Privilege- on the lot...

This is actually an old post- I meant to put it out last October... sorry...

(written by Jeff)
So, I was sitting in the parking lot on the first night of the Chicago shows for
Phil and Friends, handing out food and water, and I was having this conversation with Jesus.
These were my Questions:
“Why am I out here?... I haven’t told anybody about you... I haven’t prayed for anyone...
Am I doing anything to benefit or further your kingdom?... I see the other guys talking to
people about you, praying for people, but I don’t feel like you have led me to say anything
to anybody, or to pray for anybody….So, once again, why am I here?” And this is how I
felt like the LORD answered me: “I don’t need you to do anything...All I
want you to do is to show these kids my love; I want you to love them...Show them a
part of me that they have never seen.” I felt like the LORD said, “You get to have
the privilege of being here and seeing Me at work.” It wasn’t until a couple of
weeks later in Charleston, SC in the lot of a Widespread Panic show that I had the
privilege to see Jesus at work right in front of me. This is what happened…
We had set up next to this vendor who was selling mimosas,
burritos, hair wraps, and some jewelry. Through the course of the night we had
some chances to have small talk with him, but nothing earthshaking. Once the show
started, the lot emptied out and he came over to our table to fix himself a cup of hot
chocolate and he noticed the milk crate of Bibles we had on the table. He picked one up
and said,”My favorite verse, Psalm 21...no, Psalm 101…” and he opened the Bible up to
Psalm 101 and began reading it out loud, but stopped after a few verses and said, “No, I
haven’t read this before…” and began to read out loud again, but trailed off after a
couple more verses and read on silently. At that moment you could almost see the light
come on and the Holy Spirit begin to speak to this man. He read on silently, then
looked up at us and said, “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m really digging on this.” He
finished reading Psalm 101, put the Bible back in the crate, nodded to us and went
back to vending his stuff. The question is, What did we do?... Other than be present?

What is Next?...

Proverbs 16:9 says In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

We continue to seek the LORD and the direction he has for us to go. We have faith that this direction is good, even if we can only see one step at a time. We are not sure what our life will look like when we get back at the beginning of October…( jeff adds with a laugh that we don’t really know what it will look like even in June).
We would appreciate your prayers for continued wisdom and discernment.

Summer & IHOP

We just wanted to give everyone an update. For those of you who don’t know, we have made the decision to go to Kansas City (KC) . Jeff was accepted to the summer intro to IHOP internship, and the dates are late June through September. We originally thought it would be May through August, but the dates have changed.
We are raising support now, and are at $1,100. This is enough for the $900 internship fee, which we will be sending off soon. We still need about $14,000 to cover our living expenses out there and our bills at home. We have a few leads on houses to rent in KC (ranging from $750-$1,000 a month including utilities), and we are trying to figure out if we can rent our house out to anyone for the time we are gone, so that amount may go down a good bit.
Jeff has let his work know that he will be gone for 4 months, and we are in process of figuring out what exactly that will mean (specifically with our insurance).

Also, Jeff is planning on traveling some with Beau/Lone Sheep before he has to officially start his internship. We plan to move out to KC in early June, so that he can meet up with Beau for the shows and festivals in the midwest. Jeff is looking forward to traveling and he is hoping to build on relationships he made in the fall.

We are also planning on using some of the time in June to acclimate our family to IHOP life, a new house, hopefully friends, etc.