06-01-08

COME AND SEE THE WORKS OF GOD

OUR 4^th OF JULY DINNER

Dear brothers and sisters, God bless you. Would you like to make someone you don’t know real happy on this upcoming 4^th of July Holiday, and yourself, your friends, and God the Father? Well, in this very unsettling time of escalating gas prices and worldwide food shortages we are serving a free holiday dinner with all the delicious trimmings to whomsoever is in need and will come, and we need your help to serve the meal. All smiley faced volunteers are cordially welcomed to attend the Suncoast Haven Of Rest Rescue Mission's annual 4th of July celebration sit down dinner to be served at 1:00pm on Friday the 4th of July. With your help, we shall serve as many poor men, women, and little children as we can out of the thousands of needy families and homeless persons living in Pinellas County who would otherwise experience a very depressing and hungry holiday with no food or place to eat. Volunteers of all ages (children welcome) should arrive around noon. Although it is not at all necessary, you may bring a precooked dish, a turkey, or a ham (but for sure bring your smiling face) to share. Our address is 5625 Park Blvd, Pinellas Park, FL 33781. Please call 727-545-8282 for any further information. Thank you. God bless you. J

PINELLAS HOPE OUTREACH

We are exceedingly pleased to announce that the comprehensive rehabilitation efforts of Pinellas Hope (tent city), since its inception in December of 2007, have successfully placed over 120 formerly homeless men and women into self-supporting full time jobs and residences. Although Pinellas Hope, located in the center of Pinellas County, was originally conceived as a temporary pilot program scheduled to end April 30^th of 2008, Pinellas Hope has received additional funds allowing a five month extension and will maintain its services to the poor until the end of September 2008. Our Rescue Mission supports Pinellas Hope by delivering bag lunches to its residents about 6:00am weekdays, and our staff and volunteers serve a sit down cooked meal every Saturday evening at 5:00pm. Additional volunteers are always welcome to help serve and/or provide the 5:00pm Saturday meal. Upon the conclusion of the Saturday meal, we assemble with the residents and preach an evangelical Bible message. And in addition to the food and preaching the Word of God, we support Pinellas Hope by freely providing its residents Bibles, crosses, Smiley Face tracts, reading glasses, and toothbrushes.

WAGON WHEEL OUTREACH

Every Saturday morning, myself and a few other fellow fishermen meet at the Old Fishin’ Hole located at booths HI-39&40 in the Wagon Wheel Flea Market in Pinellas Park. The Wagon Wheel has over 2,000 booths offering a large variety of items for sale, and about 10,000 people flow through those aisles every weekend. Of course we distribute everything for free, and usually begin by chumming the waters with 80 to 100 Bibles and about 400 to 500 Smiley Face tracts. And while doing that, we minister to those who choose to stop and talk (nibble a bit at the bait), and we joyfully land some truly wonderful fish. A grand time. Volunteer fishermen are always welcome, and we provide the bait.

OTHER CHURCH AND JAIL OUTREACHES

Please allow me to mention a number of interesting simultaneous occurrences on last Sunday morning. One member of our Board of Directors was happily involved pastoring the first church congregational meeting of a new church planting on Clearwater Beach at the Pier 60 Pavilion named “Church On The Beach,” and another Board of Directors member started a new church service at an ACLF Hospice directly after he and another Board member had preached an early morning church service in the Pinellas County Jail. And all this was happening while I was happily teaching our own Sunday church service at this Rescue Mission. Incidentally, and to somewhat show our collective interest in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, three of our eight Board of Directors, including myself, are volunteer Chaplains at the Pinellas County Jail, and all eight members are active in one or more facets of God’s ministry. J  The following is an alphabetical list of our most excellent Board of Directors: Myrl Allinder, George Bolden, Troy Bowman, Lionel Cabral, John de Vries, Daniel Huntington, John Jaycox, John Pask. Thank you gentlemen. Please pray for us that we may continue to gratefully and humbly serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ whenever and wherever He may lead. God bless you.

STUFF WE DO EVERY DAY

Last month our hard working Rescue Mission staff and volunteers freely distributed $84,324 in bulk, packaged, and cooked foods to impoverished men, women, and little children throughout Pinellas County. That amounts to about $21,000 dollars of food per week, or $3,000 of food per day that we gave away to the needy. Through our extensive computer links and telephone contacts, our Rescue Mission staff and volunteers conservatively assisted 100 persons per day in seeking employment, housing, medical help, legal advice, social security benefits, and counseling. Christian based AA/NA 12 Step Recovery meetings are held four evenings every week. 30 evangelical messages are preached, one a day, in the Rescue Mission by guest speakers who are pastors, evangelists, and lay born-again persons. Our in-house preaching/teaching and our outreach programs combine to bring into the Kingdom of God an average of 25 persons or almost 1 person per day to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Hallelujah!! And, as an afterthought, we cannot even begin to estimate the godly effects toward the Kingdom of receiving over 5,000 hits per day on our two websites: www.havenofrest.com and www.tabernacleofmoses.org. Praise God. Thank you Lord.

BUT WE DON’T HAVE MUCH (ANY) MONEY

Yup. We haven’t mentioned our critical need for operating money in a newsletter since last November, but we have finally run out of your Holiday gifts, for which we are most grateful, and are broke again. Our Rescue Mission seems to be experiencing a monthly shortage in donations of around $2,000 which your past gifts in November and December wonderfully alleviated until now. However, at this point in time, what little cash we have will offset the current bills and then we will have a big fat zero in our checking account, and lots and lots of problems keeping the Rescue Mission doors open with a minus $2,000 in the red ringing up and accumulating every month. Can you please help? Thank you. J  God bless you.

Sincerely,

Rev. Lionel

Ps. Please don’t forget that we need your help for our 4^th of July dinner too. Oh, I forgot to mention… you might be thinking that if our Rescue Mission is broke, why are we serving a 4^th of July holiday dinner and giving away even more food to poor people? Well…, pausing to reflect…, shouldn’t we all be doing that?

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see [Gk: understand] the kingdom of God. (John 3:3)