by Souper | Jan 27, 2017 | Summer Staff
“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matt. 9:38
Seems like God is answering this prayer here at Gleanings right before our eyes! As a team left for Haiti last week, another team returned from Greece. They were part of a larger YWAM group of 300 people over there to minister to refugees with food and the Gospel. On Thursday morning, one of them, Mark Ragains, shared some God stories with us. There was a story about a family who risked their lives to come to Greece on a rickety boat. This whole family accepted the Lord. There was a story about 150 people housed in a building with no food except a few apples, and our team was able to bring them Gleanings soup.
So, what did 300 missionaries do in three weeks? The Gospel was shared 2,027 times and 45 people prayed for salvation, and 138 healings were reported. Bibles in Farsi, Arabic, and Dari were given out. There were children’s programs, a medical team, and much more in mercy ministers and construction. One refugee remarked, “since you guys came, nothing but good has happened to us.”
Here at our soup plant at mid- week we already had 1,100 servings of soup done by Cross Connection Escondido and our other short and long term volunteers. We do this almost every week and it sometimes seems so ordinary. But, it’s not.
The rain had momentarily stopped and the sun was shining as I walked down the street. I saw a new arbor going up on one of our volunteer houses, and the boys were playing ball on the cul- de- sac again. I thought: “This is Gleanings.” In our typical day to day work, fellowship, and play, there is the miraculous: God doing His work in and through us.
by Souper | Jan 20, 2017 | Summer Staff
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May all who love this city prosper.” Psalm 122:6
What a privilege to serve Israel this week! In partnership with Israel Food Outreach, two containers of soup went out to a variety of ministries over there, including orphanages, recovering addicts, Syrian refugees, and holocaust survivors.
Along with the food, almost 1,000 quilts were packed with it. Each one of these quilts was fashioned by the loving hands of our volunteers here at Gleanings, (as well as volunteers who work on them for us at home). They will be distributed to holocaust survivors. These precious people are all now, in their 80s and 90s, and many of them are living at the poverty level.
We also welcomed two groups this week to the base, Great Exchange Covenant Church and Teaching Hearts at home, and with these groups came lots and lots of children! Some of them were part of a worship team this week. What a delight!
CHILDREN- What would the world be like without them? As I sat there engaged with their little faces, the scripture that came to me was “for such is the Kingdom of God”. Could it be that the delight we have in our spirits as we watch them, is a picture of God’s delight as He watches us?
One more special moment came Thursday morning as we prayed for our Haiti team about to depart for a ten-day ministry trip led by our directors Fritz and Cindy Meier. We pray that God’s love and power will go before them.
Thank you Lord for an amazing week!
by Souper | Jan 13, 2017 | Summer Staff
“You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance”. Ps.68:9
Boy, has He ever! In answer to our prayers, we have been abundantly blessed with precious rain on our thirsty land these last few weeks, making them some of the wettest on record.
Along with the natural outpouring of rain, we are praying for a spiritual outpouring on our Gleanings team in Greece right now, ministering to the refugee camps. Gleanings sent six staff to be part of a YWAM group of over 300 people to feed the hungry and share the Gospel with those forced to leave their countries in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, back at the base here at Gleanings, we have been blessed this week with a homeschool group, “Bakersfield Love to Serve”. These dynamic young people have prepared an amazing 1,439,343 servings of soup this week! Trucks have gone in and out, as we sent a container of food to Guatemala and received potatoes and beans from Convoy of Hope in Missouri. We packed their truck for the return trip with fruit and soup to help stock their ministry of feeding hungry children.
Then, Thursday night, as we resumed our Love Feasts, Bruce Eckhoff delivered God’s timely and appropriate word to us: “We are better together”.
And so it is. Thank you Lord.
by Souper | Jan 6, 2017 | Summer Staff
God, our hearts spill over with praise to You!
We overflow with thanks, for your name is the “Near One”.
All we want to talk about is your wonderful works!
Psalm 75:1 TPT
Happy New Year!
It truly is a happy one. There is so much joy. Joy of new beginnings, new goals, and joy in being reunited with old friends and meeting new ones. There is so much being packed in this first New Year’s week.
The week started late and new people arrived almost every day through the week. It was nice to not be overwhelmed in one day, but have the time to meet and catch up with each one without a rush.
Short in numbers, the soup plant has been working in record speed, almost finishing 2 container loads of soup to be shipped to Israel by the end of January. They deserve a shout out for their joyful energy and hard work.
Our wonderful cook Agnes is back and a lot of new other people wanting to serve in the kitchen. It’s a long-waited answer to our prayers. Praise God for His timing!
Ladies in the quilt room also have been sewing away and getting organized for new quilters to come.
As a special treat, we also had a wedding here this week. One of our backpacker girls from the Netherlands said ‘YES’ to a local guy and a good friend of Gleanings. An “International” wedding it was. What a privilege to host it.
WOW… feels like I said it all in one breath. But yes, this week has been packed with loads of God’s blessings. We are thankful to be part of it all and can’t wait for what’s coming next.
by Souper | Dec 9, 2016 | Summer Staff
Only 16 more sleeps!!
Is anyone else as excited for Christmas as we are?!
This week we had Trinity Evangelical Free Church from Redlands, California with us, as well as the Ayars family from Corona. A homeschooling group from Helm, California also joined us for the day on Tuesday. Everyone had a great time visiting and getting to know each other while working this week, and this morning, it was hard to say goodbye.
We also had Lisa and Anna Rivera here visiting us from Guatemala. Lisa and her husband Eric were on staff at Gleanings for many years, and recently moved to Guatemala to start a feeding ministry called Hope of the Nations. You can check out their facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/hopeofthenationsguatemala/ .
In other news, we will be shut down for Christmas starting on Friday, December 16th, until Tuesday, January 3rd, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for a little while.
Happy Friday!
by Mark Ragains | Dec 2, 2016 | Summer Staff
It’s December! We can now officially begin to wish each other a happy holiday season. So – happy holidays everyone!
This week at Gleanings, we began to pull out the Christmas decorations, and started to plan for our Christmas festivities here. It seems like there is so much to plan, to set up, to buy, to bake, to write, to send, to do. What a lot of planning it takes just to celebrate Jesus together!
Psalm 94:19 says: “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.”
We hope that you are all enjoying the build up to Christmas, and that you can keep your focus on God, family, and friends, rather than on the busyness of the season. We pray that your December is full of joy, cheer, and peace. After all, Jesus is the “reason for the season”, as they say, and He is the Prince of Peace! May you be productive and accomplish all you set out to do with glad hearts, and may your minds and souls be filled with the love and peace that only Jesus brings. Happy December!
We would also like to say a big thank you to the three groups who came to help us out this week: Newberry Springs Community Church, Bethany Church from Long Beach, and the Sacramento area homeschooling crew. Thank you all for your hard work!
