God leads us in any number of ways.

A short list for me from last year includes: His still, small voice; paintings and drawings given to me by friends and strangers; old TV shows; the time of day; etc, etc…

In 2014, a couple at church shared a vision they had of me that involved a treasure chest full of precious stones – jewels and gems. These stones would later serve as confirmation for other messages.

Sometime over the last 18 months, God began telling me that I was going to India. I did not hear an audible voice, just a “still, small voice” inside. This is hard to describe unless you’ve heard it. Early in 2016, over the course of three weeks, He confirmed it through a series of unusual “coincidences”. “God-incidences” as a friend and I would say. Here are most of them:

I was impressed on to buy Season 1 of the TV show “Eli Stone”- a show I had no previous interest in seeing. In the first episode, the lead character (lawyer and erstwhile “prophet”)  takes his father’s ashes to twin mountain peaks in India.

Watching the movie “Hearts of the West” two days later, a character tells a joke involving the world’s richest man saying that if the Taj Mahal isn’t for sale – then he’ll buy all of India. Another character repeats this joke at the end of the film. The joke doesn’t even seem to fit into the context of the movie.

Eli Stone’s boss is named Jordan. The actor who played him also played Jesus in Godspell – which I watched for the first time also in the previous few weeks.

After days of emails from Rosetta Stone (seemingly extending their “limited” sale day after day), I felt that I was to purchase their Hindi language software package.

Shortly thereafter, the Lord woke me up at 6:46 AM, and directed me to look the time up as a Scripture reference. The sixth book of the Bible is Joshua. Joshua 4:6 – “so that this may be a sign among you; when your children ask later, ‘what do these stones mean to you?'” [precious stones, Eli Stone, Rosetta Stone]

This passage takes place right after the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River for the first time. The night before, I had watched an episode of “Eli Stone” where Jordan, his boss, kicked him out of the office – after Eli had crossed Jordan for the last time….

A few days later, I bought the movie “The Book of Eli” – not even making the connection with the name until I started to play it. At the end of the movie, Eli dies. One of the last shots is his headstone. A simple stone with the name Eli on it. Eli stone.

One day I noticed mention of Ophir in the Bible, and how King Solomon received precious stones from there – as well as wood to be used both for musical instruments and building the temple. There are a number of suggested locations for Ophir – including a few in India and Sri Lanka. In fact, the Hebrew words for peacock, ivory, cotton-cloth, and apes are all taken from Classical Tamil words. According to Wikipedia, “the Dravidians…of Southern India or Northern Sri Lanka…were well-known for their gold and precious stones”.

Not long after that, as I was looking up Ophir on the internet, I came across Ophir Ministries. They refer to themselves with Isaiah 60:22. Earlier that morning, I had read that very verse, and the Lord told me to underline it…”A little one shall become a thousand and a small one a great nation.”

Most recently, God lead me to apply for a mission trip to India through the Sons of Thunder ministry. I was trying to decide between three different groups taking trips there. God directed me to put a certain amount of money aside as a seed for the total I would need. As I continued to ask Him for further guidance, He simply told me to compare that amount of money with the deposit required for the trips. It was an exact match for the trip with Sons of Thunder.

Just before Christmas, I was accepted. And I’m very excited. At the end of March, I will be leaving for two weeks. The first week will be in Mumbai, helping to care for children at the Sons of Thunder’s children’s home there, as well as minister to people at Mumbai’s ginormous garbage dump. The following week I will be in a city in the south of India, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu province. There, Jesus Comes Ministries feeds the homeless and helps to meet their spiritual and emotional needs also. My friends Raj and Laurel Moses are an integral part of the work there and have invited me to stay with them. It’s great to have friends in far-off places, lol.

This blog is shifting – which is more movement than it’s had in more than a year. I haven’t decided yet how much I will post about my trip here. Any comments are welcome about this. I’ve already sent out four emails to individuals I know totally apart from this blog. If enough people are interested, I’ll also post them here.

Until then, anyone who wishes can request to be added to my emailing list, “Sapphire and Pearls”, by filling out the below contact form. Also, I do have a page at givesendgo.com/pearls , where you can find out more details and even (if you wish) make a contribution. God provides where God directs.

And, you can let me know if you want to find out the significance of the artwork at the top of the page…