Here’s the last part of our “Recent Adventures” story…
The last person we got to speak with in California before we had to leave was a man named Joe. Rarely do people ever approach us to talk about the Lord – we’re generally always the ones taking the initiative!, but this day Joe came up to us in an indoor mall. He wasn’t on a specific outreach, but rather he felt moved to reach out to us in particular. After asking a lot of questions and doing lots of patient listening, we discovered he was already filled with the Holy Spirit. However, we discerned he needed some encouragement and redirection in terms of his preaching, so we shared with him many scriptures and personal testimonies, to “expound unto him the Word of God more perfectly” – as did Aquila and Pricilla to Apollos in the Book of Acts.
It’s quite amazing how many people God connects us with that are already born again but have never been properly counseled regarding preaching the gospel and walking in the Spirit. One of the biggest things we discover is how few people are encouraged to pray in tongues as much as possible every day. It’s something we tell everyone we pray with and baptize.
The next biggest part our adventure happened when we had a large garage sale (over the course of a couple of weeks) very soon after returning from California. We shared the Word of God with as many people as we could as they browsed our items for sale, and we ended up having a total of five separate baptisms! They all received the Holy Spirit, too, except one (who we later discovered still needs to work on repentance). There were also two ladies (on separate occasions) who received the Holy Spirit when we prayed with them. One of the ladies had been wanting the Holy Spirit for a very long time, but nothing ever happened when she prayed with others. We told her that it seemed like she needed to hear the fullness of the truth before she received! Please keep all of these “garage sale converts” in your prayers. Their names are Mike, Howard, Byron, Bruce, Adam, Cathi, and Theresa.
