“Give Me Souls For My Hire…”

  

  About a week ago, we posted a Wordless Wednesday about being with the Mallys…and we had every intention of posting about it the next day, but life happened.  We didn’t even do our weekly "Seven Sister’s Treasures" .  

   To start with, Cassia was over at Grace Mally’s blog, and saw that Mark Cahill was going to speak in their area.  So Cassia googled it and found out that it was "only" 6 hours away   She told Mommy and Daddy about it, and told us later that she had decided not to say anything after that and just pray about it 🙂

 

       It is really interesting how ever since February, when we heard a couple of girls at church share about missions,  our everyday reading, and the hymns we sang for school kept pointing towards witnessing.  Then one Sunday our pastor preached about witnessing!   Cassia especially has had a heart towards witnessing, so that is the reason the fact that Mark Cahill (who speaks on witnessing) was in Iowa caught her attention 🙂 

  At first I was skeptical that Mommy and Daddy would even consider such a hairbrained plan to go out to Iowa just for one night!  But they talked about it, and felt that we should go 🙂

   Everything worked out for someone to watch the younger ones, and Anna stayed home with Daddy to take care of all our animals : )  So Mommy, Leah, Susannah, Cassia, and I started out at about 10:30 Monday morning for Iowa.

 

Crossing the Illinois line.

 

Cassia took this picture…I think she is pointing out where we were at that point in time 🙂

 

     A ladybug, who we named "Flight 80" on the map where we were at the time…we think!  "Flight 80" was quite annoying, and we kept trying to lose him by sending him out the window, but either he, or his relatives kept joining us.

          

    Somewhere along the way, we stopped at a McDonald’s for a break…we were the only ones in the restroom, and feeling silly, we started to sing the "Blue Cheese" song.  All the sudden, a lady came in, and we gradually faded out 😀  Mommy was teasing us, asking us why we stopped 😀 

 

      We stopped at several rest stops, and at one of them Cassia spotted a coffee vending machine 🙂  Being the hicks from the sticks that we aren’t   Cassia was very excited to try this out.  She LOVES coffee in case you didn’t know that already.

 

 

 

The Iowa state line 🙂  Can you tell that we like state lines? 

 

Coming up on Cedar Rapids, Iowa…we’re almost there!

 

This building almost looked like it was built out on the river…it looked very neat : )

 

We arrived at about 3:30, and were really hoping that we had the right house (we were staying in the Mally’s guest house).  We pulled into the driveway and saw this sign on the door 🙂

 

We were all quite tired, so we rested, read, and Cassia took some funny pictures 🙂

 

 

 

      After a while, we decided we’d better eat 🙂 The Mallys were SO nice, and had a crock pot of some yummy chili, and some homemade bread waiting for us!

 

 

   After our yummy supper, we headed over to the church where Mark Cahill was speaking.  When we walked into the church and I saw Grace, and then Sarah, and I was so excited! 

 Something else that I had thought, was that Mr. Cahill was short…I’m not sure how I got that idea…we saw a short 10 minute video on YouTube of him, and that was it.  Anyways, when we got there, he was not short!  Even Susannah, who is 6′ 1" had to look up!  He is 6′ 6"

  The Mallys must have told him how far we had driven, because he came over and was teasing us saying, "You didn’t really drive 6 hours just for this meeting tonight, did you?!  You were really on a 12 hour trip and your car broke down here, right?!"   Then he was asking how all of us ‘tall young ladies’ fit into our van for that long of a trip…which was funny because he was a lot taller than us 😀   He said that his siblings were all pretty tall, too, and when they were growing up, they didn’t have these nice mini-vans (like what we came in) they had to cram into a car 🙂   After talking a little bit with him, and with the Mallys, we noticed that the room was filling up FAST, and we were just barely able to get 5 seats that were right beside each other…only it was in the front row!  We did not get any pictures of the meeting, but the Mallys did, and you can see some of them by going to Grace’s blog. 

  The talk he gave was amazing!  He encouraged us with story after story of the people he’s encountered in witnessing, and really gave us some really good ideas of how to go out and witness.  I went from feeling like I just couldn’t do it because I didn’t know what to say or do, to being excited to start!  We highly recommend going to his website, www.MarkCahill.org and watching his videos 🙂  He truly practices what he preaches and is witnessing to someone pretty much every single day…he says that his hobby is witnessing   It was encouraging to hear that even with as long as he has been witnessing, he still gets "stuck" sometimes in not knowing what to say…and he still has to talk himself into witnessing to that first person of the day 🙂  Not that I am glad he has a hard time, too, but it was just encouraging to know that he was like us, and he is still witnessing despite how challenging it can be sometimes.

       Usually when we are listening to a speaker, by the end I am getting tired of sitting and am kind of glad when it ends.  But this time, even though we’d been sitting for 6 hours, we were so encouraged and inspired we didn’t want him to stop, and he talked for somewhere around 2 hours! 

 We bought several copies of both of his books, "One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven" and "One Heartbeat Away"…and we highly recommend both of those books, too!  The first one is geared toward Christians (the one thing you can’t do in heaven is witness), and the second one is for unbelievers, but is still great for Christians because it gives you a lot of good material as far as knowing how to witness to different types of people.  We have greatly enjoyed reading them both!

 When he ended, he prayed that everyone in the room would have a "Divine appointment" within the next 24 hours, and I was thinking "No!  Don’t pray that!"  I was very excited to start witnessing, but hadn’t done much of it and wanted to think about it for a while!  I was still to scared to start!  But when you really think of it, what is the worst thing people are going to do to you?  Say "no thank you"?  Think you’re a little weird? At the very worst they could yell at you, but I don’t hear of that happening very much.  Even less have I heard of being pelted with rotten vegetables!  At least here in America 🙂  And really, the very worst thing they could do to you is kill you…then you’re in heaven in perfect communion with Jesus forever!  What’s so bad about that?!  And most people are searching for truth, and God is sending you to them for a reason.

  Mark Cahill showed us something that was very helpful.  The three things that could happen when you witness are:

They accept it, which is good of course, and would be like "winning"

You plant a seed, which is good, and also "winning"

They reject it, which may seem bad, but Jesus says that our reward in Heaven is great when men reject us, so we are STILL winning 🙂  The only time we lose is when we don’t share the good news with others.

     That night we got back to the guest house where we were staying at about 11:00  or so, and then we stayed up until 1:00, talking about all we had heard and learned : )  It was so neat to see what God was doing in our lives! 

       A few weeks ago I was asking God what my purpose in life was supposed to be…He answered through a message that I had heard that it was to love God with my whole heart, and to receive His love for me.  Then when we heard Mark Cahill speak, God was showing me that this was His purpose for me.  After all, if you love God, and He loves others and does not want anyone to perish, shouldn’t I tell as many people about the good news that I know?!   It has been amazing to see that since He shifts your focus to sharing the gospel, your love for God begins to abound, your focus on life changes, the way you look at strangers changes, your outlook on life changes 🙂  You begin to see how really short a time we really do have on this world, and that now is the only time to tell others about Jesus Christ! And you realize that you CAN’T do it by yourself, and that He is more than willing to help you!

 

    The next morning, the Mallys had us over for a yummy breakfast of baked oatmeal (the best we’ve ever had!), some fruit and muffins 🙂   Again, we forgot to bring our camera 😛  It was a really neat time, though, to get to visit with them!  The guest house is right behind their house, so all we had to do was walk through the backyard 🙂  When I was taking some pictures, I saw these neat lanterns all lined up, and couldn’t resist taking a picture of them!

  

  They have the neatest little bookstore called "Noah’s Archives" that they took us to after breakfast.  Sarah Mally has started a girls’ discipleship program called "Bright Lights", and their office for that was also in the same building.  They took us on a tour of the whole building and we got to hear some of their stories of how God provided for them to have the building, and also provided for all the fixing up work that needed done.   I love their bookstore…it’s just too bad it isn’t closer to where we live

 

 

 

       Before we left, we got a picture of all of us girls together, which is the one we used a week ago for Wordless Wednesday 🙂

 

   We were sad to leave, but it was already in the afternoon, and we needed to get going, so we said goodbye (and got directions to Cold Stone!)

   We decided that we’d have ice cream at Cold Stone for our "lunch"…not very healthy, but we weren’t all that hungry, and we had brought enough snacks to last our family a 100 hour trip!  Okay, not quite, but we still had a lot! 

    We all got our ice cream, and while we were there eating it, and I gave the girl who waited on us Mark Cahill’s book, "One Heartbeat Away", and  then Cassia was able to witness to a girl a little bit, and gave her a book, too 🙂  While we were in there, Grace came by…she was getting some lunch for her and Sarah, and saw us in Cold Stone.  She asked us how it was going (with the witnessing), and told us that she had been praying that we’d be able to witness to someone while we were there!   

  After we finished our ice cream, we were getting back into the van, and Susannah noticed a convertible car parked beside us, with the top down, so she put a tract into it 🙂  As we were getting into the van, we noticed a man sitting towards the window at  a sub place, eating his sub and watching us.  We began laughing because we were wondering if that had been his car!  We don’t really know, but I’m sure he was wondering what on earth we were doing!

  Later on, Cassia gave some tracts to people at Culvers…I must say that her boldness was challenging and encouraging to me!  I mean really, how can I let my "little sister" be bolder than I am?! 

   On the way back, we hit a lot of rest stops, leaving a trail of tracts behind us!  Cassia handed a couple to some people directly, and we also left some setting on counters, or around the vending machines.  Mommy gave another copy of "One Heartbeat Away" to a lady who was cleaning the restrooms. 

  

Pretty soon we came to the Mississippi River, and decided to stop again.  We realized that we had stopped here several years ago on another trip 🙂 It was a very pretty place with a big gift shop and had a good view of the river.

 

 

  Pardon the dirty windshield!  If you use your imagination, you can pretend the streaks on the window is a sprinkler in the yard

 

It got dark and we had fun taking several of these kind of pictures! 

 

    The only problem is that sometimes we forgot to take off the flash!  I  can just imagine what the other cars on the interstate thought as all the sudden a bright light flashes out of this little mini van!!!  I don’t know if everyone’s cameras do this, but our flash is bright enough that sometimes I’ve been tricked into thinking that it is lightening when my sisters are outside with the camera!  This is one of the crazy pictures we got…of our own state line!  It turned out so funny with the windshield reflecting the book up on the dashboard

Indiana! Home sweet home! 

 

   At one of the toll booths we decided to do something that Mark Cahill had told us about…we paid for the person’s toll behind us, and gave the lady a book to give to them, and a book for her to keep 🙂

  We didn’t get home until 11:00 or so and were very tired, but it was definitely worth every bit of the trip!  We have had several opportunities to hand out tracts to different people and I am excited to see what happens as we continue witness!  

 

"Go ye unto all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."

~Mark 16:15

 

 

Let me live blessed Lord in the light of Thy Word, let my life be a light on a hill
Leading souls nil astray to the straight narrow way, help me do some good deed while I live
Let my life be a light shining out through the night, may I help struggling ones to the fold
Spreading cheer everywhere to the sad and alone, let my life be a light to some soul

Give me wisdom and power every day every hour, let me drink from the fountain above
Guide my footsteps aright through the dark stormy night,
Give me peace, give me joy, give me love
Let my life be a light shining out through the night, may I help struggling ones to the fold
Spreading cheer everywhere to the sad and alone, let my life be a light to some soul

Give me souls for my hire let my life be on fire, shining out to the world as a guide
Help me rescue someone seeking out with no hope, that in heaven we shall ever abide
Let my life be a light shining out through the night, may I help struggling ones to the fold
Spreading cheer everywhere to the sad and alone, let my life be a light to some soul.

J.R. Varner

  If you are reading this and are not 100% certain that you would go to heaven when you die, and you would like to find out more, try going to one of these websites.  I hope we will meet in heaven one day!

www.markcahill.org

www.juststopandthink.com

www.NeedGod.com

www.livingwaters.com  click on "Save Yourself Some Pain"

 

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