Update on our preparations for home meetings

First, I praise God. When I consider the wretchedness that I am, and the depths to which our Lord sank when He assumed human flesh and subjected that flesh to the Father and suffered that flesh for the salvation of men, I am ashamed of my own existence until I also yield to the fact that God has already commended His love toward me in the death of Jesus. His valuation of His beloved children excludes any hope we might place in our own works or ways. And, still, He affords us a measure of Himself in us, and stirs up in our spirits made alive in Him a desire to please Him and obey His word. How thankful I am! I am far richer than the wealthiest billionaire and far more ahead of the most ambitious power hungry man on earth whoever he may be.

We have finished the first part of making our home ready, physically. Our garage is painted, including the floor which now has two coats of epoxy paint on it. Thank God for YouTube with me, because I learned how to prepare the floor and apply this most ornery kind of paint by watching lots and lots of videos from different sources. My wife and I spent the past two nights painting, and the several nights and weekend days before that preparing the concrete.

Meanwhile, with every expenditure we have made, and if there is any exception to this it is small, but the Lord has kindly provided immediate money from sudden sources....raises and bonuses for my wife and unexpected short term, quick turn around work that I so happen to charge almost exactly what we are spending. We have laughed and marvelled several times in this already.

More importantly, we have re-connected with two old friends who we used to belong to the same church years ago but they moved away for school. He operates a small company that serves the handicapped, and she was a teacher. They have one daughter who is only days apart from our daughter in age, and the two girls have tightly bonded. We have shared our hearts with them, and they are committing of their own response to God to meet with us. They also now attend our local church. And, they "get it" about gathering under the headship of Christ, yielding to one another and committing to one another as family. It was amazing how, when we were catching up after meeting them again after so long, their expressions of desire for God and for meeting this way almost exactly mirrored our own.

We are going to purchase a portable AC and heat pump for the garage. We found one for $170 less than any near competitor after a close brother in the Lord called me three nights ago to tell me where one was, knowing what we are doing amd trying to help. The one I ordered was different from what he found, but was an even better deal.

We have ordered insulating garage door panels. And, this weekend we are furniture shopping.

In light of this, we have started politely inviting some unbelievers. Praying for who to invite and when. God has lead me to cross paths multiple times, with no effort from me at all, with two women I know but for whom I had already started praying for when this whole matter was just a thought.

We still ask for your continued prayer.

Praise the Lord!! I will be praying that all goes well and Christ is lifted up!

One other thing, do you have a neighbor association? How will the neighborhood reaction to cars always on the street or in your yard every week? I'm not trying to rain on your parade or anything!!

God bless you and your endeavors!
Lisa

We have indeed considered it. We have no association, but we have good neighbors and covenants. We will be small. That is our plan for now. Good question though!

That is good advice regarding strangers, and well taken.

I will.

Can I upload photos here?

Dolfan,

I'm really encouraged to hear this. Since we first had contact to seeing the outworking of your desire is great. I pray the Lord will bless this endeavour for His glory.

Be prepared to stick with it even if things don't immediately or always go as first thought.

Bro. Greg, thanks for that iinfo.

And Dave, thank YOU for the encouragement to hang in, and to sister Lysa, for your prayers and encouragement.

Guys, it is funny what has happened even today. I was at my office looking over some files, and my neck starts suddenly hurting really bad. It still does right this monent, but I put some Salonpas on it and we will see. But, here is the funny part...my good friend, an unbeliever with whom I have shared Christ with on more than one occasion, who I have expressly invited his wife and him to our church and now to our home for these meetings, walked in my office door less than 5 minutes after the onset of pain and he had a box of Salonpas pain patches to give to me. I started laughing and said, "This is crazy." Then we went to lunch and I updated him on our progress. He had loaned me a 12 foot ladder to do some electrical work in the ceiling of our garage. While we were eating lunch, his wife...also a good friend...texted him to say she was such and such distance away from her monthly sales quota to get a free iPad. He texted her that he was having good thoughts for her. I said, "Tell her I am praying for her." Y'all please do that too for her (Ann is her name). We intercede for them regularly and they are people I love very much. I hope she gets her goal and I get to give credit to God for it to her.

Then, I delivered some documents to one of my clients, and as I left, my phone rang. It was the local retailer where I had ordered the clearance priced portable AC/heat pump for the garage. It was not supposed to arrive until next week; her DM drove 100 miles to bring it today. I told her I wil see her tomorrow. THEN, after I nearly wrecked because I can now not turn my head to see the lanes on either side of me all of a sudden, I stopped by the local CVS to grab some topical analgesics and came home to see if I can relax my neck for a bit before our regular Friday night bible study. When I pulled into the driveway, on our front porch were two large boxes....the garage door insulation panels my wife ordered from Home Depot online and were not due for another week.

I will take some snapshots of the as yet empty but painted garage and upload and share here. I prayed on the way home recounting how God has been faithful to us in the face of great unfaithfulness and failure and undeservedness. He keeps us. He holds us in His hands. I have never in my life seen personally the kind of favor we are seeing right now. Oh, that our love for Christ Jesus will be ever more true, ever more of the Spirit, ever more yielding and submissive because we are still wretches who deserve hell but for the fact that Christ is our righteousness.

http://share.pho.to/6wbSs

Ignore the bluish door to the living room. My wife tested a chalk paint mixture she had and did not like the color. She will repaint this weekend.

Garage is 420 sq. ft. Floor painted with Valspar Two Part Epoxy from Lowe's, Tile Red.

We have a long table we will use for eating and maybe communion. Looking for some chairs to go with that. We have a small round, yellow drop leaf table and two velour greenish chairs to place, and we have an armoire that we plan to set the AC inside it next to the window on the left (to vent out) and to block the view of that vent.

We have a dresser that matches the armoire and we will place along the opposite wall with the TV we were given and a DVD player if we use any video studies or worship music. As to this, we are uncertain what we will do, but the TV was dropped into our laps so we consider it part of this whole effort. We will see how and if God uses that. No plans, though. He is in charge.

I removed the door openers and replaced with these lights you see, and we installed LED bulbs in them. Hopefully, they last a long time. If the box they came in is right, until I am 67. :)

We bought a super cheap used rolling coffee table and are going to attach pallets to it for an extra large coffee table. So, our goal for buying now is a sofa and one or two chairs ... Inexpensively. But, with everything so far, we trust God in this process, too.

Added the AC unit this AM

http://share.pho.to/6wbSs

Added garage door insulation panels. Made a mess with foam pellets

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http://share.pho.to/6wbSs

Okay, the sofa came today. The red chair next to it we already had. The blue and gray chair next to that is new. The long table was already ours. The chairs at the table are new. The little black table in front of the sofa will be re-topped, a thrift store find. So we are two other chairs for the table, and bringing out a couple of pieces from inside the house away from being ready.

Physically.

This past Friday, I had a recurrence of a pinched nerve that seems to be getting better. Today my wife got another kidney stone, and we had to make a trip to the emergency room, and she has been bedridden most of the day very sick while I continued to work out here.

Please keep us in your prayers

Okay, we're virtually done. We're ready to meet in this garage area. And, we plan to meet first this Saturday night with 4 other believers that we know. There is more to share about how things continue to unfold. One thing I want to testify to though -- Friday I started to order some bibles to have for use in our house for folks who might not have one, or to give to people if they needed one. I paused and thought, "I'll get my wife's feedback on that." She texted, "I think you should wait." Sunday morning after church, a brother who meets with us on Friday nights walked up to my wife and handed her three new bibles and said, "You're going to need these." So, instead of ordering 10, we were given 3 without ever mentioning bibles to anyone. I'm taking that as sufficient for the time and as the Lord's comfort and encouragement.

Anyway, here is a roughly one minute part of a video clip of most of the finished garage. The whole thing wouldn't load up, but I think this is enough.

Please keep us in your prayers. We are getting active resistance (okay -- insults to our face, but that's okay, too) from some people in our own church -- unbelievably so. Why on earth, I dunno. But, anyway, please pray the glory of God and the love of Jesus to be lived, learned, shared, and proclaimed here.

I uploaded this video to Shutterfly. https://lifewithpeoplejesusloves.shutterfly.com/pictures Click on the video link to the right when you go here.

Updated the stills here. http://pho.to/6wbSs

Hopefully we will have some praises to share after our first meeting(s).