What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. I still feel like we are trying to get caught up on sleep and get back into our “routine” after our mini-outreach last week. Just a hunch, but I have a feeling it will stay like this up until the baby arrives (ETA 6 wks)!
Our teams loaded up two eighteen passenger vans, one pulling a trailer and one mini-van as we followed and headed to Spokane, WA. We drove through some amazing mountains filled with deer and snow. We still are amazed by the beauty that is up here and I hope we never lose the awe and wonder of experiencing it! After a long 5hours we finally, arrived at our host church, Sozo church in Spokane, WA. What an amazing gift to allow us to stay in their building for a week as we learned more about God and evangelized in the city. Jonathan and I were truly blown away as we were surprised with a small apartment room that had beds, a small kitchenette and a bathroom inside of it! We were definitely spoiled with this blessing as we were prepared to be in a classroom on an air mattress with communal bathrooms for the week.
Our speaker from the week traveled in from MT as well, Nick Gough. We spent the week exploring God’s word on the Holy Spirit, Evangelism and hearing amazing stories of what the Holy Spirit is STILL doing today! We learned more about the Gifts of the Spirit: Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, Healing, Miracles, Distinguishing Spirits, Tongues (various), Prophecy and Interpretation of Tongues. Some of the biggest take aways apart from that we are still given these gifts today is that gifts have nothing to do with someones spiritual maturity, the Holy Spirit is not a feeling and Obedience is not a feeling. Also, Discipline is doing the thing no one else wants to do so that you can have the results no one else will (in regards to exercising your spiritual gifts). We also practiced praying for words or specific people that God might be revealing or highlighting to us as we went into local malls to pray for. Just one example was that someone received a picture of a blue baseball cap. Our table prayed more over this and received three more specific items: a pretzel shop, the word stubborn, and something that looked like a stake/nail with wire wrapped around it. Later that afternoon we loaded up and headed to a local mall to evangelize. While on the first floor we found a pretzel shop with a young man wearing a blue hat. After asking for directions to a store, Jonathan struck up a conversation in regards to the young man’s necklace. It happened to be a Hindu Tree of Life with a long, skinny stone that had wire wrapped around it. Jonathan asked him about his faith and what he believed. The young man shared that he believes everyone has a God inside of them and that as long as you are a good person you will go to Heaven. We told him how Jesus said, “ I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to Father except through me” John 14:6 . We also, shared about how our team had prayed and what we had been shown in regards to the blue hat, pretzel shop and the word stubborn and that it was not a coincidence that we were here. He laughed and admitted stubbornness as he told us we were not the first people to pray for him. We took some time and prayed over this young man that he would pursue knowing Jesus and encouraged him to seek what God has in store for him. We ended up praying over two other people that our group had pictures for. The crazy and sad thing was that everyone we spoke to believed in a god but not the God. They all believed about being a great person and doing good things and that that would be enough. How exhausting, tiring and uncertain it must be to live a life that hopefully I have done enough good in my life to earn heaven. Rather than falling to our own pride and desires and recognizing that apart from the covering of my sins by Christ on the cross I will NEVER be able to do enough …. HE, Jesus, is the only perfect lamb who could ever wash away my sins and make me blameless before the thrown of God.
Our team that week also had three local ministries that we were going to work with. A center that focuses on high risks kids and offering a safe environment that not only helps with their physical needs such as providing food but also focuses on the emotional and spiritual needs. The city director for the downtown location was a man named, Jeff Ross. He shared with our team his amazing testimony of how God wrecked his life when he on the streets and in a gang and how he is using his testimony to minister to the youth in his city facing similar struggles! We spent several hours loving on the kids as they came after school and were able to pray for several. What a humbling experience to be part of. Please join us in continuing to pray for Jeff and his staff as they work tirelessly to save as many kids off the street in Spokane as possible!
The next organization was a local non-profit that helps with refugees in the Spokane area. The biggest issue in regards to refugees is trying to find jobs. So, in 2007 Brent and his wife founded Global Neighborhood to help provide job experience for refugees so they could then go on to finding better work opportunities. So what do they do exactly? They are a local Thrift Store. Our team spent an afternoon sorting through donations which would have taken a full-time employee about a week to go through. They are working on opening a larger facility with hopes of doubling the amount of people they can employ this year! Very inspiring to see how God uses different visions and callings for different people and what obedience looks like.
The third organization, Restoring Hope, was working on opening a facility to be utilized by those who have been rescued through sex trafficking. They already have an operating safe house but wanted a different location for training, schooling etc to be used as a Restoration Center. Jonathan and I were not able to go with the team as the main focus was dealing with cleaning and required some hard labor (not suitable for 32wks pregnant). We were looking forward to helping and praying over this building as we know this will be a huge blessing to the women and children who will benefit from it! However, we were able to take one of our fellow students halfway home to attend her Grandmothers funeral in OR. I love how God uses detours in our lives to give us encouragement and a different perspective. It also allowed for us to spend some time together just the two of us on Valentine’s Day! As Granny helped to keep the little ones on schedule for the day back at the church.
What an amazing week filled with obedience, encouragement and pushing us to go outside of our boxes! The drive back was rough as several areas of the highway had been closed during the week due to avalanches! Yes, the plowed avalanche areas were stacked taller then our truck!! Again, very beautiful but dangerous as we came to accept that avalanches during the winter and forest fires in the summer are going to be our “new norms”.
We begin WEEK 8 of 12 on Monday with an estimated arrival of baby Pharr in 6 weeks! We need financial support during our transition time as all the finances for housing, eating etc were not part of the original launch fund (which we almost have made). With our plans to go on staff after our outreach phase in August we need your financial partnership in order to support our family in the mission field. Once on staff all donations can be sent via YWAM and our unique staff number for tax receipts. Please prayerfully consider about how you can help us on a monthly basis ($10, $25, $50 or more) as each dollar helps us to buy diapers, baby food, gas and other necessities that fall outside of what is covered during the school. Currently we have $280 in monthly sponsors and the minimum for a family of 5 is around $1,200 with the goal of $4,000 set by YWAM. If you are interested in becoming a monthly supporter or have questions please email us at pharrjourney@gmail.com or click the SUPPORT US tab above.