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.