02-01-10

UNREST IN AMERICA

Dear brothers and sisters, God bless you. The new year has dawned and we find ourselves and our country in quite a pickle. The economy of the United States of America continues its headlong downward fall with (truthfully) no foreseeable end in sight, while the relentless wholesale destruction of our net worth, both personal and corporate, is being orchestrated by an agenda of socialistic ideals promulgated by our duly elected governing officials who are exercising the full power of the United States Government over the people, and whose single most notable characteristic is that suddenly, they have not ears to hear – they have become strangely deaf to the voice of the American people. Whatever happened to democracy by and for the people? How about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Alas my dear friends, the past is gone forever. One can never return to “the good ole days;” they are but fond and wistful memories of the dead.

As for myself, being a born-again Christian, I am therefore not an advocate of violent rebellion to an oppressive regime; however, I will rigorously defend my family, and my people from any ungodly circumstance or attack. I believe, in lieu of our Lord’s Second Coming and soon return (please pray for His soon return – our escape clause), that inevitably we shall each obediently adjust our respective life-styles in accordance to the dictates of the governing class (politicians). The good citizens of many other countries have done exactly the same, being strongly compelled, with varying degrees of force and types of pressures (tribulations), to give up their hard won freedoms, little by little, in exchange for food, water, and basic shelter, and we shall do the same for we are rapidly becoming a “poor” people. Learn to live with it, for the wonderful promise is that we are strangers in a strange land, dwelling temporarily on this planet earth. Our focus is not ordained to be on the contrary winds of this world, but upon our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How then shall we live? Joyfully. Yes joyfully, for you are saved and born-again, and in the midst of even a raging storm, we shall live happily and peacefully by obeying Jesus Christ who is the Word of God (John 1:14), because we know where we are going when we finally come out of these decaying bodies.

            And the Word [of God] was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

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THE HAITIAN RELIEF PROGRAM

In the mean time, may we note regarding the horrible situation in Haiti that the United Nations now claims over 1,000,000 (one million) Haitian men, women, and little children are utterly destitute, hungry, thirsty, and homeless out of a total population of 9,000,000. That is over one person out of every ten persons in the entire population or 11%. Because of the total devastation of the Haitian infrastructure, the American government is starting to import homeless Haitians into the United States, initially to southern Florida around Miami which is geographically closest, and where Spanish speaking is prevalent. It would appear, however, that in fairly short order southern Florida will become saturated and then the exodus will proceed rapidly northward toward the St. Petersburg/Tampa area, i.e., toward us.

In anticipation of that most likely happenstance, and doing what we do best, our Rescue Mission is prepared to immediately become an Emengency 24 hour Soup Kitchen with multilingual speaking volunteers now in place and more available for the duration of the Haitian Relief Program. To that end we need to immediately line up the names and phone numbers of willing volunteers. We need cooks, servers, nurses, Spanish speakers and French speakers, food, clothing, transport vehicles availability, money, and anything else you can think of. Should you be interested in volunteering during this very real crisis, please call our Rescue Mission at 727-545-8282.

In addition to the food service, our Day Center will also be open 24 hours a day to help these unfortunate people. The following is a list of some of our social services freely available to the public: clean clothing, hot showers, hot meals, food boxes, used toys for the children, telephone access, mailing address for employment and inter-family communication, Christian counseling, SHARE food program, crisis intervention, GED applications, on-line food stamp applications, community voice mail boxes, Social Security information, Medicaid, non-prescription reading glasses, legal assistance and advice from attorneys from the Public Defender’s Office, Internet job searches, job counseling and placement, PSTA bus passes, and temporary cash assistance.  

This newsletter was penned quite quickly due to the impending Haitian crisis that is about to impact us in St. Petersburg. We need your help, now more than ever. WHATEVER you are led by God to do will be greatly appreciated, and blessed by God. Thank you my dear brothers and sisters. God bless you.

Sincerely,

Rev. Lionel                                                        J

Ps. we will need Spanish Bibles also, and we also need a MUCH MUCH LARGER BUILDING. Have an appointment tomorrow (on faith because we have no money) to look at a 73,000 square foot building complex priced at $2,300,000 that should house upwards of 300 homeless men, women, and little children as emergency shelter and feed hundreds more. Please pray for us.