Now THIS is Missions!

What an awesome time we had with the Lord today in New Orleans. First we want to give props to Jerulasem Gospel Church on Teche St in Algiers, their faithfullness in serving God through the Brown Bags And Jesus ministry is amazing. They have not missed a week since they joined our team, and the ladies they bring with them are fearless. Brother Vincent and his team bring 60 lunches to match the 60 we bring each week, and have even started bringing a hot lunch the second Sunday of each month.They are helping get people off the street by finding housing though government programs, and spend time driving homeless people around after they get approved looking for their new homes.

Next I want to mention another church from near Sun, Louisiana that joined us for the first time today. Isabel Baptist Church's youth pastor brought several youth and a few mom's out to pass out lunches and to help teach the youth that there is no fear in serving God. They brought out an additional 50 lunches and waters to go with what we served today. The youth were absolutely fearless, telling the homeless that "Jesus loves you and He died on the cross for your sins". Isabel Baptist Church will be joining us the third Sunday of every month and we look forward to seeing what God does through them as He has done through the others involved. After the meals were served and our time of fellowshipping was over, we went back to the bridge where we first started serving the lunch and had our usual prayer circle with Brother Lenny from Isabel Baptist Church leading the prayer.

The greatest thing I saw God do today touched everyones heart that was involved, as we were going to the truck to leave, a homeless man approached me and asked if I could have one of the boys (Joseph) from Isabel Baptist Church pray with him. I called Joseph over to us and the homeless man told heim that he was certain that some people could actually "touch" God when they spoke to Him and he believed that Joseph was one of those people. Joseph I don't believe is even 10 years old yet, and while he was a little embarassed, without fear, he grabbed the man's hands, bowed his head and said a prayer for God to watch over this man, protect him and help him find what God knows he needs. I don't think there wasa dry eye around! This is Absolute proof what the bible says in Acts 1:7-8 7He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

The last thing I want to say, is that we need YOU to be a part of this, not only do we need your prayer and if you are close enough we need you to volunteer your time, but God's work isn't done for free, not only do the lunches and waters cost money, but the packing materials and the scripture we put in the bags cost money, not to mention it is 120 mile round trip EACH week so we also need financial support. Please visit our website and even if it is only $5, that will help! Thank you, and God Bless! http://www.brownbagsandjesus.com/

A Victory For satan.

All week we have been facing a direct, frontal attack by Satan. We were informed by New Orleans PD that they "strongly suggest" that we not feed the homeless under the bridge any longer. It was suggested that we volunteer somewhere else that feeds rather than doing the work that God sent us to do. We have worried ourselves sick about how we were going to get around this and we finally came up with a solution. We found private property that gave us permission to serve as long as we cleaned up the mess. When we arrived in New Orleans, as expected there were Cresent City police officers under the bridge(not sure if they were waiting for us or not, but we didn't want to take any chances) but we weren't too worried as we already figured out a plan ourselves. Being very cautious, we quickly unloaded our lunches and served 120 hungry homeless people. VICTORY!!!!!!! Well, not victory for us, but victory for satan. We did manage to feed 120 poor and needy people, but that is not what Brown Bags And Jesus is about. It is about feeding the needy physically AND spiritually. Satan won today because we only took the time to feed physically.....The true reason for this ministry was completely over looked. We didn't bless the food, we didn't have our prayer circle, all we did was serve the food. To make matters worse, not only did we not pray and minister to these people, but instead of praying to our Lord and listening to what He wanted us to do, we made our own decisions and completely missed out on what we have been called to do. Satan, you may have gotten one over on me today, but make no mistake, you have already been defeated and anything you do to us is only what God has allowed
you to further His Kindom.

(Romans 8:28) And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

God Does It Again

Well, today's lunch was as amazing as any. We enjoyed a visit from Pastor Vincent Burkhalter from Jerusalem Gospel Church located at 841 Teche Street New Orleans, La. After passing out lunches and a little fellowshipping, we asked Brother Vincent to say a prayer at which time quite a few of the people we delivered lunch to joined us in a circle. Just as it says in Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, you could just feel the Spirit of God among us, and possibly bring a little hope to a few lost souls!

What God is doing though Brown Bags And Jesus

It was just amazing to see how God is working through Brown Bags and Jesus over the last month. We have helped God serve over 400 lunches, over 650 waters, helped 1 man find a job, and today we learned that 12 people that we feed have been going to church and 3 of them made a decision to invite God into their heart today. Also while we were pumping gas at a station in Metairie, on our way to serve the lunches, we were talking to the man at the pump next to us who was from Sun, La only 5 minutes from where we live in Bush, La. It was obvious that they were just leaving church, so we asked them to pray over our bags, they agreed and then he handed us a card and come to find out he was the Pastor at a nearby church in the area and was looking to get involved in something like what we have been doing. We are excited to see where the Good Lord will take the this opportunity!
The kids passed out lunches like they were old pro's, and the men and women just love seeing the kids and talking to them. We delivered 60 lunches and about 125 waters, and then helped the other family set up for passing out their hygiene products, after a little fellowshipping we called it a day and headed back home to plan next weeks trip.

Please remember, that while there are people using drugs that are homeless, a lot of these people are just people that were in a bad situation, many of them could pass a drug test at any given time and would be willing to work for a lot less than what you could pay an illegal immigrant standing out in front of the lumber superstores in the area. If you think you could hire one of these people, let me know what skills you are looking for, and I can put you in touch with them. The homeless range from Restaurant managers to heavy equipment operators to labors and construction workers and remember, most of them are not bad people in a situation, they are just people in a BAD situation!

July 12th

Today we had 50 brown bag lunches and they were gone in less than 20 minutes. We had people standing around hoping we could find something else to give them. Lisa had packed the kids some snacks, so we talked the kids into passing out their snacks as well. We would really like to increase to 75 lunches per week, and would like to ask a few families in the area to help us by making say 5 lunches per family and delivering them to our house Saturday nights. If you would be interested in helping, please contact us at brownbagsandjesus@live.com . We could also use some help putting the lunches together at our house in Bush.