Welcome to the Bailey blog! Get it … Daily Blog but with a “B”.
My hope would be to post daily but that will be impossible so I will try to keep the content fresh and post as often as possible. If by chance internet is spotty, the posts may run long. I wanted to give a testimony as to how it is that we decided to go on this journey across the United States of America. It is lengthy but will set the context.
About 8 years ago, I was praying with a friend on an island up in the St. Lawrence River and the Lord renewed a desire I had had several years ago to extend the Word of God beyond Syracuse, NY. Not as a pastor but rather as an apostle, which in the Greek means special messenger. Another word that describes my desire is ambassador which in the Greek means one who runs an errand. The desire to extend, or reach out, to others complements the work the Lord has us doing in our hometown, Syracuse NY, where we have lived and served in the church for 26 years.
In short, I have been reading, intensely, the journeys of Paul and have been moved greatly by the book of Acts. In Acts 1:8, the Christ says “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”. These first couple of chapters, no doubt, has become the most worn in my bible.
Last year I went to a remote part of Honduras and had a chance to live and work with the House of Hope whose goal is to reach out through the gospel to young boys and girls that are left to die on the streets of Puerto Lempira. The parents do this because they cannot afford to take care of them. Once these children arrive, there basic needs are attended for including education and the parents are found and encouraged to help in the childs care at no cost to them. After many months of a Christian influence and care, many parents will get reconnected with the child and eventually take them home. Rarely does a child stay with the House of Hope for a long time. Unlike other cities in Honduras, it is only reachable by a small commuter plane and is not visited by the Christian missionary organizations. It has a small Christian, Holy Spirit filled church and three Christian American families that have lived there for years. By providing labor for building, medical and occupational services we were able to touch many souls and I personally baptized 12 young men and 2 village children who received Christ and had never seen a Christian before…ever! In fact, the village had never had Christ preached to them! My life changed instantly, I learned to confront my fear of the unknown and rest in faith and in our Lord Jesus Christ. I began to devour the book of Acts, hungry to understand more of Paul’s journeys. Meanwhile, I shared all of this with my wife and children who became as excited as me about the possibility of using the great teaching we have received from our pastors in our local church to reach outside of Syracuse, NY. In Luke 12:48, Christ says “…For everyone to much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much is committed, of him they will ask more”. How appropriate that that was one of the scriptures we read this morning while in devotion to the Lord.
With this experience behind me, my family decided to plan the next journey (I am sounding like the apostle Paul). I thought it was going to be a return trip to Honduras and began planning it when I read that all familiar scripture Acts 1:8. Then the Lord spoke. Jerusalem, for my family, represents Syracuse, NY. All end of the earth represents the parts of this earth that have never heard of Jesus Christ, Judea represents people in this great country of ours that believe in God’s son Jesus Christ but may not be living in the power of His Word and Samaria represents the unbelieving people of this country that need to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior. With this in mind, my travels on the job began to take on new meaning and everywhere I went, I began to look at people in this way. I travel a lot and over the next few months had the chance to share with Christians the power of God and His ability to give them victory over sin and to share the news of God’s son, Jesus Christ, with the unbeliever. As Paul wrote in 1 Cor 3:5-8, “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his labor”. It was not long when after reading and mediating in Gods Word, that I realized we needed to take a journey across the United States to see “Judea and Samaria” while sharing with them God’s Word. Honestly I thought this may had been my flesh speaking and so I tucked the thought away and occasionally I’s think further about it but really only in private prayer.
Then in February of this year, my father went home to the Lord unexpectedly. I was in London, England. I was in shock but comforted to know that he went home singing to the Lord. I began the arduous task of changing flights. Eventually I had a flight to Seattle, WA just a day after arriving in London. I headed to the airport and boarded the long flight from London to Chicago (about 10 hours). It was during this flight that the events that lead to June 10, 2008 our departure date was set in motion.
I sat in my business class seat as usual and pulled out my bible as I had grown accustomed to doing and closed my eyes to think about my father and the short time we spent together in Syracuse over the past 2 months. A tall man, who seemed to be agitated, sat down in the aisle seat next to me. I looked at him and decided not to speak to him. We took off on time and after being airborne for an hour, I opened my bible looking for comfort and then the man spoke. He asked me what I was reading and I told him. Acts 1 and 2. He informed me he was going to a revival meeting for men in his church and that he would be sharing from that very same scripture. I thought what a coincidence. Then he introduced himself as Phillip. I began to think of Phillip who spoke to the eunuch since I had just read that earlier. After introductions, I told him about my desire to travel the USA and the reasons why. It was at this point, my desire became a reality. He said he had done the very same trip 2 years ago for the very same reasons and began to share with me his family’s adventure. In summary, he had broken bread with the Christian, ministered faith to the unbeliever and witnessed to the believer about God’s power. Nahum 1:3 “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power”. We continued to share our testimony and lives with each other for about 5 hours. He had many stories, tips, attractions, events and itinerary to share with me. Needless to say, this confirmed for me that I needed to begin planning a summer trip for Christ. Some key take aways from Phillip included: Get a motorhome, he wished he had; do a sprint and stop type trip which means keep travel to no more than 500 miles a day and stop often for at least 4 days to take in the country; allow the children to see big contrasts that will have a deep impact in their life, meaning let them see the poor parts of America and help in any way they can as well as the richer parts of America, do at least one outreach to help others in a way that they will not benefit directly from their labor but reap a reward in heaven, allow each person to choose one thing to do that is special to them, and finally have fun!
Keeping these points in mind and dedicating this trip to Christ, I began to pray about these things and started asking the Lord to guide me and meet our family needs. I approached the family and began floating the idea of taking the whole summer and seeing the USA. They were excited and asked a gazillion questions. I answered as many as I could and left the rest to prayer. We all agreed to start the preparations but needed some direction. A theme was needed. Something we will base the trip on and provide a foundation for an itinerary. We came up with 3 areas that the trip will center around for everything we do over the next 2 and ½ months. First, we want to grow as a family unit for Christ. We have some rough edges that are a part of our character and we are praying the Lord smooth them out as we live together in a small space with no boundaries for a time. Second in keeping with the vision, We desire to minister the Word to the unbeliever by planting and watering. Third, we want to minister to the believer by demonstrating and witnessing the power of His Word through Holy Spirit to the separation and sanctification of the believer. With this established we were off and running.
