the Word at all times. To give control of our mind, heart, and tongue to the Lord and allow Him to use you to build people up. What a great honor to be desired by the Almighty God to speak His words of life into the heart and life of a dying lost soul. When it is all about Him and His Glory being made known, we are able to be used in mighty ways. Knowing you may have impacted the life and changed the eternal destination of a person is such a great honor. Knowing we have that opportunity each day God gives us breath, makes me really think about how I am spending my time. Am I truly taking advantage of every opportunity I have to bring life to the lifeless? Am I daily walking out and speaking the Faith I claim to have? It is all about showing his love to everyone I come in contact with. Do I show the love God has for me to people of all social classes everyday? Do I look down upon the homeless drunk, and turn my face from them as if they don't even exist? OR do I give them my attention and smile to them and even possibly sacrifice a little bit of my time for just a moment making them feel the value God has placed in them. Are my eyes sensitive to the hurting world around me? Do the people I work with, know my Faith lies in God? Is my life truly matching up in all areas to what God has called me to? If I didn't say one word to anyone, would they be able to know by my actions that God lives inside me and I am seeking to serve only Him DAILY?!!
I have been challenged lately to make use of every moment I am given to bring Joy to people. The woman at the check out line, making simple conversation, smiling to someone and saying Good Afternoon, asking the person who is sitting alone sad how I can pray for them. Of course it takes me out of my comfort zone but does it really matter if you are the one person that shows compassion, and are the one person that shows the love of God to that person and can give them something to think upon and smile upon, knowing God is aware of them?! I don't want to miss an opportunity to cause someone wonder what I have. I am CALLED TO LOVE EVERYONE!

Pier Jumping with God

I had an interesting week once again!! Things have been pretty normal around the property just working on the base doing yard work making the property looking as nice as possible, I got to lead a bible study, and hang out once again with friends. On Saturday night 3 of my friends (all in our 20's) and I had a nice home cooked meal and then decided to go for a drive. It was dark and a PERFECT night. So my boy Ernice took us all around and we finally stopped on Northshore road and pulled over. It is a fairly busy road but nothing to extreme for the 45 mins we were pulled over we saw maybe 20 cars. Anyways we had the stereo pumping worship music and the 4 of us were just hangin out looking at the glowing neighboring islands in the distance, staring at the MILLIONS of stars in the sky and in complete Awe of the Lord! It was incredible!! Then we drove into Frederiksted and went to the cruise ship pier! The pier is a popular fishing and swimming place. It is maybe 12-15 feet above the water and its probably 35 feet deep. So Ernice, Cherlyn, and myself are all jacked up for jumping and swimming even though none of us are prepared for it. It was a spontaneous thing. But our dear friend Miracle is hesitant, not wanting to jump at all thinking we're joking. Then one by one we jump and she is still shaking her head in disbelief and saying NO we're crazy. So I climb up the ladder and tell her it will be fine she can jump, she's also not to excited about jumping in the dress she is wearing either. So we give her a Tshirt to put on over her dress and I grabbed her hand telling her I'll jump with her. And after hesitating FOREVER, her having a death grip on my hand, and me convincing her that I won't let her go at all she got the courage to jump in. (I just got circulation back in my hand yesterday!) She later jumped in one more time holding onto me and then once alone!! I tell you all that to give you the idea of how scared she was. As many of us might be, jumping into deep water, at night off a high pier. Sounds crazy I'm sure, but the water was crystal clear and it was completely safe! So in that whole time, God began to speak to me. He began to use the scenario to relate it to my life of faith. How there are many times in our lives where He brings us to an edge and tells us to jump. Many times we aren't expecting to even be standing on that edge but yet we are. He tells us to have faith in him and step out of our comfort zone and trust him. Many times it is the scariest thing in the world. Much like Miracle, she had never jumped into any type of water, not even a swimming pool! She was freaked. And the only thing that gave her confidence enough to jump was the fact that I would hold onto her all the way down and hold onto her in the water. She had to trust in me before she could allow herself to jump out of control into the water.

God is always there for us to grab hold of and HE WON'T LET GO! No matter what, He will hold onto us and jump with us. All we have to do is grab onto him and trust in him. Even if we can't even see where we're going it is all about having Faith in Him that he is leading us. We just have to be obedient, follow, and Jump in! Then there are the times where we are alone at the top and he's waiting below in the water telling us jump and as soon as you get in the water I will be here waiting for you to pull you to safety. There are times we jump alone because we have confidence from past experiences and other times we jump holding onto him because we can't do it in our own power! But nevertheless it is in those times where we MUST JUMP to get to the next level in our relationship with God. It is like the DEFINING MOMENTS OF OUR FAITH!. Whether we truly believe and trust in the one we serve or if we're just speakin the words but not actually living out our faith!

So that was my awesome cool evening that God just totally blew my mind apart with a great analogy to my faith. So an encouragement to you all, when it seems things are scary and unknown, grab onto Him and take the leap of faith. Watch as he makes ends meet, he does the impossible because you are completely placing all your trust in him. Cast your burdens upon him because he already knows how to fix all your problems he's just waiting for you to give them over!
For we live by believing and not by seeing. 2 Corinthians 5:7

Dios Mio.

This month has been quite a journey I must say. I have had a lot of time just to work the property and utilize that time to pray, worship, and just spend time with God. It has been AMAZING! God has placed people here in my life that have been incredible! There are so many people in my church here that I have been able to just connect with. It is very interesting in fact the groups of people I have been hanging out with lately has not been people my own age. I am surrounded every Sunday morning with kids in children's church and then when that is over I go help clean up in church and run into all my older friends. I was blessed this last Sunday to go over to "Mummy's" some of my older friends and I were going to go out to eat. (when I say older it means a lil older than me like 55-60) And as we were getting ready to go to our normal hangout spot Sharky's a sports bar where on Sunday's church people take over!! Anyways we were going there and we caught wind that Mummy the church secretary's mom had just cooked that morning! Our attention quickly shifted to calling Mummy (TOTALLY ISLAND STYLE HERE) telling her we were on our way over to have lunch with her. SHE WAS ECSTATIC!! She said there was food for 4 and low and behold that is how many we had!! So I got to spend the afternoon with my friends. I was blessed to spend the afternoon trying island favorites that I had never had an opportunity to try nor the desire but surprisingly enjoyed it!! Something that really stuck with me at the end of the afternoon when we were leaving was something that Mummy said. She thanked me for "taking time to hang out with the old people." And then a couple that I have spent almost every Sunday afternoon with for the past few months, even going sailing with numerous times spoke up also in a similar way saying "Mummy we don't understand but he really enjoys hanging out with us old fogies." All I could do was laugh because its so TRUE, I truly do enjoy the conversations that take place in the older crowd, the wisdom these people have is unmatched. AND I JUST WANT TO SOAK IT UP!!! I was able to look upon the last few months and think I have spent time with all age groups: little kids, teens, my peers, every age up to however old Mummy is maybe 70-80??? It is awesome to see the opportunities I have had to befriend, love on, and speak into the lives of so many people in just the weekly relationships from church!! I have an opportunity for the next 3 weeks to lead our men's bible study, the same bible study that I am the youngest one by 20 years and I was asked to lead it while the normal leader is off island. WHAT AN HONOR AND PRIVILEGE!!! God has been so good to me, as I have found the importance of the tiny meaningless activities he has placed before me and seen how I appreciate those times he trusts me with greater opportunity! I can honestly say I have never felt more content with where I am than right now. I know I am in the middle of God's will and I am enjoying every moment. To know and understand that every morning when GOD WAKES ME UP, he wakes me up because there are specific things that ONLY I CAN DO FOR HIM! If others could do them he wouldn't have woke me up!! I have found a whole new level of intimacy with Him and it is quite incredible. There have been a few sermon topics that I have discovered and began to ponder upon, ready whenever he allows me to share them!! I can truly say I am living out 2 Timothy 4:2...........Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season! I am in a season of preparation, and SOON God is going to unleash me and oh baby stand back cuz lives are going to be transformed by the power of God at work!! What an amazing place to be in right now, seeing all the opportunities that are before me. Working in one of the worst projects on island bringing God to them, leading Kings Kids, leading bible study, helping in an all black youth group and not feeling intimidated, things are taking shape and I am finding my sphere of influence to be not just a single age or people group but EVERYONE I MEET! The grocery store checker, the mailman, the dealer on the corner, the homeless dude that lives in the bush, EVERYONE and I get the opportunity if I choose to take it to encourage and show the love of God to each and every one of them!! If only every believer could grasp that simple way of life, seeing everything they do as worship to God and seeking to Glorify Him in all things great and small!
⁴The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: ⁶Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2:4-6