CHAPTER 7 - BY FAITH I WENT, NOT KNOWING WHERE I WAS GOING

CHAPTER  7  -    BY FAITH I WENT, NOT KNOWING WHERE I WAS GOING

   After I sold and gave away all my belongings, and my family made me choose God or them.  And my church kicks me out for telling them what God showed me; Its time to move on.  I had no idea where I was going, I was just following God hour by hour, asking Him what is next.  I ended up at a friends house in Phoenix and stayed there about 3 weeks.  Then I moved back to my home town, Sierra Vista, AZ and established a household again and started college classes.  While taking a walk the Lord said look at a dollar bill, and when I did, He showed me that the words around the pyramid said "The beginning of the New World Order." So I believe something huge in the world  just happened to start this in order.   After only a few months, I hear God speak to me again.  I was watching Rod Parsley from World Harvest Church for the last year and I saw that he had a bible college.  I felt very strongly that God was telling me to go to that bible college, so I sell and give away all of our belongings again.  And once again, my mom and dad were very angry that I could even think about leaving right before Christmas.
   It was two days before Christmas, 1996,  that my daughter and I arrive in Columbus Ohio.   I just asked the taxi driver to get me as close as he can to World Harvest Church; and he dropped us off at a Red Roof Inn.  I didn't know anyone in Columbus Ohio, its two days before Christmas and snow on the ground.  I just looked up the churches phone number and called to ask if there was anyone at the church who could let us stay with them for a couple weeks until I get on my feet.  He said, well its Christmas so it may be a little hard, but I will get back to you.  Two days go by and still no call from him.  So I call him again, and he said I will call you back.  And still no call.  So God said "go to breakfast at that  Waffle House across the street."   We did, and while I'm eating God says "see that woman sitting by herself, ask her for a ride."  I asked her for a ride and she said, sure no problem but I need to go to my job before I bring you to that church.   So she brings us to a Bar in a strip mall of other stores, and says this is my business and gives us a coke and some pretzels.  She then hands me the phone and a phone book and says call around look for a place to live.  I was so humble, just looking for God to speak to me, so I was doing everything she said.   She took me to Georges Creek apartments, I fill out an application and find out that you have to have an income to get approved for an apartment.  So Rita, is her name,  she cosigns for me to get an apartment!  And then she takes me back to her bar and says "by the way, I'm selling this place and here is your dining room table and chairs, your silverware and dishes etc."  And then she takes me down the mall a couple stores where her mother is working and her mother gives us a television, then her sister brings us linens and blankets and nik naks.   Rita even let me borrow her  car for a week so I could go look for a job.  Praise God!  And after I get my apartment, I meet a woman (whos fictitious name will be Daisy) in the laundry room who goes to World Harvest Church, I tell her about us and she lets us borrow a twin bed mattress and a few bowls.
   So now it was after Christmas and it is the New Years Service of 1997 at the church.  I have only been to the church three times so far, and I'm sitting kind of in the middle left of sanctuary when Pastor Rod Parsley is preaching.   And right in the middle of  his preaching, he looks at me and yells, "hey you blondie, yea you.  Do you believe that Pastor Rod Parsley can do great exploits in the name of Jesus?"  And I nodded my head yes (not really even knowing what exploits meant).  And he said "well so will you,"  And I teared up and couldn't wait to get home so I could look up the word "exploits."  Wow it means "great acts of courage and bravery.  And I thought, oh my goodness I already feel like I've done great acts of courage, and I'm wondering if he is talking about what I've done already or what I'm going to do!  I will never let go of  that word God gave me.   It keeps me going and having hope, even through the rough times in my life.  Even if  I only went to Ohio to get that word from God, it was worth it all. 
    One Sunday at church, the Pastor offers several people to go to  bible college for three months until they were able to pay.  I jumped on the opportunity and started college.  It was so awesome, like going to church everyday!  So I only had about nine hundred dollars when I got to Ohio, and time is ticking away.  I have been looking for a job and praying for work.  I meet this very nice family at church, Joann Rose who offered to take Amanda to school in the mornings.  So I go and sign Amanda up for their Christian school at World Harvest Church and get her uniform.  She was in first grade, and so cute in her uniform!   Time is going by and still no job and now I have an eviction sticker on my door!  Was not easy looking for work with snow on the ground and no car.  So the same woman, Daisy, that started out helping me in the beginning is now turning against me and wanting all her things back.  She was a lay pastor at the church.  I was really beginning to feel the spiritual warfare in that environment.  Big devils that I have not encountered yet.  So at this point, I feel like lots of the neighbors are watching what is going on with me and I'm feeling the enemy of my soul coming against me.  I will never forget that while I was taking a shower, I was crying out to God saying "what are you doing to me?"
   While at church one Sunday I asked a minister to pray for me and so she then told me to be ready for her and her husband to pick me up very early in the morning.  The next morning they take me to the City Hall or Veterans Building and come to find out, Ohio pays for veterans back rent and utilities when you need it.  So they paid my back rent and utilities for me and I'm praising God!  Not long after that, I get a job as an Apartment Manager at a community down the street.  And the other manager there sells me a car for only two hundred dollars.  It burned oil pretty bad, but it ran well.  Now we are beginning to thrive here in Ohio.
   God is faithful!  He is my provider.  After I have seen him fill my house with things over and over, I have no fear of not having things!  And He also says in Matthew 19:29 - And every one that has forsaken houses, or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my names sake, SHALL RECEIVE A HUNDREDFOLD AND SHALL INHERIT EVERLASTING LIFE.
I KNOW I AM RICH.  My daughter has asked me for things and they would just show up, somehow, somewhere.  Once while praying at my apartment in Ohio, God interrupted my prayer and said "take out the trash", and I thought, I already did that.  And He said it again.  So I took the trash out to the dumpster outside and there was a beautiful wooden cabinet sitting there by the dumpster.  So I asked a guy walking by if he could help me bring it in to my apartment.   Another time, I found a very nice king size bed in the dumpster and I asked my neighbor to help me get it out and bring it in.  We also found a nice bunk bed frame by dumpster for Amanda's room.  Things just came from all over, each one a miracle from God!  God has always been working on my humility, before I started following Him, I would have never done such a thing, as get things out of the trash and borrow things from people.  He is at work in my heart!  After all these years of God filling my house with things.  I still haven't used up my hundred times more than what I gave up!  I am rich!!!!