This past week I had the joy of traveling to Washington D.C. with 3 brothers in life who each serve in our ministry. It was wonderful to watch these 3 men who come from diverse backgrounds come together with me to advance the cause of the least at our capital. I was struck by the WWII memorial and a quote that said “we did not come to conquer but to liberate.” That resonated with my heart as soldiers came from across the country to advance the cause of justice and freedom around the world! When there is a war and you are called to fight you don’t have time to argue about non-essentials. You realize your lives depend on your trusting God and each other to advance the mission. 

Marvelously the 4 of us, were from different churches from Methodist to Pentecostal, different areas of the city, different ages (me being the oldest), different races, and different educational backgrounds but together in Christ with a common cause to bring liberation to those in the war zones in the heart of our city. To see a Pastor of a mega church in South Dallas, who possesses a fervor for doctors in our medical clinics, mentors men through our training, provides school supplies for kids and wholeheartedly supports the ministry take 2 days of his schedule to use his influence on Capitol Hill to help the least was humbling. I will forever be indebted to Pastor Bryan Carter and the amazing congregation of Concord Missionary Baptist Church.
It is equally a joy to see the owner of a large Machine Tool & Die company, who hosts our Machine Shop Skills training class in his company, has hired 5 of our graduates, and hosts a weekly Bible Study come with us to show his burden for the least and use his influence to help us get grants for employment training and the opportunity to exponentially invest in more lives. Chris Tedford is a true kingdom focused business man. He tells me all the time, that when I lead Bible Study I should just think of his company as my church. It is Chris who helped me realize that businesses are not just locations for economic development, educational and employment training sites, and places to make a living but could also be used as a place of worship on the weekends and help avoid the costs of a church building. I am humbled by this man of God.

Lastly but not least, Clifton Reese a man from the inner city who calls me Daddy. He is the essence of all that we are about. A man in the inner city, separated from his wife and children, and dealing drugs. Through the grace of God, Clifton got his GED, connected with a mentor – my son Michael, and went on and followed his Brother in Faith Roderick Yarbrough and graduated from our optical lab technician training. Clifton now works at the Eye Clinic, reconciled with his wife, and we are currently building a home for him with Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity in the very neighborhood where he used to sell drugs. Praise God that his testimony spoke volumes to the Faith-Based Office of the White House. Faith in Jesus truly does transform lives. 

These three men are a beautiful example that when we all keep our eyes on Jesus and our mission to transform souls and society for Christ we will realize that we are in a spiritual war that demands we die to self and separate ourselves from the things of the world. We must stand under the united banner of the cross to liberate, through the good news, those who are hurting and the least of the land. We praise God that we are now at 83 people of the BridgeBuilders 300. If interested in praying for our complete healing and giving $100 a month to support this work of God you can donate through our website at http://www.hisbridgebuilders.org or by contacting Mary Anderwald at 214-377-1551.

Medically we are 15 days away from our first CT scan to measure the effectiveness of our believing prayers and the Tarceva to shrink the two tumors. I am expectant of miracles! There are some new potential medical opportunities that I will inform you of in the next several weeks. We are the still collecting data but I will keep you posted. I am humbled by God’s goodness to entrust me with cancer to prayerfully bring glory to His name and advance the Gospel. You are gift from Heaven to me, my family, and my ministry.

These past months while confronted with this battle of lung cancer, the Lord has been revealing how He wants to enlarge my heart to love as He loves.  Luke 4:17-19 states “And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’”  I remember distinctly reading these verses years ago while in the Holy Land with my Pastor in the very place that Jesus spoke them.  The day that we were there, we were amazed to find an inner city choir from Chicago singing praises to God in this very place where God spoke His love for the least and the lost.  The Lord broke my heart that day for the poor.  I immediately identified with these dear people who were is such great need.  I knew that I had been blessed beyond measure and that I would dedicate my life to serving the poor from that time until now.  Because the journey of faith is a journey and not a destination, we are constantly either growing closer or further away from God.  Clearly all who believe are saved but there is the daily issue of growing to be more like Jesus.  Ultimately one mark of this growth is loving as Jesus loves.  For me, the poor have captured my heart.  I can also say that as this verse goes on, He speaks of healing for the blind or those who are ill.  There are few things that could be lower on my priorities in the past than to go to the hospital to visit the sick.  God has broken my hard heart of thinking that I would rather invest in the healthy for they could do more kingdom good.  God’s ways are certainly not our ways.  These days the Lord has broken my heart for the sick and hopeless.  My trip to M.D. Anderson, Baylor Hospital and other doctors has opened my heart to the great need of people all around us each and every day.  This past week, the Lord has led me to ask Him for the opportunity to pray for people specifically battling serious medical illnesses.  The Lord blessed me with three amazing prayer times this past week in this new area of ministry.  One was with a dear friend battling cancer who said the very day I called to pray was one of the darkest days he had experienced since the battle began, but he knew God had answered his prayers by having me call and pray for him.  Another member of my class was home alone battling fear and discouragement regarding his severe medical needs.  He said my calling was a direct answer to his prayers.  In each case, we prayed, believing in a God who is able to heal; for His glory.  The Lord enabled me on Saturday to pray with Maola, an 86 year old prayer warrior in the inner city who prays with Mary Anderwald for the transformation of her community. She says we are an answer to her prayers.  She has been praying for her 90 year old brother’s eyesight.  Each morning she wakes up and asks Bo if he can see.  She said, as we prayed for his healing, don’t pray if you aren’t expecting an answer.

  The Lord is blessing me to feel good and  have few side effects from my treatment.  He has enlarged my heart to begin a ministry of prayer for the sick and hurting.  If you know someone who is in need of prayer for healing, please contact me on this blog and I will count it my joy to pray, believing the same Jesus, who over 2,000 years ago said he came to bring sight to the blind. 

We thank you for praying for my healing and are prayerful that wherever you find yourself in your journey of faith, that you will ask God to enlarge your heart. We will be tested the middle of October to see the fruit of your believing prayers for the healing of our tumors.  We are humbled and blessed by your love and prayers.

Recently I was reminded of the scripture in James that speaks of the poor being rich in faith.  I marvel that so many examples of a richness in faith in the Bible are from the least.  The very poor Macedonian Church gave beyond their ability and begged for the opportunity to give.  The widow of the “widow’s mite” gave all that she had as an offering to the Lord.  It seems that God’s blessings of health, wealth, and position may actually become the barriers to us living by faith.  It is interesting that we are deeply committed to studying the Word, for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, but much less open to obeying the Word by faith.  A dear lady in the inner city reminded me of someone who is rich in faith.  Her income was basically nothing, was in a wheelchair, lived in the housing development, but would still host a Bible Study in her home.  She was so generous it made me uncomfortable how much she would give.  Each week she would use all her groceries to make a feast for all of us and then insist that I take the extra food home on her only set of dishes.  She would always say, “the Lord loves a cheerful giver and God will provide.”  Each week she would have more food and fewer dishes.  She would also ask all the people who came to her apartment in the housing development if they were Christians and if they went to church.  If they said “no”, she would share the gospel with them and ask them to “hit the can” to give money in a little can she had by her door as an offering to her church.  Each year she would give over  $1,000 in offerings from the people who came to visit her.  She gave beyond her ability.  She is family to me and so many who know her.  I pray in these difficult times that we would open our hearts and hands to the least and lost and be a conduit of God’s blessings to others.  Another example is a young mother at M. D. Anderson who was sitting alone in the lobby in a wheel chair with oxygen, when we were there for my C.T. scan.  The Lord led me to sit beside her and begin sharing with her God’s love for her and that He is able to meet her at every point of her need and, yes, heal her for His glory.  She began to light up and when her mother returned, she said, “Mom, they are Christians and have come to encourage me.”  She has two small children and is a believer and a woman of great faith.  The Sunday following our meeting where I prayed with her in the Lobby, she e-mailed Laura and me asking us to come to her home in Houston for dinner.  Here she is battling cancer and inviting us over to make dinner for us to encourage us in our battle.  This is a picture of a woman who is rich in faith.

Ask God what is hindering you from moving from your fear to faith in an awesome God.  It may just be one relationship with someone who only has God and no other resources of this world to be your guide to becoming rich in faith.  How awesome it is that God works in wondrous and mysterious ways and uses the foolish to confound the wise.

We praise God that we now have 70 BridgeBuilders 300 members who have committed by faith to pray for our healing and give $100 per month.  This is a miracle from God and we are eternally grateful.  You can also be a part by donating through our website at http://www.hisbridgebuilders.org or by contacting Mary Anderwald at 214-377-1551.  This Saturday from 11 am to 1 pm we are having a Community Fellowship and the theme is a “Family Reunion.”  We want to celebrate God’s goodness and grace in our lives and we invite you to come experience a group of people from across the city who may not be rich in worldly goods but most definitely are “rich in faith.”  We will meet at Turner Courts Multi Purpose Center located at 6508 Canaan Street, Dallas 75215.  Maybe God has allowed you to join us in our battle with cancer so you, too, may have an infusion of faith from one of our dear friends of the city.  When God is all you have, you realize He is all you need and more!

Thank you for your prayers.  Medically, we are in our 4th week of treatment with Tarceva.  The rash has decreased dramatically and we still feel very good.  I go next week for a chest x-ray and in mid October we do our follow-up C.T. Scan to see how much the cancer has shrunk and to determine next steps as we walk in faith, believing in a great God who is able.  Don’t miss the miracle God has for you. Prayerfully consider joining us at our “Family Reunion” this Saturday and see firsthand  faith that works for the glory of God.

By God’s grace our lung cancer has caused hundreds of you to be praying for us and H.I.S. BridgeBuilders.  Many of you are aware that for years our Co-Founder, Velma, has had a dream to open V’s Cafe in the inner city.  This cafe will also have a training component to help equip people from the community in culinary training, so they can get a job.  We will also have the first business built in a neighborhood that God is transforming one life and family at a time.  The Cafe will be able to have true koinonia in a beautiful and safe environment for the community and all who visit.  We will be preparing food for the hungry and distributing food, prepared by community workers in the gym across the street from the cafe.  Finally, a place where young families can come and rest and be refreshed in their own restaurant in a neighborhood most had forgotten, except for God. Velma prays for everyone and every bit of food she cooks.  It will be like Manna from heaven.  In these days, God has brought Richard Chamberlain, an incredible chef and restaurant owner, to help shepherd us in this process.  We are thrilled by Richard’s heart and desire to serve the least with his amazing gifts and talents.  The land for the cafe is also becoming available in a wondrous and miraculous way.  We knew to start the cafe we would need $100,000 initial capital. In a down economy and at a time when the ministry is hurting financially, we had written this off as impossible.  Needless to say, God heard your prayers!  I had lunch recently with a dear friend, Jerry, and discussed with him the operational needs of the ministry.  He then asked how much it would cost to begin V’s Cafe, which I had not mentioned, and I said, “$100,000.”  He then said he wanted to give a designated gift of $50,000 to help this dream become a reality.  Amazingly, I had not asked for this as I knew we needed money just to fund our daily operations.  Several weeks later Jerry called me and said that I wouldn’t believe what had just happened.  He informed me that in 1999, he made an investment that went bankrupt and that the attorneys would send him updates regarding his portion of the settlement.  He said he just received a notice from the attorneys and almost threw it away.  When he read the letter, he flipped to the last page of the document and read that his portion of the settlement would be $100,000.76.  He has committed the entire $100,000.00 to help us see this dream of Velma’s become a reality.  God is able!

In addition, every day God is adding to our BB’s 300 to help undergird us in prayer and support the ministry with $100 monthly gifts.  Recently, Duffy Johnson, a young man that I discipled years ago, has become a BB 300 and is committed to finding 9 others.  This dear brother in Christ is enabling us to focus on our family and ministry at a critical time.  We are now reaching 60 of our BridgeBuilders 300 and by God’s grace enabled to see Velma’s dream become a reality as well.  God is so awesome!

On the medical front, after reviewing my C.T. scan 8 weeks after discovering the 2 tumors, with no treatment other than your prayers, the cancer has not grown.  I have taken Tarceva (a pill) daily now for 2 weeks.  The skin rash has kept me up several nights because of the itching in my scalp, neck and face and the Lord continues to work on my vanity as my nose is red and my face is broken out.  I am humbled that this is the only side effect because of God’s grace and your believing prayers.  We will get a new C.T. scan of my lungs in 6 weeks to see the progress of Tarceva and our prayers!  We believe!  Thank you for your prayers that are opening the flood gates of Heaven to bring healing and help to me and to our ministry to the least and the lost.  Ephesians 3:20 is my prayer for each of us.  No matter what you are facing, God is a miracle working God.  “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Eph. 3:20