Oakland

Having enjoyed the use of the rental car for five days, the time had come to drop it off at Oakland Airport.
 
By now we had accumulated camping gear on top of the stuff we had brought from New Zealand.  Catching the airport bus to the suburban rail and then making two changes to be on the right line to get to where Phylis was going to meet us, was our first experience of handling all of the gear on public transport.
 
On the last train a lady called Larisa noticed all of the gear that we were carrying around.  And asked what it was for. So Michael told her about the mission work we are doing.
 
Larisa turned out to be a Christian, and so a great, but brief time was spent sharing on the grace of God in all of our lives. Larisa still keeps in touch by email.
 

 Paul with PhylissSweeping a large station waggon into the railway station pickup area, Phylis arrived to pick us up.

"Just as well I brought this vehicle", she saidSan Francisco 4th of July Look for sky rocket looking at all of the gear. Now in her late seventies she was happy for Michael to drive us through the motorways to a house of a preacher who was away on holiday. He was happy for us to house sit, and feed the dogs, for as long as we would stay in San Francisco or until he and his family came back.

San Francisco

San Francisco is very similar in some respects to the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. Hilly, on the coast, prone to earthquakes, with cold wintry winds and mists, and not as a strong a Christian presence as is needed. Although it was summer everywhere else in the USA, San Francisco can actually be colder at that time of year than perhaps even in winter.

The Mohave desert gets hotter and hotter, and the hot air rising sucks in cold air from the northern Pacific Ocean. This brings cool moist air in over San Francisco - and makes it very cold at times!

Phylis may have been expecting to stay with us in town, but she needed to return to see to the needs of her husband who said he was not feeling well.
 
 Street was a virtual mountainsideSo we found ourselves staying on  a virtual mountainside in suburban San Francisco.  The first night we were there, Elaine a friend of Phylis's had us all over to meet her landlady Marge who had an intercessory prayer meeting in her home. This group of people from all over the Body of Christ had been regularly meeting and praying for the needs of San Francisco for a great many years.
 

And the neighbourhood turned out to be a veritable harvest field for the Lord Jesus. We were amazed when we looked back to see how much the Lord did while we where in the area for the few days that we were there. The Lord opened up a number of witnessing and follow-up openings.

The Kingdom of God

One day the Lord spoke to Paul to be ready to answer political questions by talking about the kingdom of God.  Later on we went down the street to catch the street car that would take us into the centre of the main City. 

 San Francisco Street CarsThis was out first time into town that way, and we were not sure which side of the road to wait for the car on.  Waiting at one of the stops were a young couple who turned out to be married.  Paul approached and asked the husband which side of the road we should be on to go into the centre of San Francisco.  Paublo answered that we needed to be on the other side of the road.  A few minutes later they followed us over and producing a camera and sound recording equipment, wanted to interview Paul on issues of American approaches to things - especially as we were right on the Independence day celebration.

Paul shared about the work of Jesus in dying on the cross for us, how God raised Him form the dead and how the Lord Jesus was going to return glorified and bodily to rule the Earth. That present political and social issue paled in comparison for each ones need to be put right with God through the Lord Jesus Christ sacrifice of His blood and body in Jerusalem district nearly two thousand years ago.  

When Paul put the gospel in a non-institutional church scenario and distanced what he was saying from the kinds of churches that people were surrounded by in the USA,  the young man doing the interview was stunned.  He motioned to his wife to stop the camera and sound recording.  And said that he had never heard of all of that, and had to rethink his approach for the interview.  He made it plain that indeed he was very put off from knowing God by what was happening in the American church scene.

After some time in thought he looked up and motioned to his wife to restart the camera.  He then asked Paul questions on Who Jesus is, and what He has done and what He will next do, and how the church should be.

By God's grace Paul started explaining the Kingdom of God. Again going back to how Jesus had come the first time, and what He achieved by giving His blood and body on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, a sacrifice to take away God the Father's anger and coming punishment to us each as repentant sinners.

Full moonStanding on the "sidewalk" (footpath) the interview went on for just under an hour.  Street car after street car went trundling past as the gospel of the Lord Jesus was shared into the camera lens!  What will come of the footage we do not know, but we were able to follow up and visit this young couple in their flat later that week.

The wife's parents had been missionaries to the USA and she had had faith as a child, but she had shared very little of this with her husband. It all came tumbling out when we offered a bible to her husband in their home, and she said I have one.  He was amazed as they were both very liberal socialists in their thinking and asked her where it was.  When she produced it he said he could hardly believe that he had never seen it before!

His questions were keen and on target to the heart of gospel matters, and the condition of the human heart.

As we continued on in America we became quite amazed as to how many genuine enquirers we met who were put off from looking deeper, by the widespread antics of the majority of the visible church in the USA.  Handling of money, political involvement and people control doctrines were nearly always at at the core of what these people are reacting against, even if they could not themselves put a label on it all.

Who is that man?

Towards the end of our stay in Orizaba Ave we sorted a lot of our gear and chose things that we believed we should send back to New Zealand. All that day Paul had a sense that we should be getting takeaways later that evening from the Chinese place at the bottom of the 'mountain side' that we were staying on. San Francisco FogThe day wore on and we finally had everything sorted out. After a prayer we felt strongly that the Lord wanted us to head down to pick up dinner straight away - as in "right now".

As we entered the takeaway/restaurant, a young lady, another customer, was on her cell phone. And from what she (we'll call her Janice) was loudly saying, it was obvious that she was being berated by a religious person at the other end.

"So you're telling me that if I don't come to your meetings that I am not saved?",
she said down the cell phone.  Then again,
"Are you saying that if I Janice do not come to your church I am going straight to hell?".

While this conversation went on the takeaway staff produced her order, and still talking into the cell phone Janice started to leave the restaurant.  The Lord really quickened Paul's heart and so he called out to her by name.  She stopped talking to the person at the other end and asked what Paul wanted.  He said that the Lord Jesus loved her and that she did not have to put up with what that other lady was saying—we could all hear that lady so clearly!  Then we heard her again, 

"Who is that man?  What is he saying?  Put him on the phone to me NOW!".

Whoa!

Janice handed Paul the phone, and he thought 'I really don't want to have to deal with this lady in front of Janice'.  The voice out of the phone demanded,

"Who are you and what church do you go to, whose your PASTOR?" .... and as she gathered in her breath to launch another onslaught, before Paul had to say anything, the battery on the cell phone went dead!

Paul handed Janice the phone and she said that it had been getting low before the conversation had started.

"How did you know my name—did God tell you?", she asked.  Paul replied that it was not the Lord, but that she had named herself in the middle of the phone conversation. 

We shared for a few minutes with her and then she said that she had to rush the food off to someone and left.  The Chinese restaurant staff came over and asked to take our order.

Then some three or so minutes later Janice appeared at the door of the restaurant.

God had told her, she said, to come back and have us pray for her and pay for our meal.

Friends we made in San FranciscoThe Lord spoke very clearly to Paul and he asked her if she would allow God to direct her to train as a nurse so that He could use her where ever He wanted to—even in missionary work?

Astounded she said,

"I just threw away the leaflette I was given for that the other day! I did not think that I could afford it".

And so she shared her testimony.  Janice was of Samoan descent (as is Michael),  born in San Francisco.  She had come to the Lord a few months before, and had been water baptised.  The phone call had been from a person in a well known pentecostal style church that was trying to "rope" her in.

Janice had been out of work, and had been really asking the Lord for work.  Then she was asked to look after some elderly people, one in particular.  But she did not have the qualifications to do it.  Then unexpectedly she was given an interview any way.  And the agency so liked her that she got the job!

The employer watched her for a few weeks while giving her on the job training, and had just made strong suggestions that she should actually train as a fully fledged nurse beyond the work that she was doing for them.  So Janice was amazed that the Lord had told Paul to talk to her about nursing.

She wanted to go to Christian gatherings, but her job meant that she had to be available to this old lady pretty much full time.  And she had Christians in her family background, so she was not lacking any fellowship.  She was just so grateful to be able to talk to other Christians who did not want to condemn her literally to hell for her current situation.  She was so sure that the job she had was an answer to fervent prayer and that it was a big part of God's leading in her life.  And the job meant that she could not go to the group that was hounding her. It turned out that no one form that group actually ever came to visit her, just ’spoke‘ to her on the phone.

So much so that she could  not go along with the insensitive and dictatorial pushiness of the group that had been on the phone to her when we came into the Chinese restaurant.

We prayed for Janice right there in the Restaurant, laying hands on her asking for God to give her the Holy Spirit to fill and empower her for life and service for Jesus.

Janice left saying that she was going to really pray and ask the Lord Jesus for strong guidance over nursing and His plans for her life, praise God.

Then a Chinese waitress came up to us to get our order and started sharing how only a week or so before the restaurant had been booked one evening for a banquet for a local Christian assembly, and how they had done exactly the same kind of thing laying hands on people as we had done for Janice.

We were able to start from there and share the gospel with staff members listening on, we also left some gospel literature with them as we left—praise God!

John and Heather

We had believed before we left New Zealand that the Lord Jesus was telling us that we would pick up some sort of handheld device for computing and accessing the internet while in the USA before going to Central America.  What we had not realised was that there were very few places in the USA where it was easy to find accessible Internet. There were sometimes no Internet cafes in the areas that we went into.

Multi Level Shops Westfields San FranciscoMost accommodation didn't even provide a computer terminal for you to do your Internet from, they mostly seem to expect that you either had a laptop or handheld with you and provided WiFi access often for free, as did a number of cafes.

The expense of getting even a handheld seemed prohibitive when we had researched it from New Zealand before leaving.  Then one day we believed the Lord encouraged us to go into town even with an expectation that He was telling us to get handhelds that day.  But it seemed we were not to make big efforts to find them, and to keep on track to God's general leading around the city for other witnessing and sharing purposes that He had.

So we ended up in the Westfields on Market Street.

A vast interconnected series of buildings - all retail.  And there on one of the floors (see picture) was a Palm shop - selling some of their handhelds.  The acting manager was very helpful beyond what we had observed of the very high retail standards (compared to NZ anyway), and arranged a deal for us that had actually closed already.  We went out of the shop to pray about it to be sure what the Lord Jesus was saying.

John and Heather FillmoreThe Holy Spirit made it very plain to us to go through with the purchase, and to get back very quickly to the store.  We completed the sale and then discovered that the man looking after us had faith as well.  After talking for a while we were ready to leave when a fellow New Zealander walked up to us and asked for help with his cell phone.  He said that he had picked our accent just as we were about to finish in the store.  His cell phone was not connecting to New Zealand as it was supposed to, and in fact he (and we) had not been able to get through to New Zealand from any phone for a couple of days.

We knew that it was a setup problem, and over about three quarters of an hour were able to get him connected.  John Fillmore was his name and along with his wife Heather he was undertaking a world trip. 

The Lord really helped overcome the obstacles that inhibited us from getting the cell phone connection working.  Michael had walked off during this as had Heather in another direction.  Just as we got it all going they both came back.  Michael indicated that he had been praying for Gods help to Paul to sort it out, as had Heather!  John and Heather were both Christians!

So we spent time over coffee sharing and talking about the Lord Jesus and His works in New Zealand.  They had been so keen to get the cell-phone going as they had desperately needed to ring their daughter in Auckland, as said none (independently) of us had been able to use even pay phones to ring New Zealand successfully over the last two days.

God had intervened and the news was good!Their daughter had given premature birth just before they left, and they had nearly cancelled the trip.  But intercessor friends of theirs and their daughter herself had all felt that the Lord had said that as bad as it was looking, the baby would actually live and be fine.

Still it had been very hard for them to leave New Zealand while in the natural way of thinking the baby's life was hanging in the balance.  Nonetheless the Lord had personally encouraged them that He was speaking to go, and trust everyone into His hands.

When John was finally able to talk to his daughter on the cell phone, they found out that the baby had quite miraculously pulled through and only had a minor infection, much as any new born baby might have—much praise and thanks to God!