Diary Report 257 (for November 2013)
November 30, 2013
To: Carolyn, Cliff, Pauline, Chet and Dolores, Lori, Alan,
Marcia, Pastor Adonis, David, Stan and Barbara, and Doris
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Hope everyone had a wonderful time. We did. We had Lori, John, Joshua, and Jacob from Georgia, Alan and Michelle from Virginia, Marcia from Maryland, and Sherry from Ohio with us for our Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving, our group of nine went to the Christ Church cemetery and had a graveside service for Hugh, who passed away in February 2010 and had been cremated. We had his ashes placed in a gravesite there. We began with a prayer. Then we had a wonderful time of sharing about Hugh’s life from each person there. Then Sherry played two hymns on her cell phone and we all sang along. I gave some words of testimony, and spoke out a prophetic message from Father God and spoke out another prophetic message from Lord Jesus that I had asked for. His ashes were placed in the ground, and we took turns putting shovels of dirt on them. The temperature dropped from 50 degrees to 40 degrees, so we left in our three vehicles to go and get warmed up. We were glad it was a sunny day. I will get a grave marker later. My own grave site is nearby. I do not attend Christ Church, but had bought the two grave sites from my friends Stan and Barbara Gussow many years ago, who used to attend Christ Church. It was such a joy to have my family visit.
I have a correction to make from last month’s Diary Report. I had stated that Joni Maddox’s dental bill was $4,775.00. I had heard the amount over the phone when I put it on my credit card, but my memory was faulty when I typed my report. Then Joni mailed to me the bill receipt and a wonderful thank you letter. The receipt showed to me that the correct price charged was $3,775.00. Sorry about the mistake. Joni sent me an email photo of her beautiful new smile, which I put onto the back page of last month’s Garner News. Such a beautiful young lady! In her letter she said, “Thank you for making me look beautiful again. Thank you that I don’t hurt anymore. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. If I can ever do anything for you, let me know.” I told her that God healed me for giving to her, and that I have been sleeping 7 or 8 hours straight every night—no more insomnia, or coughing, or itching, or frequent urination. Praise God! God is so good to me!
Last Diary Report I wrote about Alan and Michelle putting their house up for sale. It sold in only three weeks at a nice profit, which was an answer to my prayers for them. Praise God. They must be out of the house by December 10. They had driven down from Virginia, so they left last night for their 11 hour drive back to Virginia. They need to find a temporary place to live and find a temporary place to store their furniture, until they can buy another place. I am praying for them that God will help them make wise decisions, as they are all so important.
The Thursday before Thanksgiving Thursday was our monthly Senior’s Luncheon at Oasis Church, with seven of us present with a covered dish meal. We had voted to give to Shirley Terry $50.00 from our Sunshine Fund for her ministry to the mountain people in eastern Tennessee, named “Our Father’s House.” She always gives 120 families turkeys and baskets of food for Thanksgiving, and always has a big all-day Christmas party for over 300 people. At the Christmas party she has a big dinner in her yard for all and gives away used clothes and packaged foods. They have a Santa in his costume give each of the children a gift-wrapped new toy. I phoned Shirley and asked her if she would rather have the $50.00 for the Christmas party, or would she rather that I buy laundry soap and dish washing liquid for her to give away at the party. She replied, “Well, we need both. But last Christmas, a lady volunteered to make some homemade soup for the party. She made it with road-kill deer, and everyone who ate it got sick.
So this Christmas, I plan to buy all the meat and do all the cooking myself. I need the money to buy the food for the meal.” So I mailed to her a check of the money from our Seniors.
Our Oasis Seniors had given to me several large bags of used clothes to take to Shirley, and two of them had given some beautiful used jewelry for me to take to her. I needed to get it to her before her Christmas party, but I was extra busy getting my monthly projects finished and getting the house and food ready for my Thanksgiving company. But I remembered that the Bible says, “Always keep your promises, even when it hurts,” so I knew that I needed to keep my promise to get the clothes and jewelry to Shirley with my eleven-hour trip to the east Tennessee mountains. Father God had told me to always continue praising God for two hours every morning, and I knew this would be a hard thing for me to do the morning of the mountain trip. I needed all my sleep, if I was going to spend all day driving. When I asked Father God to speak to me, I thought that He would scold me for not obeying him, but instead He said, “I will help you with this trip, and I will help you with all you other projects and activities.” And He certainly did help me! When our God speaks to us, He ALWAYS encourages us! We don’t have to be afraid of our God judging us when He speaks to us—but He always shows to us His love, His joy, His help, His guidance, His wisdom, His power, and His magnificent royalty when He speaks to us!
I Googled the driving directions and printed them out to Shirley’s place in Duff, Tennessee. I knew that I was to drive through Nashville east to Knoxville, then take I-75 north to exit 160 by the Kentucky border. I got that far just fine, as I have been there three times before. But the last three turns, I wasn’t so sure of. I made two of the turns correctly, but the last turn on the Google directions was inaccurate. I got lost. I tried to phone Shirley, but my cell phone would not work in the mountains. I prayed, and back-tracked a few miles. There were no stores to stop and ask, so I stopped at a house and asked a lady where “Terry Lane” was. She asked, “Who do you want to visit?” I told her, “Shirley Terry.” She replied, “Yes, Shirley is a very good friend of mine!” She gave me good directions to Shirley’s place, and then I found it easily! Praise God.
Shirley met me outside, and we unloaded my full, well-packed car. Then we visited for about an hour. She told me some wonderful stories of how God had miraculously healed her physically from a stroke where she had been left partially paralyzed. A little boy had prayed for her healing every evening at a week-long church revival, and she was healed on the last night. The feelings came back into her legs, feet, arm, and her mouth straightened out! God is good. She also told me about some of the mountain people that she gives the food and used clothing to–how badly the items are needed, and how greatly appreciative the people are who receive it. I asked her about three of the people who used to give to her ministry, if they were still giving. She said that she had not heard from two of them for several years, but she said that the other one, Tom Sylvis, does still contribute to her ministry. She said that he still lives in the Nashville area, and that he brings items to her about every two months. I told her that there are two other ladies who want to give more used clothes from our group. She told me to contact Tom, and that I could give them to him to bring to her. “Thanks!” She said that a group of people near where she lives always collects used children’s clothes for her to give away at Christmas time. She said that they had collected a great abundance this year, and that “they are arriving tomorrow and will fill up my two-car storage unit.” I told her that I was glad she was getting lots of children’s clothing, as all I had brought was adult’s clothing. God takes care of His own. Shirley had 120 baskets of groceries packed up and waiting on the 120 turkeys to arrive, to give to the 120 families on the next day, the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Her 13 year old pretty little red-haired granddaughter had helped her get the groceries ready to distribute. She has lived with Shirley and her husband David for the past four years. She is a big help and may someday take over the ministry! God is good!
Shirley said that she and a friend had been praying for a man who was despondent over not being able to find a job, but she thinks he might get a job at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. I asked, “Do you mean that he will drive the 60 miles to Knoxville to work at UT?” She replied, “Yes. You have to do that if you live here in the mountains, as there are no jobs here.” I know how hard that is, as after I graduated from high school, I drove 100 miles round trip to Portland, Oregon daily for a couple of weeks to work there. I got sores on my eyes from driving so far. I had to move to Portland to work there. So many of the mountain people need good jobs near where they live. Shirley’s services to families there are greatly needed.
It took me about five hours to drive home in the rain. It had rained all day, all the way. I praised God for a good safe trip. When the Lord gives me more income, I hope to increase my giving to Shirley’s ministry—as it is one of the best of my 103 charities that I give to.
I have three more items that I want to write about: my art work, a Bethel Church service, and my new John Jubilee weight loss program. As for my art work, in the past three months, since my art show went up at the Brentwood Library, I have done only one hour of art work. Father God is encouraging me to do more art work, and He will reward me for it. One recent encour-agement that Father God gave me was that I saw the price of the highest paid piece of art work that has ever been sold at a Christy’s Art Auction. It was a triptych (three panel) work that sold for 142.4 million dollars. You can probably Google it online to see it. Look up, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” by Francis Bacon. It is a semi-abstract large painting(s) of a man sitting on a chair, with a line drawing of a box around him. God used the sale of this painting at the art auction to show me that the sky is the limit to what my paintings will sell for WITH HIS HELP!
Anyway, I’m to teach a watercolor class at the Brentwood Library for three hours on Wednesday afternoon, December 4, on how to draw and paint houses. God has simplified it for me when He told me, “Think of them as little boxes.” I’ll attach a flyer for the class. For our drawings, we will use one-point perspective, and just draw a series of rectangles and add some harmonizing color, using for reference a building photo of their choice. I have limited the class to 12 people, but I don’t know how many, if any, will sign up. I got the idea for this class when I was at Lori’s house and we went online and found photos of Lori’s birth home and John’s birth home. I want to paint small watercolor paintings of these houses for Christmas gifts for them.
I have now had six art exhibits at the Library, so they now have six of my paintings in their permanent collection, with four of them paintings of houses and the other two of flowers. Since God has made it so very easy for me to paint buildings, I have been considering painting a series of houses. Each of our 50 states has a capitol building and each has a governor’s mansion. I recently went online and looked up several of the photos of the governor’s mansions in nearby states. They are all elegant large older mansions. I went online and found two books with photos in them of governor’s mansions, so I ordered both of them sent to my house for a price of only $8.49. I’m going to pray about my doing a series of large oil paintings of these 50 buildings. If I paint one a month, it would take me nearly 4 ½ years to finish them. Then the group could be sent on a traveling exhibition to each of the states for people to see not only their own governor’s mansion but others as well, that have been paid for with THEIR tax dollars. Fun!
At our Bethel World Outreach Church, at a recent service, we were shown photos of some paintings of the new floor plan of the addition to their present building, the old Lord’s Chapel. The floor plan showed two sanctuaries, the present one, and the new one to be built at the opposite end of the present building that will seat 1600 people. Our Pastor James gave a fund-raising sermon for building the new sanctuary. He emphasized that all the fund-raising and all the church building expansion are for SOUL WINNING. While the choir was singing “Amazing Grace” in five different languages with many native costumes on from foreign countries, the Lord spoke to me and said, “This is what it will be like in heaven. People from all over the world will be singing praises to God in their native languages, and it will last forever. Many of these people will be in heaven because you gave.” Praise God! Pastor James ended his fund-raising-sermon-for-souls by giving an invitation for people who wanted to be soul winners to come forward and he would pray for them. About a third of all present came forward. Then Pastor James spoke out a long message in tongues, and then he spoke out a long message in the interpretation of the tongues. It was a very encouraging message telling all of us to go out and bring in the people to Jesus, and God will go with us and make us successful. Then Pastor James explained to any visitors there what had just happened with the tongues and interpretation. Later I wrote Pastor James a note commending him for his fund-raising sermon for winning souls. I told him that I have been in church services for 76 years, have heard hundreds of sermons on fund raising, but have never heard one ended by praying for people to be soul winners, then giving a message in tongues with interpretation of tongues. It truly blessed me!
Sherry just came in and told me that she heard that Paul Crouch Sr., who founded and managed TBN, just passed away today, November 30, at age 79. He and the Lord founded TBN 40 years ago. Now his wife Jan and sons, Paul Jr. and Matt, and the rest of the family will be in charge of TBN. God gave King David 40 years and gave Paul Crouch 40 years. God was with both of them all the way. Praise God. Sherry and I prayed for their family and for TBN.
I have been listening to John Jubilee on Radio for a few weeks with his “88 days Trans-formation” advertisements. He claims to not only help people lose weight and keep it off, but to be cured of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, and other illnesses. He never told the price of it. I prayed about my taking it. Father God told me, “It is expensive. If you want to take it, take it, and I will pay for it.” So I signed up to take it. We officially began the 88 day program on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I have lost 5 pounds in the last 2 weeks, as I began the exercises and water intake before the official kick-off banquet at the Marriott. PTL! We had to sign a form of secrecy that we would not tell the 12 items he uses in his program, and not tell the price of the program. With the price, he allows you to pay as much down and as much monthly interest free as you wish. His website is: JohnJubilee.com for those interested.