Wednesday, January 9, 2008

What Not to Do When Out on Visitation for Your Church

Last night my family and I went to church for our soulwinning and visitation night.

Pastor wanted us to make visits. My partners were my daughter, Lyndsey, and another little girl named Jahzell.

Pastor had given me 2 teenage girls to visit and encourage them to come to church. One of them lived just down the street from the church and the other visit was way up in the cove. I decided to go there first. I have to tell you that the Lord had prompted me to go to the cove first but as you will read, I didn't listen. Big mistake!

Upon finding the house I parked the car. Lyndsey proceeds to hop out of the van only to find a stray dog wandering around in the yard of the home we were going to. It was a pit bull mix of some sort. So I told her to get back in the van. I called my husband and then decided that I would be the one to get out of the van to see if the dog was friendly.

So I turned the van on again and tried to get a little closer to the house. I saw a parking spot about 15 feet up ahead. Now you have to realize that I was going to park between a tow truck and another car. I thought there was enough room until I got closer. There wasn't and the dog was wandering close to where I was.

I saw a car coming up behind me and I decided to just wait and let him go around me. Bigger mistake! All of a sudden SPOTLIGHTS came on! Then I looked down and realized that I didn't have my seatbelt on because, of course, I was just moving the van a few feet. Then I realized that the girls don't have their belts on, either. I didn't quite know what to do. Uh oh! The red and blue lights started and I was toast! I put the car in "park" and rolled down the window and told the girls we would be a while as now the police want to talk to me! Might I say that I just a teensy bit nervous!

The police pulled up beside me and told me to "Get your car out of the middle of the road!" He really wasn't very nice. Now when I think of police officers, I think of my husband (usually nice). After all, he has told me that 90% of every traffic stop is your attitude with the officer. This guy didn't even give me a chance to be nice to him before he was quite rude to me. Anyway, I apologized to him and told him I would move immediately (to which he promptly left).

Can you imagine my story to the police about what I was doing? "I'm sorry officer. I'm from Bible Baptist Church and we are out visiting people in the neighborhood. I was looking for a parking spot and then there was this dog that I wasn't sure about. I thought I would get a little bit closer to see if the dog was nice but then realized that there wasn't enough room for my van to fit. Then you pulled up behind me, etc.!" I'm not even sure I can see in my head what his reaction would have been!

I turned the van around and parked again. This time I got out of the van and the dog came towards me. He still did not appear friendly (actually made me quite nervous) and I decided not to take any chances and we left. First visit - no contact.

So I drive to the next home which was way up in the cove. Obviously, it was dark outside. I finally find the right street and start looking for the right house number. I couldn't find it and turned around and looked for it coming down the hill the second time. Still couldn't find it but happened, once again, upon a police officer who was parked on the same street I was on. I passed him and went too far. I turned around again, drove past the officer up the hill again very slowly so as to find the correct house to stop at. My eyes aren't that great for seeing house numbers at night so I was dependent on Lyndsey's eyes to help me find the house. No such luck. We couldn't find the house. I decided to stop looking as I figured that after going up and down the same street 3 times with the police watching me, he would think I was casing the street to rob someone's house!

So we left and went back to the church completely unsuccessful in trying to encourage people to come to church.

When we got back to the church I told my police officer husband what had happened and, well you know, he laughed at me! I'm sure glad he thought it was funny!

So the moral to this story is to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit because if I would have gone to the cove first most likely none of this would have happened!

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