It was March 26, 2006 on a Sunday night and it was the one year anniversary of Desired Life Ministries. I and some allies put on the first ministry vision dinner that marked and celebrated the first year of being in ministry. It's hard to believe that was over three years ago.
Here is a picture of most of the people who were there that night:
When going through some old entries I found the one from the day after the ministry vision dinner. I thought I would post what I wrote about the dinner on March 27th.Here is the entry I made about the dinner the next day:
The dinner went amazing! God showed up in a big way and many people were deeply touched by the night. Afterwards many people came up to talk to each speaker and comments such as I was not prepared for this and I was not expecting to be so touched. The night's theme of the faithfulness of God could not have been any better, it was perfect, despite the many things that went wrong and the hard time it was to prepare for it. We all felt intense spiritual attack the week leading up to the dinner. I was feeling very discouraged, Rachel was feeling like she could not do it and was feeling like she should cancel and then the day before she came down with a soar throat and could hardly talk without pain. Yet the day of the event she was better and able to sing and talk all the way until the end of the night, when it started hurting again.
Rachel also lost her notes in the car, her and Luke went and searched everywhere or them, but could not find them. Though we found them after the night was over in the car, she doesnt know how they didnt see them the first time. Yet, during that time when she was nervous, Luke was able to really encourage her that it would be ok and she was given a peace. She also did a great job with her talk and covered all the points on her notes by memory! She thought she probally forgot something, but was amazed that she had covered it all! Josh had been feeling God press this upon his heart and had only 3 hours of sleep the night before. He also had felt the enemy attacking him this past week.
Joe who was going to play the guitar couldnt play as his guitar broke a hour before the dinner. So Janell and Rachel had to practice before hand on the piano. Josh in praying what to talk about on the mind, felt it confirmed again when I put down the renewal of the mind and that was what God had given him for a title of his talk. Then a lady at the dinner was shocked when Josh talked on the 3 lusts of the eye and the verses God laid on his heart for his talk, were some of the ones along with a study of the lusts of the eye that she had just felt God leading her to start studying too.
Then at the end of the night, Rachel was protected from what could have been an assult or a car jacking with her in the car. She was waiting in the car in the passenger side by the front of the hotel downtown and a shady man walked up to the car and started looking at her, he looked like he was not all there and was in a haze. He came up to the window and was looking at her and then looked down at the keys in the car with the car running. She was tense and her heart was beating frantically, but she froze and couldnt move. She wisphered out Jesus help, and the man walked away slowly to the back of the car, but then he came back again and he started to reach his hand in the car, and then froze as she whispered praying for Jesus to help and he then pulled his hand back out and walked to the back of the car at which point then he came back again (she was still frozen and couldnt move) and she whispered Jesus again as the man put his hand on the door knob (the doors were not locked and the window down) and then he let go and walked to the back of the car again. Finally she felt the Holy Spirit tell her grab the keys and get out and go to the front door, so she did and then my brother and friends came out the front door. She was very relieved to see them!
God started going deep into the hearts of those there and renewing minds, and a lot of ministry took place in peoples lives as so many came up to give us all feedback. I also had no sound system until just hours before the dinner, and was about to buy a dinky little karaoke machine at Radio Shack when my friend Jasen called and he had found a sound system. So I went and got it and got it all hooked up just minutes after people started arriving.
I managed to figure out how to record the night, and am working on the CD for it now so we also captured all the night on CD! (Since then I have put these on a podcast and they soon will be available online).
We came in just $30 over budget for the night too! I was thinking it was going to be more than that. And we also at one point were 30-40 minutes behind schedule, but God took control and we got it all in at just 10 minutes over time!
One person came up and said God has moved their heart to donate their entire next pay check for their new job and a few others that they were going to make a donation shortly. It was a very encouraging night.
I was able to also get a 8 minute message/testimony from Max on tape from him in Russia, so everyone got to hear from Max there too!
I had so many people come up and say the night went so perfectly and was just amazing and all I can say is that God showed up and as we came to celebrate a night of God's faithfulness...He loved coming to show Himself very faithful in weaving it all together despite the many things that went wrong in planning it. In fact if all had gone perfectly as I planned it, it would still not be as amazing as it ended up being as God did so much!
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