Progress, Testing, and Grief

First I'll start with the progress.

The first couple weeks in CA I mainly focused on writing my book and I made quite a bit of progress. However, Kent soon sat me own and explained to me the necessity of having a business plan to present to pastors and leaders whenever I share the vision of the organization. Thus, I put the book aside and began focusing solely on the business plan. After three long weeks we fininshed it. It felt like I was writing a thesis, but we thoroughly enjoyed it.
If you want to read the 27 page business plan just tell me and I'll send it to you.

Furthermore, I talked with the youth pastor of Harvest Rock Church, Pastor Gabe, about the vision and he loved it and said that they would definitely bless it and cover it in prayer. We also met with Pastor Steve in Jubilee Church and he gave us great advice. He gave us his full support, happily agreed to be a spiritual father for us, and was officially the first pastor to commit to register his church with our organization. Praise God! I am still trying to meet with the Senior Pastor of Harvest Rock, but his secretary told me that it is impossible to have a personal meeting with him. Pr. Che Ahn is constantly traveling the world preaching and is one of the most influential leaders in the church in America right now.

Moreover, I had a meeting with Pr. Carlos Quintero in order to register the organization as a 501c3. So we have been going through the first steps of registering it all.

The Testing we have been going through is believing God for a house. God spoke to us that He would provide for us and that He wanted me to focus 100% on GGM. I told God that we would do that, but if after one month He hasn't provided we would both get jobs and just get an apartment to live in. Well, we stayed with various different people for that one month and at the end of it we still didn't have our own place. But this is where a crazy story comes in to the picture.
God had spoken to Brooke way back in Atlanta that He was going to give us a house (not an apt. or condo) of our own free of mortgage payments. That really stretched my faith, but I just agreed with her faith and jumped in. So we have been faithfully praying for a house and keeping our eyes and ears open to God's direction for this house. Eventually, God gave me several words about Him establishing a house for us, etc. Then on the Tuesday of the fourth week we were in CA God awoke Brooke with a really wierd word: "Sotheby's". He kept repeating the word to Brooke all day long. It just wouldn't leave her head. We went out to preach the Gospel that day, so we thought that maybe it was a restaraunt that God wanted us to preach at. But we never found anything with the name Sotheby's. Then at the cell group that night Brooke asked one of the girls if she knew what Sotheby's was. The girl said that it was a real estate company around that area and that their was actually a house for sale under Sotheby's a couple streets down from the cell group, which was Pr. Che Ahn's house. This blew us away because we had fervently been praying for a house and never in our wildest dreams would we have ever thought that Sotheby's was a real estate company. We looked around the neighborhood for a while and then we found the house. It was three houses down from Pr. Che's house on the same street. What was crazy was that the spelling and even the font was exactly how God had shown it to Brooke. We knew and we still know that God is going to give us that house. The craziest part of this story is that this house is $1,300,000 and is five bedrooms. We had prayed earlier that if God gave us a small place then we wold know that it was just for the two of us, but if he gave us a big place then we would know that it was for us to start the organization in. It may take a year or two to actually get a full blown training center, so we would start it in our house.
We met with the realtor and told her our story and she was actually quite impressed. She said that this is actually the only house under Sotheby's in the entire area, which confirmed to us even more that this is really the house he wants for us. Also, Heather, whose parents own a real estate company, told us that Sotheby's is a real estate company that only sells huge estates.

So that's our story and we're sticking to it. We don't know when God is going to give us the house, we just know He will because He's the one who said. We didn't say it. We don't know if it will be in a month or in a year, but we know He will do the miracle. Until then, we'll work and get an apartment.

So we began looking for jobs and while we were looking one day we just ran out of places to stay. I just didn't have any more friends who could host us. So we cried out to God for help. The next day we had our meeting with Pr. Steve. He asked us about our financial situation, so we told him. Later on that day he checked his messages and Marilyn Noorda had called him hours before our meeting saying the following:

"Pr. Steve, I just had a great idea. Tell me what you think of it. I've been appointed to be the director for the The CALL Mobilization Team in Ventura County, but I'm really swamped with so many things to do. I think it would be a great idea if we hired Joshua and Brooke full time to be my assistant directors for The CALL Mobilization. We would pay them by giving them free room and board and some gas money. They'll only work for us until The Call and that way they'll have time to assess their lives, get a job, and a place, and they'll be a huge help to us at the same time. What do you think?"

Pr. Steve immediately called me and told me the news. We were stoked. We prayed about it the next few days and God confirmed it through His word that this was His will for us. So we went to Northern California for four days and last night we arrived at Marilyn and Glen Noorda's house. Today was our first official day of full time work for The Call. It is so exciting! We really got a lot done today.

The tragic thing that took place was that one of my really close friends went to be with Jesus. He was only 25 years old. He got married last year in October. One week later him and his wife went to Mexico to be full time missionaries and three weeks later he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He went back to CA and was in treatment for 10 months including chemo. A few weeks ago the doctors gave up on him because the cancer had spread to his bone marrow and lungs. Two weeks later he died. The entire time we, along with hundreds of other people, prayed for him and even fasted for his healing, but he wasn't healed. It really sucks, but at the same time it doesn't. After praying a lot about it and going to Cody's memorial I became at peace with his death and greatly matured concerning my view on death. This was the first time that someone close to me died. It's really hard for us and its hard for us to understand, but if you were to go to Heaven and ask Cody right now if he wanted to return he would definitely say "No". He's doing better then we could ever imagine. We are the one's that are left hurting and missing out, not him.

The memorial was awesome. Many people spoke about their memories with Cody. I spoke and sang a spontaneous song for Cody and Brooke sang one of her songs for him. Everyone was really touched by our songs. We met with his mom, dad, sisters, wife, and lots of his friends. It was amazing to see how many lives he had so deeply touched in just a few years. It was truly mind-blowing. At least 150 to 200 people were there and they had come from all over the place. And they only represented a fraction of Cody's friends, family, and the people he had touched. The memorial was one hour long at the church and then five hours long at Cody's house where we had a celebration of his life.

They ended up inviting us to stay in a cottage they had in the back of their property. It was so cute and there were praying mantises all over the place. We saw at least eight of them. They're so cool. Oh yeah and this entire time we were way out in the boonies in the mountains. It was so, so gorgeous. Brooke loved it too.

We went to their church on Sunday morning and drove down to San Francisco.

When we arrived in SF it just so happened that the Folsom Street Fair was taking place. This is the most depraved event in America and one of the worst in the world. It is a sado-masichist fair. We were just driving through downtown and Brooke saw three naked men and one naked woman just casually walking down the street. Fortunately, I only saw one naked man cause I was driving. It was horrible!

Anyways, I showed Brooke all the main spots of SF where Alex and I preached during our mission trip and then we went to Adam Hood's house. Adam is a great friend of mine that Alex and I met during our mission trip. Our hearts beat with the same rhythm and our minds think alike. It's crazy. So, we stayed with him on Sunday night. What was so, so crazy was that I felt the Lord telling me to look at my watch and when I did I realized that it was Sept. 28th. Sept. 28th exactly one year ago was the last day of my mission trip and the last day of my mission trip was in SF. Crazy! Immediately, I felt like God had sent us there with the purpose of sealing what he had began through us. WoW! And what's even crazier is that Adam has been wanting a house of prayer in the basement of his house for months now and Sept. 28th was the first official day of the House of Prayer and God had brought us there to inaguarate it with him. We also met his fiance Sarah Jean. She's awesome.

On Monday we drove back to Ventura County and witnessed some of the most breathtaking, glorious sites in the world as we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway.

And now I am typing here on a rocking chair on the porch of Marilyn's backhouse (It's a one bedroom, one bathroom, kitchenette, walk-in closet backhouse). Also, I am going to help Glen with the gardening. They have all the following fruit trees: fig, two orange, peach, pomegranate, plumb, passion fruit, etc. I can't wait to learn about gardening.