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.
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