Day 42– Aug 10, 2005, Wednesday: Abbi’s Story

At the right are a few pictures of the worship today with the kids and families. We meet here on wednesday's and all sing and have fun together. You can see the kids below having fun doing motions to some of the songs.

Today was amazing. God has truly blessed us and those around us. The Richards family has all of their money in to go to Uganda and Zimbabwe (with us). The Bell family has all of their money to go to Sudan. The Sunnex family has all of their money to go to Israel. We are extremely close. We’ll get there.

We had an amazing story today from John Goodfellow. He told how he was raised in London by slobbering drunks that fought every night. He grew up a fighter and prided himself in that he could beat up anyone. He drank everything. He did every drug. He moved to Amsterdam and one day a young girl invited him and his 3 drugged out friends to have a burger with them. She told them about Jesus. He grew up Irish Catholic and all he ever knew about Christians was that he loved to them beat up. She told him that Jesus loved him. He couldn’t believe it. No one had ever loved him. She told him that Jesus has forgiven him of every hurt he had committed. He broke down. No one could forgive that. From that day he did not take one drug. He never had withdrawal symptoms. He committed his life to Christ and went back home to his drugged out fighting family. He had amazing stories of how he told each of his hardhearted parents about Christ. They wept over the horrible lives they have lived and were totally changed. Today rather than fighting, his mom is the sweetest lady you could meet. His dad died three months after believing in Jesus. His sister is an amazing woman of God. He has been telling others about God for the last 20 years. It was an awesome story to hear; I haven’t given it justice.

After hearing this I went home to check my email and received this from Abbi:

I am sending you $800.00 for your trip to Africa.

I am praying for you, that God brings all the money you need.

When my Grandpa died, he gave me some money.

I have been holding it for a long time, waiting for something useful to do with it.

I'm glad God brought something like this, I know you'll put it to good use.

I think the Ark Park looks fun.!

I'll keep praying for you. I hope you have a nice trip too.

Love,

Abbi

It almost broke my heart to read it. Abbi is a 7-year-old girl who we have never met. We met her parents the last day we were at church in San Diego. We talked to them for 10 minutes after and got their email address so they could ‘watch’ us as we go. Abbi is tithing from money that she got from her grandpa when he died. She has been waiting for what she wanted to give it to. She gave it to us from her heart. Not only that, but she gave us $38 from her piggy bank as well. No wonder Jesus said, “For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these”. Thank you Abbi, and all of you who have helped financially. I know it is sometimes tough to give and we appreciate it. This entire experience has really changed us.