Tuesday's trivia

It was Oct. 16 / 1995 and a good friend Barry wanted to meet for breakfast. As we were having our meal he said, "Harold, if you will host a mens Bible study I'll lead it." I was honoured he would ask me and said "why not? I'll check with Diane." So the next Friday this busy businessman from our community showed up early at our home, with his Bible in hand to see if anyone would show up for an early morning men's Bible study. We'd told a lot of men and I'd been up a couple of hours already preparing coffee, tea and toast, with Diane's help. I thought that maybe I'd make a pan of baked oatmeal figuring if no one was willing to try it, we had a lot of kids that would inhale it in short order.

Well, as I look back on that October 20, 1995, Friday morning in my log book and see that we had a great group of men show up that needed to meet with other men and hear, study and learn about the God that would take a wretch like each of us and make more godly men of us. That first morning Ryan, Cel, Darryl, Gary, Barry and Harold showed up. All the coffee was gone, some toast left but the baked oatmeal was gone every crumb of it.

Over the next few months things changed, we had to move out of the house and out to the shop where there was more room. It seemed a lot of guys would get up a bit earlier to hear God's word and to share about some of the struggles in their lives. It was great to see how as we prayed for each other, God would turn things around. We had to make a whole lot more baked oatmeal as it really caught on and everyone enjoyed it a lot. I've never been sorry for opening up our home that first Friday morning as we watched how God worked in our lives and built a strong faith and hope into each of us. We also had a lot of men show up that never went to a Bible study before, but were willing to step foot into a backyard garage with a bunch of men ready to head to work and take a bit of time to see what God could really do for them. They were seeing what He had done for so many others. As I look back I'm so thankful for men like Barry that are obedient to God and are willing to encourage and help others know the love and forgiveness of our Lord. I don't believe there was anyone that didn't learn from his teaching. Got a facebook message the other day from Mike, a great guy that used to attend that Bible study many years ago, he was glad to hear about the ranch and all that was happening and very encouraging, but he also needed the recipe for Baked oatmeal.

We had a great meeting with Pastor Harry at the Family Life Fellowship church today, he says he will get back to us to let us know what all they can do to help us. He has such a heart for this type of ministry and we felt he really was going to do all that he could. He took time to encourage us to keep going and he prayed for us and for the trip to Calgary tomorrow and our meetings there, that we would find favour. P.T.L.

Potluck at our house tonight along with a leadership meeting and the miracle of the day has to be that friends from the past are sending support to help us get the ranch up and going and what a blessing that is. I didn't make baked oatmeal for supper, but I sure am craving it right now.

Sometimes we have had people in our lives that wonder who would ever give you money to help with this stuff, and I'm reminded of Diane's late father that often wondered how can we afford to travel to do ministry, till one day we had our semi set up in our home town next to their home to do some practicing and outreach to our home community. He was home alone one afternoon and a man came to the door when Bill went to talk with him he asked about the semi sitting outside and if he knew who's it was. Bill said it belonged to his daughter and son- in-law and the guy gave Bill $100.00 for the ministry. Bill asked, "why are you doing this?" and the guy said that as he was driving by God told him to stop and give them the money. It's not always easy being in ministry but God is faithful and he always meets our needs.

Tuesday's trivia -- What tree did the garden of Eden duo eat from?

Last weeks answer -- Jethro taught Moses to be a shepherd.

SO TODAY WHY NOT GET FIRED UP AND GO FOR IT AND HELP US MAKE A DIFFERENCE BUILDING THE RANCH.