Tales of Two Trips

August 31, 2026

Dear Friend,

My Most Recent Ministry Trip

June’s ministry trip to the Iowa Holiness Association camp meeting has come and gone. So far as I can tell, the trip was blessed in every way I look at it:

• Fellowship:
  Our dear friends, Al & Sue Strickland²

  There were refreshing and encouraging visits during the trip with friends and family. (Hello again to Al & Sue, Cyril & Jan, Brady & Leah, Misty, Keith, Dorian, Colleen & Donny, Dave & Eva, Becky, Ray & Twila Mae, Michael, Kristen & Alyson, and so many others!) And there were many hours of sharing between meetings, over meals, and into
  the late hours after the evening meetings.

• Teaching:
  A farewell meal with some of the camp workers from Omega Church

  To bookend the five afternoons of teaching the Studies in the Book of Joshua series, I felt honored to preach the Sundays before and after camp, at Omega Church in Oskaloosa and Knoxville Church of the Nazarene, respectively. The “jubilee” message at Omega seemed to serve as a kick-off for the camp meeting which started that night; and the Father’s Day evening message the following Sunday was a benediction to eight days of ministry.

• Travel and Provision:
  The Lord wisely chose the rental car.

  Stepping out in faith, I rented a vehicle for the 3500-mile journey. The Lord provided abundantly for the rental, the gas, the meals, etc. And I only had to stay in motels for four of the 23 nights.

• Healings: In a quite unexpected way, through His healing of one person (just before camp started), the Lord opened the opportunity to anoint and lay hands on a number of people. Several afternoons in a row, right after lunch and immediately before my teaching time, a few people gathered for healing prayer. There was also a “house call” after one of the teaching sessions, and the Father honored His Son once again. That sister walked into the evening meeting pain free!
• Writing and Publishing:
  All in one place for the first time

  At the camp tabernacle, all nine of our book titles appeared together on a book table for the very first time. I came back home with an inventory reduced by several dozens of books (about three boxes’ worth). A donation box was set up, and that was that. On the last night, I donated the entire week’s book donations (firstfruits!) to Ratio Christi, the apologetics ministry whose table bordered ours all week.

• Enemy Opposition: Was there any enemy push-back? Oh, sure. For instance, just three days before the trip started, my main computer workstation dropped dead. I thought I knew what the problem was (turns out I was right), but there was too much left to do before the trip to deal with it. My screens no sooner went blank than the Adversary said, “Ha! No computer! Now you can’t finish your PowerPoint and handout notes for your week of teaching!”
  Funny. It doesn’t look so far on a map!

  But he didn’t even get to finish playing the first three notes of his Pity-Party Polka when I replied, “Hmm. Seems to me that nobody’s teaching and preaching in the New Testament bothered with ‘slides’ or ‘handouts’ or ‘visual aids.’ I don’t need any of it!” And that was that. God still blessed the teaching time. (Funny how that works!) After ten weeks in critical care, the workstation is back in operation (which is why you finally have this newsletter).

  Any other push-back? Yes. Almost as soon as I arrived back in one piece, I became very knee-dy. I’ve had a little arthritis pain (on and off) in my left knee for several years—a nuisance, but not a show-stopper. But after being “cooped up in the cockpit” for 3500 miles, the knee pain became excruciating and constant. I finally visited an orthopedic surgeon, who gave me a shot and sent me to physical therapy. Shortly thereafter, my knee “backslid” for several weeks; but now with God’s intervention, it’s almost fully functional and nearly pain free.

The Lord always overcomes. The trip was filled with God’s blessing. Thanks for praying!

My First Ministry Road Trip

As I was turning over in my mind what to write about this latest trip, I celebrated my 58th Re-Birth Day on July 31st. And I got to remembering…

Six weeks before my second Re-Birth Day, within two weeks of graduating from high school, I left on my first ministry “road trip.” Short background: The summer before (1969), at our youth group’s week-long camp in Yosemite Valley, we were visited for a few nights by another youth group from the Dallas, Texas area. (The Texas youth group’s pastor was our pastor’s son-in-law, hence the otherwise unlikely intersection.) Three of the Texas teens asked my best friend, Bill, and me to visit them the following summer. We promised that we would. When the time finally rolled around, though, Bill didn’t go (for reasons I don’t recall), but I was certain the Lord would have me go.

I already owned my first car, a large, powder-blue “three on the tree” stick-shift 1965 Rambler station wagon. It (barely) survived the solo journey (“only” about 2,900 miles round trip—without cruise control—compared with the Iowa trip’s 3,500 miles). I had to do most of my desert driving at night (with the heater running full blast!) in order to keep the car from overheating. (After I arrived in Dallas, the water pump had to be replaced. On the way home, a couple of my re-tread tires decided to de-tread, forcing me to buy a set of tires just to get home. And I hadn’t been home too many months before the wagon needed a valve job!)

As for ministry in Dallas: But that old Rambler got me there. Once in Dallas, most of the ministry was in small, ad hoc groups, though I did get to share a testimony about God’s clear guidance, miraculous provision, and automotive mercies for the trip at a large youth-group’s lakeside outing. (It was the full complement of the youth group which had visited us in Yosemite Valley the previous summer. Incidentally, the “what do you mean, God spoke to you?” incident, which I mention in the second chapter of Hearing God, occurred during the Q&A session after that testimony.)

In those ad hoc smaller gatherings, we spent a lot of time in prayer. Over the course of two weeks, several people received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, and the Lord honored a few spiritually hungry people through visions or interpretation of dreams. I don’t recall if there were any healings or not.

So on that 1970 journey, I learned a lot about ministry trips: how to trust, listen, and obey; to expect the unexpected when it comes to God’s supply; that sometimes personal ministry in small groups is as effective as large meetings; how to be a gracious and grateful house guest; and, generally, about the blessings of traveling at the Lord’s direction. When I returned to California, “home” seemed smaller and the Lord seemed a lot “bigger,” by contrast. And during the weeks I was away, some close friends started a new church called Bethesda Fellowship. Perhaps Bethesda tales will appear in future “story times,”, because it was the church fellowship in which I “cut my eye teeth” in pastoral ministry and teaching.

Writing & Publishing

I thank God that because of work I queued up before the Great Computer Crash of 2026, new chapters of Isaiah Reid’s Boyhood Memories and Lessons have continued appearing each month through the summer, and they will continue appearing through the beginning of next year, Lord willing. New to our website since the last newsletter are Sabbath Day in Walnut Ridge and A Forest Meeting (one of my favorites). Coming around the first of September is Reid’s thoughtful God’s Giving Is Wiser Than Our Asking.

With the main workstation back online, the focus on publishing Percy Gutteridge’s Studies in the Book of Joshua resumes next week. I’m all the more excited about getting back into it because the content matter was well received during my teaching times in Iowa. I’m currently investing some time and effort in setting up new procedures to handle the technical/publishing aspects of Joshua, which should speed up the release of future books.

An intriguing possibility has come up about adapting the hermeneutics material from my What’s the Context? teaching series. The goal would be to produce a book that could be used in a Bible college classroom in Portuguese-speaking Africa. I’ve been meaning to bring the English version of this into book form anyway, sooner or later. Maybe the schedule is now “sooner”? Hmm…

Praise!

I think a praise report trumps any prayer requests this month. The Great Computer Crash and my temporary “knee-diness” notwithstanding, I’m inspired by one of my favorite hymns, one based on Mark 7:37a kjv—

Every verse of this Samuel Medley anthem ends with that same phrase:

And since I, too, am “beyond measure astonished” at God’s blessings, that phrase is a great note on which to end this newsletter—

My Jesus has done all things well this summer!

Jim

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