City Reach New York City?

Could City Reach New York City become a reality in 2016? We are not sure yet but we are praying about it and willing to explore the possibility!

It is no secret that we have prayed about and looked for open doors to take City Reach to the eastern seaboard of the USA and especially the New York City area. We spent four days there in the summer of 2014 walking around, driving around, talking with people and praying for God's direction.

We have never kicked in doors and by the grace of God we never will. When nothing opened up in New York we left it in God's hands where it belongs.

I mentioned City Reach when we were preaching in West Harrison the week of New Years and I mentioned our desire to eventually go to New York City area. Much to my surprise, a possible door for New York City opened for us in south eastern Indiana that night!

You might say that to get to NYC we had to go a round about route through South America. Bro. Hobert Bowling, former Pastor of the church, has been doing missionary work and providing teaching materials in Guyana, South America for many years.

Bro. Hobert Bowling and Davy

Pastor Wade Hicks has assisted Bro. Hobert in the Guyana effort and they have both made numerous trips to Guyana.

Pastor Wade Hicks and Davy

After church, Bro. Hobert mentioned he knew some folks in New York City. One of the Guyanese Pastors they had mentored and helped had moved to New York City and they have been helping him get a church started there. He said there was a large population of Guyanese in New York City.

I did some research on it and it seems that the borough of Queens in New York City has several tens of thousands of Guyanese immigrants. Many of them are Hindu but a small portion of them are Christian people. They are all English speaking since Guyana is an English speaking nation in South America.

Pastor Hicks told their Guyanese Pastor friend in Queens about us and about our vision of City Reach and in a few days it all came together. Pastor Ivan Hardyall has invited us to visit them and to share our burden with them as soon as possible. 

Kelly Jo and I will fly from Dallas to NYC on February 19th, meet with some Pastors on the 20th, preach for Pastor Hardyall on Sunday the 21st and then fly back the 22nd. It will be a whirlwind trip but it is a whirlwind full of possibilities!

Pastor Hardyall has not been in America for very long but he feels like he will be able to put us in touch with Pastors that could pull a City Reach campaign together. We will go with open minds and willing hearts and see what God may have in store for us. At the very least it is a new place for us to minister now and in the future. AND it may be an open door for our vision of City Reach to enter New York City this summer.

Will you help us pray about this exciting possibility? 

There are some specific things that come to mind that I would love for you to pray about.

-Pray that God would put us in the right place, speaking the right Word, to the right people that weekend in February.

-Pray that God would prepare hearts in Queens to receive us in the same spirit we are going. I want them to see my heart and know that I am ready and willing to assist them in the kingdom of God.

-Pray that God would direct us AND the preachers we will be working with if a City Reach campaign is meant to be in 2016. We desire to be guided by God's divine will.

-Pray that we will know God's will when we see it and know God's Word when we hear it, EVEN if His will and Word seem contrary to our desires. We do not want to be in Queens this summer without God's will, but we do not want to be some where else IF Queens is the place for us.

-Pray that God will bind every evil force that would hinder us from reaching people for Christ! There will be spiritual opposition and that force may take physically forms. That is a fact. However, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) II Corinthians 10:3,4

-Pray for our safety and the safety of Pastor Wade Hicks who will be traveling with us to NYC.

I would appreciate you praying about these things and passing this onto others that pray as well. May God bless you for it.

There are some specific things to praise God for as well.

-Praise God for an open door to minister in Queens, that was revealed to us in West Harrison, Indiana, about the last place I expected it. God's providence amazes us!

-Praise God that Bro. Bowling and Pastor Hicks have confidence in us to recommend us to Pastor Hardyall and his friends.

-Praise God that we are able to make this last minute trip because God had already directed us to keep our schedule flexible this winter and we have diligently prepared our finances (by God's grace and the kindness of God's people) for possibilities like this.

-Praise God for the faith to believe that all things are possible to him that believes!

I tell you friends, these are exciting times! Praise God!

Thanks for reading.

Davy

The 300,000 Mark

We are having wonderful services in Livingston, Texas this week. Tuesday night we had another great response in the altar and we are very thankful for it. Please continue to pray for revival.

We have been rolling down the highway lately and Saturday we crossed a big milestone for the BoggsMobile. Just before we stopped for the night, it turned over 300,000 miles! The bus is a 1995 Prevost XL and was built 21 years ago. The conversion was finished in early 1996 so it is titled as a 1996 Prevost XL Vantare.

The bus had 184,479 miles on it when we bought it and it took us nearly seven years to put 100,000 more miles on it. I wrote about that last March. I do not have the numbers in front of me but we drove a little more than average last year and it looks like we will this year as well.

In the grand scheme of things, 300,000 miles on this old thing is nothing. The engine should run near a million miles without major work and the bus should run on for years after that. These buses are designed to haul people for millions of miles. Hopefully we will all be in heaven long before that time.

Every time I crank the engine I pray something like this. "Lord please help this thing start, air up and run hundreds of thousands and even millions of miles.".It may not crank Saturday but I will still praise God for his help so far. In spite of all the fear, trauma and bus induced psychosis of owning this bus, it is one of the best purchases we have every made!

At the rate we are going I should be writing about turning over 400,000 miles sometime in 2022 or 2023. Save the date, I will be looking forward to it!

Davy

Travel, Revival and Paparazzi!

Travel

Monday was a full day and a blessed day. After a physically draining and emotionally challenging weekend we were looking forward to a good day and that is exactly what we had. We rested really well in the Walmart parking lot. We actually slept with the small fan on since it was in the 50's outside.

We awoke to warm temperatures but you could feel rain in the air. Sure enough the rain started right after we left Walmart but thankfully it was never heavy at all. We were only about 70-80 miles from Beech Creek Assembly in Livingston and it took us less than two hours to make the drive. We arrived dropped, the trailer in one parking lot, parked the bus in the other parking lot, hooked everything up and turned off the bus.

Then Kelly Jo prepared another great monster omelet for my breakfast/lunch before we even took time to settle in good. Wow! She makes a super omelet! It was every bit as good as it looks.

After brunch we carried in our sound system and set it up in the beautiful sanctuary. I had forgotten how beautiful the church is.

When we went back out to the bus, the sun was shining and it felt heavenly! It was an absolutely gorgeous day and I was glad to be a part of it! 

Saturday night, you may remember, we had problems with the generator and slept without heat. The temperature inside the bus Sunday morning was in the low 40's. Monday we were parked in the direct sun and the inside temperature was in the 80's. When I went inside the girls had one of the air conditioners on. What a contrast! Amazing!

Revival

Monday night of revival was tremendous! This is our second revival here and it seemed that Pastor Goodwin's folks needed no warm up time at all. They responded in the altar service and God met with us there! It was wonderful and I am looking forward to more of the same the next four nights!

Pastor Don Goodwin and Davy

Paparazzi

I posted part 3 of our year in review last week and made mention of a text message I received about the previous Rear View Mirror post.

Here is the text.

I am so glad you did the year in review!! As I was reading it I noticed some pictures I didn't recognize so at 4 am I was scouring older posts to find what I could have possibly missed. Sure enough... It was when we were in South Dakota for a  missions trip. I sure thought I caught up but guess I didn't. Thank you for that! Sure wouldn't want to miss out on anything!! Love you all!

That is all I said. I gave no names, no states, no nothing.

I had asked for permission to post the text but I did not ask for permission to post the name of the person that sent it, so I did not. I might as well post the name of the person now because the Paparazzi discovered who it was some how and they were lying in wait to capture her picture and sell it to the highest bidder.

Notice the Paparazzi disguised as a bush. Very, very clever.

I hope she was able to make it to town and back without too much trouble. I apologize to Sis. DeeAnna Martin for the Paparazzi's harassment. I guess it is just the reality of commenting on such a famous blog. Maybe the heat will cool down in a few days and they will move on to the next big story. 

Seriously though, Sis. Martin, her husband, Pastor Ryan Martin and their extended family and church really carry a burden for our family and ministry to God in prayer and I do not want to hinder that one bit!

Well, that was our Monday. Thanks for reading.

Davy