Tuesday, January 31, 2012

HMA vision for 2012...THE DISCIPLE HOUSE!!!



     I want to thank everyone for all that you have done to help us here at HMA.  We have come a long way and feel the need to go much farther.  Let me show you some of where we are and where we feel that we are headed.  These first few pictures are of our outreach service.  We have been having this service multiple times a week in some form or another for over four years.  These services are especially for the homless, drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, mental patients and ultra poor in our area.  We give rides, have church, feed meals and pass out clothing and other neccessities.
     The first picture is of a song service.  The second picture shows standing room only outside the back doors of our sanctuary.  The third picture is of people piled up in our altar during altar service.  The last picture is of people eating at tables and standing in line to get food after a service.
     Besides the services we also provide counselling, a jobs progam and a housing program.  In our jobs program we always had to do all the leg work but end up using outside resources for jobs.  We still out source some of the jobs but we are getting to where we actually provide some of the jobs program ourselves. 
     Two years ago some precious Brothers and Sisters helped us fund and organize a furniture thrift store owned and operated by HMA.  It is called "The Saving Place" and as of today, eight of the men in our jobs program work some amount of hours at The Saving Place or for HMA in general.  Here are some of the pictures of the HMA/Saving Place store and operation.









          This building that HMA is purchasing currently has our headquarters offices, counselling sessions, jobs program and furniture thrift store in it.  Also in the purchase of this building and it's property and out buildings, we aquired the old Sapulpa Hotel.  A set of run down rooms from the early 1900's.  Here are some pictures.



  
 We have intentions of fixing up the old Sapulpa Hotel by re-doing much of the original rooms and putting in a small apartment and some bathrooms and showers.  It has always been one of our origial goals to have the first independent, completely holiness ministry controlled, overnight stay facility in the United States.  We are finally within sight of that dream.  It will be called "The Disciple House".  We are going to try to raise as much of the funds as possible online in 2012.  Our goal is to reach 25,000.00 by October so that we can work on it and decide how far those funds will go toward completion of this project and then possibly raise whatever funding that would be left through the holiday season and put the finishing touches on it early next year.  This is by far the largest endeavor that HMA has ever taken on but I feel very strongly that, just like with the jobs program, we can take the short term housing part of our ministry "in house".  The first set of dorm rooms will be able to house eight men plus the monitors apartment.  If you feel lead, please give online by clicking on the donate button.  If you would like to do as other have and join us by having fundraisers, concerts, dinners or auctions in your area, please let us know by contacting us through our information on the website. 
      Every time that God has blessed us to step up and incorporate more of the everyday lives of the lost and dying souls of inner city Tulsa and beyond it has caused us to reach and win more to Christ than ever before.  This will be no different.  Won't you be apart.  Give to and pray for Holiness Missions to America, Jacob's Ladder, The Saving Place and The Disciple House.  God bless. 
your humble servant,

Thursday, January 19, 2012

THE "TWO" PILLARS OF PURE RELIGION (PASTOR DAVID LAMB)



Jas 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

What does pure religion consist of? Outreach? Purity? BOTH!

Monday, January 9, 2012

HMA Altar Calls...Don't miss reading this.



 






 




      I just felt like sharing with each of you a few photos of some of the altar calls over the years at HMA and our affiliates around Tulsa.  The first picture was taken at a church that approached us and the Pastor told us that he "felt lead of the Lord" to allow us to use thier facilities.  We were truly blessed to get to do so.  It came at a perfect time in our ministries.  We had a slightly rougher crowd then and the picture shows mostly homeless people, drug addicts, alcoholics and mental patients that had come for food, clothing and spiritual help.  Most of the people that I recognize in the picture are doing much better today and are still being helped by HMA.
     The second picture is hard for me to tell if it is an HMA or a Bethany Outreach service.  It is several of the staff and a bunch of the homeless or ex-homeless that are gathered around and they look to be either praying for me or possibly for a prayer cloth.
     The third picture is a picture of pure brokeness.  This is Debbie.  A dear sweet friend of HMA.  She is one of the worst alcoholics that I have ever seen in my life.  She fights and struggles and tries and as far as I know, since we met her about four years ago, she has never given up and quit trying to get saved and get clean, but she has never prayed all the way through and never been sober for very many hours at a time.  We love Debbie and we pray for her everyday. She has an apartment now, she has food, clothing, rides to church and everything else that she needs; she even "seems" to have a true desire to be clean and live right.  Debbie has probably missed fewer services in the last year than I have.  Yet she struggles.  God is merciful and God is always right.  We don't know the heart, he does.  Pray for Debbie.
     The next picture is Pastor Leon Rich praying with Pete on the altar of the old HMA building.  Pete is another faithful one that has made it through and has an apartment now and the necessities.  I don't know that Pete has ever fully given his heart to the Lord yet, but I know that he is leaning that way.  He battles with tobacco and things but he is no where near the mean, hurting man that he was when I met him a couple years ago.  Pray that Pete gets complete deliverance.
     The lady in the wheel chair is a special woman.  She grew up in our area and made some really bad decisions as a young person that propelled her into far more sin than she ever imagined.  It cost her her family, her dignity, it even cost her her legs.  To be honest I really didn't think she would make it.  But she showed more grit than I gave her credit for.  She kept getting on the bus and going down to the altar and getting special prayer and God came through for her in miraculous ways.  She was touched and blessed spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.  She even got a brand new set of legs.  She went from completely broken, addicted and homeless to living a normal life completely outside of "the system".  Thank God!
     Next is myself and some sisters from the home church that are praying with a young lady and her two small children.  I believe this was during either the Christmas for the homelss or Thanksgiving for the homeless service of 2010.  This girl was on drugs real bad when I met her and she had a brand new baby that wasn't eating well and I was afraid was going to die.  Her and I argued and fought over if the baby was getting enough to eat or not and if she would have to lose her baby to the state and if she was going to get off of drugs.  Months and months of patience and persistence paid off.  The night of the picture she had just been saved I think a few days earlier and she brought her children forth to be prayed for.  She lives in a house now with family, she has a job and is striving to get more education and yes, she got to keep and raise the babies and they are fine!!!  Agian, praise be to Jesus!
     Third to the last is my assistants wife hugging a young lady named Wendy.  Wendy lived and was treated like an animal.  It was obvious that she had been a very lovely young lady and one point.  The streets have been very bad to her.  She was addicted to drugs and she had brain damage from a horrible head injury that was the result of a fight.  She always ran with the wrong crowd and did all the wrong things.  People manipulated her physically and mentally all the time.  It took us a couple years to gain enough of her trust to really be able to try to help her.  We made some great progress but I am sorry to say that we lost her.  Nobody that I know of knows where she is today.  We got her off of the streets, got her some good financial and medical care and then we lost her.  The main person that she ran around with that manipulated her most was arrested just the other day and is in jail now, but nobody can find Wendy.  Please pray that someone that will have compassion and the love of God will find her and help her.
     The second to the last picture has several people kneeling at our old tear stained altar.  One homeless girl, the affore mentioned alcoholic lady and two young gang members.  In the back ground is a bald man in a striped shirt.  His name was Bill Mathews.  He was one of the meanest, fightingest, drug dealingest men in the history of Tulsa, OK.  He got genuinely saved and turned his life around and became one of the greatest men and church members that I have ever seen and then the Lord took him home at the end of a very short battle with cancer.  I was never so priveledged as I was the day that they had me preach his funeral.  The house was full of ex-drug dealers that he had won to the Lord with his testimony and current drug dealers that were still in awe of who he had become but had yet to find a way to follow him.
     The last pictures is of a much more recent service.  It shows some of our staff, (Bro. Art Hartman, Sis. Alicia Hamil) and others standing while several that are trying to follow through with our homeless and or addiction program are kneeling in prayer.
     So much goes on at these services and through these programs but I thought that I would just take out some excerpts of the most important part of all.  PRAYER! 
     Please, please, please pray for these and soooooo many others and pray for those that get up everyday and go about the difficult task of making sure that they get a chance.  If it crosses your heart, feel free to send an online donation to help these works right here on this blog or u can send check or money order to:  HMA PO BOX 12 SAPULPA, OK 74067.  All donations are tax deductible.  God bless. 
    

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

More HMA Archives! Enjoy!

      Here is a picture of some of my friends and clients. The lady was homeless with her husband and three children. They came to HMA on one of our vans and or buses and recieved spiritual, physical, mental and finacial help for a couple of years. They actually have a house now, her husband is a manager at a restaurant and her children are back in school.  It was very difficult and complicated work but thank God they were allowed to all stay together until it all got worked out.  Our staff members are still in contact with them on an almost weekly basis.  They attend a fellowship church.
      The second person on the left was a biker gang member and a drug user and seller. I saw a greater change in his life at one time than most but he is now struggling probably as bad as he ever was.
     The young man in the far right was living on the streets and one of the worst drug addicts that I've ever seen.  He was raised in church and knew a lot about serving God but just couldn't get free enough to do it.  We watched over several months as God performed mighty works in his life.  He got housing, a job, deliverance and so much more.  To this day I don't really know where he is or what he is doing.  The last I heard he went back home to reconcile things with his family. 
     The man that is standing second from the rigth is Brother Bruce.  The reason I show you this picture is to tell you his story.  Bruce was your average citizen living in Tulsa, OK, owned a home and trimmed trees for a living.  One day after work he was walking home and he was jumped, beaten and mugged.  He ended up in a coma for several months because of the beating that he took.  When he woke up he had lost his memory for awhile.  The pain that he was in was excruciating.  They put him on pain pills and he eventually got hooked on them.  He couldn't do the type of work that he was used to doing anymore and he was always in pain.  To make a long story short, his addiction to the pain pills and his outrageous medical bills finally sunk him.  He lost his house, his vehicle, his possessions...everything.  Bruce was living in a shelter and popping pills when we met him.  We offered him a ride to church, a hot meal and some clean clothes.  Bruce came and found hope again.  He began to try to put his life back together one piece at a time while spending a lot of time with his new HMA friends.  Bruce was delivered of drugs in a prayer service, he gave his heart to God and worked his way up into several different programs offered by the state.  We helped him get a job at Goodwill Industries.  One day Bruce called me up and said "Pastor, can you meet me at the such and such hotel ball room at 11:00?"  I went.  That was the day that Brother Bruce got Goodwill Industries of America's employee of the year award.  That is the second picture.  I don't know of a time that I was ever more full of pride for my master, the Lord Jesus Christ, than right then.  God had done it again.  Won't you help us help others.  It truly is the Lord's work.  Pray for us, pray for these four souls and pray for the many, many others that we are working with.  God bless you.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

GOOD NEWS!!!

      Here are pictures of myself and my wife, coming out of "The Garden Tomb".  This is the place that archeologists, historians and Christian scholars agree that Christ Jesus was buried after his death on the cross.  This tomb is in a garden, owned and operated by a Christian foundation, just a few hundred yards from Golgaotha's presumed site.  It is in the middle of the modern city of Jerusalem just outside the old city wall.  My wife and daughter and I were taken to this historic and religious site as well as a couple dozen others by some dear friends of our ministry last year.
     I show these pictures to tell a story.  We waited in a fairly long line to get a chance to go into the tomb and see the place where my Savior once lay.  It was pretty hot outside and the entire hustle and bustle of it all was a bit uncomfortable at times.  (Not for me, I was loving it)  While in line waiting our turn, when I was just about to get to go in, an elderly couple, probably in thier 80's I would guess, had just left the tomb and were walking away.  They seemed to be in a bit of an arguement and not very happy.  Me being so excited about going in and them just coming out seemingly upset, this interested me so I tried to hear what they were saying.  All I caught was him telling her, "I don't know why we waited all that time in line, there was nothing in there...the place was empty!"..........I became even more excited....The exact reason that he was upset for waiting to go in, is the exact reason that I was so happy to fly half way around the world to wait to get to go in.  It's not just a story.  It's real.  I was there.  HE  IS RISEN!!!


Monday, January 2, 2012

HMA Archives!

     I came across this picture today while looking for something else.  This is a picture of Rev. Earl Wayne Krumsiek (left), pastor of HMA Tulsa's homeless outreach and Rev. Jeff Armbrister (right), Pastor of Bethany Outreach in Sand Springs, OK.  The two ministers put together a special Thanksgiving service and meal for the homeless and ultra poor in the greater Tulsa area and had a great service and an outstanding meal.  As I recall there were a couple humdred that were ministered to and fed.  But we recieved an extra special treat that night.  The man in the middle is a man that had lost his job, home and family to addictions and some of the staff at HMA and Bethany had recently befriended him.  We got him clothes, a job, short term housing and continued to try to lead him and teach him away from his addictions and into the saving grace of Christ.  He came to the altar and sought his maker that night.  When he got up he responded to his prayer time by handing over the thing that is displayed in his hand in this picture.  It is a razor blade.  A long time ago a "friend" of his gave it to him and told him to always keep it in his wallet.  If things ever got too bad he could always end it himself.  When he handed it in that night he simply said, "I can't ever imagine needing this now."  Glory to God!
HMA Archives!