CARPENTERS CREW REUNION and RADICAL GIVING

Last weekend we drove to LaHarpe, Il to spend the weekend with everyone on the Carpenters Crew, that bless us and the people in Mexico every year with willing hands and open hearts. Last year they built three houses and also helped us move into our new diggs. This year they plan to build at least three houses, and if Roy has anything to say about it, they will build four. Two pot luck food gatherings and fellowship with a group of believers that actually DO the Word when it comes to helping the poor. We filled our borrowed van with baseball bats, gloves, helmets, balls and dozens of umbrellas for the people in Nopelera. We left behind a trailer load of blankets, sheets, pillows and other items donated by a local nursing home that closed. We will travel back through La Harpe on Monday and unload our trailer into Roy Days' larger trailer with all the items we left behind and head for home. Thank you everyone for the generous donations for us and the water towers we will build upon our return, we have been GRACED AGAIN, the towers are all paid for. Wednesday I played golf with all my buddies and after golf we met at a fine Italian restaurant and enjoyed a great meal. While we were talking, I reflected on the day and the hundreds of dollars our generous host had just spent to bless us, I gave thanks to the Lord that He has given us ALL things to enjoy and the days activities were part of ALL. There is no room for guilt in a life that serves the Lord, and the table was full of men that serve the Lord faithfully and are very generous to the ministry God has entrusted us with, and to many other ministries as well. For whatever reason, that has become clear since then, I challenged the guys to join with me in buying a full truck load of rice and sending it overseas to a famine filled land with starving children. I said I was in for $2500 and needed three more equal donations to buy and ship the entire 42,000 lbs of rice that will make over 250,000 meals, maybe more. Well, it's a done deal!!!! Praise the Lord and the load will be on the way next week. Imagine that, spontaneous acts of generosity breaking out throughout the Body of Christ with reckless abandon for our own shellfish needs to meet the needs of starving people in Somalia. WOW WHAT A CONCEPT!!! I called Rick Caywood, my brother from another Mother, on Thursday who gets me rice and beans when we need them, and I could hear His jaw hit the ground when I called and told him that me and my friends wanted to buy a load of rice and feed the hungry. Someone had called Him around the same time we were surrendering our wallets to Christ, literally begging for a load of rice to help the suffering in Somalia. DO YOU THINK GOD CAN RAISE MONEY FOR A HUGE NEED OUTSIDE OF A COMMITTEE???