What does a Tuesday afternoon look like to you?

We usually meet on Tuesday afternoons. He texted me this past wintry Tuesday and asked what I was doing. “I’m headed out to make sure none of my guys are walking in their usual stomping grounds, we’re checking on our old folks and in-between we’re paying rent and electricity to be sure our neighbors don’t get booted out in the cold. Wanna join me?”

He did.

We delivered water to one of our elders, not that she needed it but because she wanted to see our faces. We hugged her neck and prayed for her. One of our partners put a couple in a motel but the motel wouldn’t take their 5-week-old puppies too, so we picked up the puppies and our dog whisperer, Craig is fostering them at Isaiah’s. Oh, did I mention there are 7 of them!

We went by One Hope Tulsa that is open to our folks on the streets, while AWH4T partners take shifts to feed, love on, and support them. We were asked to transport a couple of guys to an apartment. A friend of theirs offered them a safe place to stay for the duration of the freezing temps.

As we drove, we chatted. They are worried because they’ve been on the housing waiting list for a long time and they wonder if they’ll ever have a place to call home. I gave them my card and offered Isaiah’s to be a resource for them. I asked if we could pray for them, and they said yes. When I helped one of them out of the truck, he told me he has cancer and asked to hug me. We did and our hug lingered. He told me he may be meeting Jesus sooner than he expected. He patted my shoulder and smiled.

Isaiah 58, In His service

…has been loving on our neighbors for the last 15 years. The man who joined me is a member at my church. He’s been willing to help with whatever is needed at the moment it’s needed because he’s made himself available on Tuesday afternoons. He got out of the pew and came out to where the need is.

He asks lots of questions and he’s not just asking me, he’s talking with our neighbors who are struggling so he can better understand the need and help in the best way possible. Is he out of his comfort zone? You bet. Is he overwhelmed by the number of needs and the complexity of the struggle? Absolutely. Does he keep coming back? Yes! And the cool thing is he’s sharing with his life group and asking more people to come with him.

Diana and other “ex-pew sitters” cook breakfast and lunch on Saturdays and Pastor Barry shares how Jesus loved on His neighbors when He walked this earth and reminds us to do the same. We pray for our neighbors and each other. Some of our partners share a meal with us on Saturday so we can provide resources and hope.

We’d love for you to join us on Saturday’s and any other day of the week.

We can do more. We can do better. Together.

LOVE GOES

Isaiah 58, In His service

Valentine’s Day!

Isaiah’s family was invited by International Gospel Center’s family to join them for a spaghetti dinner and a movie!!

We dined on homemade spaghetti and got to vote on our favorite sauce! We all ate too much as we had to go back more than once to be sure we chose the BEST sauce! We played a trivia game and gifts were presented to those who answered the questions correctly! Thankful for the brainiacs who sat close by!

Thank You to

International Gospel Center’s family

We waddled into the sanctuary with popcorn to watch The Forge! It brought home the importance of relationships and the need for men to step up and step into the lives of our youth!

Patty Ehmann, Diane Bale and Chyanna Mull-Anthony and Bishop Osborn thank you so much for the invitation and the perfect evening of fun and fellowship! Thank you too to all the chefs and chefesses who cooked the delicious sauces!!

We can do more. We can do better. Together.

LOVE GOES

Isaiah 58, In His service

International Gospel Center - Tulsa, OK

In the middle of December, I received a text from a 20 something student. She said she was going to college in Bartlesville and needed 25 hours of community service for a scholarship from Cherokee Nation. I immediately replied by stating we are in Isaiah’s from sunup to beyond sundown wrapping and delivering gifts for hundreds of our neighbors. Packing in 25 hours in a short time would be a piece of cake. She casually commented that in addition to going to school full time, she worked and would be driving to Tulsa from Bartlesville. 

December 20th in she came not only with an incredible work ethic, but with a heart to help. She caught on quickly to our wrapping rules. We wrap in 3’s. Each kidlet gets 3 gifts, which protects guardians from the appearance of playing favorites if one kidlet gets 4 gifts, one gets 3 and one gets 2 so they all get 3, Even- Steven. Isaiah’s buys for everyone in the family, so the rule of 3 applies to the adults too.  Most often the parents won’t ask for anything for themselves. Working two or three jobs it is a miracle they remain in their home month to month, yet they are hesitant to ask for socks or a new blouse or an Old Spice gift set for Christmas. They don’t want to take advantage. Blessing the adults and even the pets make Christmas from Isaiah’s, just the best ever!

Mike Mike, as we affectionately call him, is one of our guys who suffers from mental illness. Most often the voices in his head make him laugh, but sometimes he is afraid for himself or us and other times he is in pain because the voices have turned into a constant humming, “I can’t turn the fan off.” In all conditions, even during brief periods of clarity, he can eat anything and everything in sight and he will outdrink me in coffee. Mike Mike is always in constant motion. Mike Mike and Carol, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a baby, have movement in common and during our 21st Holiday Helping Hands Project they became best buds and paced every inch of Isaiah’s, inside and out.

Carol, a member of our senior support squad, was our trash lady. She would take a trash bag out of a trashcan and venture to all other trashcans, dig trash out and put in the bag she was carrying and empty the bag in our dumpster and return the bag to the bagless trashcan. However, collecting trash from our wrapping tables meant paper cut for a gift needed to be wrapped in record speed or when Carol made another pass, it was snatched up and, in the dumpster, before we returned from the supply table with another roll of tape.

While Carol was our trash monitor Mike Mike would sometimes try to be helpful by picking up a gift and moving it to another table. This was problematic for those of us older elves who were afraid to mention the missing gift when we vividly remembered placing it ready to be wrapped and now it had disappeared. Thoughts of applying for a clinical trial for memory loss crossed my mind a few times.  He loved to get a soda for himself and everyone else. Open cans of sodas were often amid the gifts to be wrapped. He opened a can of coffee and a bag of filters (gifts for a grandpa) to help make coffee, even though we had two pots percolating.

By the time our college student arrived we had become a well-oiled machine. Craig kept our 5-gallon containers of dog food and treats stocked, and he would morph into Rudolph by driving gifts to their destination. Each time he loaded up the car to deliver he would call out, “Where’s my navigator?” Carol would spring to his side, clapping her hands, grinning from ear to ear and telling me, “I don’t know his name, but he needs my help, I’m going with him. I’m helping.”  

Mike Mike had become adept at giving pieces of tape to the wrapper, getting stuffed animals for the 243 kids of the 74 families we adopted from the YWCA Refugee Program, and on a couple of occasions he wrapped a gift from start to finish with very little help.

Day in and day out for two months (I haven’t even mentioned Thanksgiving yet) the heartbeat of our team was Donna, Alice, Craig and Cheryl. Cheryl and Alice became our wrappin’ mamas, once Cheryl was settled in, she was on mission wrapping hundreds of presents! Alice and Craig kept us fed, creatively putting meals together from scratch or using the food donations from First Baptist Church Jenks, provided by Andrea the kitchen manager. Craig and Alice also kept the kitchen clean and made sure we had plenty of sweets and snacks. But the scotch tape that held our production together was Donna. Donna would get ‘the book’ (my handwritten notebook containing over 150 families with about 600 individual’s Christmas lists, addresses and phone numbers) decipher my hieroglyphics and set the tables. Meaning she would go to our Celebration Station to pick out gifts for everyone on the list and get them ready to wrap. When we lacked specific gifts, she would go shopping if I couldn’t order and get the gifts faster from Amazon.

For 9 to 12 hours a day these remarkable humans did not just volunteer, they came to serve Jesus with smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts! Travis decorated Isaiah’s inside and out and kept the lights shining brightly on our raised flower beds! Isaiah’s team exemplified loving our neighbors as Jesus taught us. The families and gifts were prayed over, and they wrapped with fervor and determination to beat Santa down that chimney on Christmas Eve!! They are amazing!!

Ideally the goal is for the families to be adopted by donors. The more families adopted by donors the fewer families Isaiah’s buys gifts for and can use the funds received to help with rent, utilities, car payments, medicine, etc. By helping our neighbors with these expenses, we are a prevention ministry with the prayer of keeping families in their homes. This is part of Isaiah’s mission year-round - to keep families in their homes. So far this HHHP we have paid over $12,000 in rent and $6,000 in utilities! We also helped with phone bills, gasoline, car repairs, and internet costs.

I’ll get back to our college student in a few…

So many rose to the challenge this year and adopted lots of our families! We are so thankful for: Tara Hanson with Advanced Pain Management Center of OK, Diane and Bob Bale and family, Vickie Horton and family, Chrissy Frey and Bank of Oklahoma team, Keely Keiser, Dr. Heather Thompson, Ellen Jones, Evergreen Church life group, John and Amy Zito, Jennifer and Alan O’Dell, Alesha Salguero, Elaine and Richard Post, Dineen and Roger Jacobs, Ron Campbell Family, Dr. Gabriel Presley Family, Terri and Michael McBee, Kathy Ary Family, Kathy McCulley, Belinda Myers, Carole Hoffman, Kari Smoot, Kacie Papineau of First Baptist Church Jenks, Tara and Arik Miller and kids, Tara and Arik’s Community Group, Dr. Rachel Ray and Cura for the World, Kirk, Pat and Jan Shrader, Meagan and James Davis, Jessica Shrader and Adam Villamil, Melissa Rockelman, Amanda and Matt Wolfe,  Larry and Ruthann Wells and family and Angela Bangher, Shannyn and Josh Dykes, Phil and Katie Goodson Family, and Renee Vaught. Michael and Pauline Marks, Phil and Nicole Parish, Mark and Laura Fallis, Jeff and Grace Hill, Sam and Peach Kammerzell, Bruce and Shio Fensler, Jeff and Kay-Linn Hewett, Kent and Elizabeth Theissen, Jan Tabrizi, Mark and Kimmy Harris, Ray and Mary Moffeit, Billy and Amy Hawley, Larry and Karen Hillhouse, West and Tracey Hiburn, Terrie and Dave Brown, Josh and Joni Long, Wade and Amy Spear, and Rebecca Wood.

Okay, our college student. After staying late, the first night and delivering gifts to a family on the way home to Bartlesville she came back just as gung-ho as she was the day before. Eight tables filled with gifts in various stages of being wrapped, by chocolate eating, oxygen wearing, caffeine drinking, off key singing ladies – suddenly our college student stood in the middle of the room and stopped us all with her epiphany.

She said she lost her mom and grew up in her grandma’s home. They were poor and she remembers getting groceries from a food pantry, standing in line to get an utility bill paid and receiving Christmas gifts from a program. “I thought I was doing my hours here cause I could come every day over Christmas break. But this means so much more than my hours! I will always remember how much those presents meant to me. Now I’m here, wrapping for a little girl just like me!!”  A Peaceful Presence filled the room, and we all fell silent. Jesus was reminding us that we had hundreds of gifts to wrap and each present was for one of His precious children and each one of us was exactly where we were supposed to be! Glory!

Isaiah’s is partners with One Hope Tulsa, and we are about a mile apart from each other. A few weeks before Thanksgiving I was asked if One Hope Tulsa could post info about our HHHP on their Facebook page. I said, “sure.” A simple, unassuming ‘sure.’

Okay, silly me, we follow One Hope Tulsa on Facebook. They had just a few likes on their posts so my college educated, living in a cave, maybe needing a clinical trial for memory loss conclusion was we should get a handful of families requesting help due to their post. Au contraire, my friends.

I was in line at Walgreens, when my pocket, where my phones were, began going off like fire drills in an elementary school. I pulled Isaiah’s phone out of my pocket and all I saw were texts, one after another and many of them weren’t in English. But, as I watched them bombard my phone, it was clear they ALL wanted Christmas gifts, “We saw your post on One Hope Tulsa, my husband and I have 6 kids, two dogs, a cat, Uncle Merrell, on my husband’s side is living with us, and we need food. Here is our wish list. When will you deliver?”

I nervously laughed out loud and muttered, “Holy cow,” apparently louder than I realized because the line of people were gawking at me. I smiled, “Feliz Navidad.” When I got to my car and looked at my phone the texts continued coming. I pulled up Isaiah’s emails, lo and behold email after email in Spanish opened before me. Overwhelmed, I decided to go home and pray.

After reminding Jesus of the ever-growing need and our ever-dwindling bank account, I chugged a latte and began transferring the family information from my texts to ‘the book’, after using the translation app and printing the email lists.  By midnight, I think, it was kind of a blur, we had received 74 texts and over two dozen emails asking for Christmas gifts. I found the post One Hope Tulsa put on Facebook about HHHP and learned the invaluable lesson that the 7 ‘likes’ was not what I needed to look at, but the 27 shares. Duh.

The post by One Hope Tulsa was on November 12th. Our email reminder and snail mail letter had already been sent out to our donors. Around this time, we received a text from The Barn Church in Bixby. They asked for 23 turkeys and all the fixin’s for them to do most of the cooking so they could love on their neighbors in a trailer park. We had a week to get everything on their list and deliver to them!! Thanx to Dineen and Roger the mission was accomplished!! Roger and Dineen saved the day on many occasions, shopping for hard-to-find gifts, picking up donated food, and adopting a family!

We received Christmas lists and requests for turkey dinners but families in crisis were needing financial help to keep their utilities on, paying rent, or getting a car repair. In addition to the financial stressors, so many families were grieving the loss of a loved one. Our neighbors were hurting and struggling to survive. Thanksgiving and Christmas are supposed to be a time of gathering to celebrate but for so many it is a dreaded time of year…

He lived in a small trailer at work. He moved his ailing Dad in with him. Isaiah’s gave him a car a few years ago and it was cool to see him every once in awhile driving around town. He dropped by out of the blue and was visibly distraught. As he shared old hurts, regret and grief poured forth. His Dad had died without insurance or a burial plot. We sat with him in his loss, prayed for him and paid for his father’s cremation.

I hit Wal-Mart when they opened to gather supplies and gifts for the day of wrapping ahead. Two days in a row I was in the same woman’s check-out line. She talked and I listened. Her beloved husband died earlier in the year, and she worked because, “When I’m alone at the house, him not bein’ there is like wearing a coat I can’t take off. Child, it is just too heavy.” She didn’t decorate the house and she hadn’t gotten anything for her grandkids. She paused then said, “I get so lonely.” On the second day of listening, I noticed the gift card rack close by and I picked up two. After I paid, I handed the gift cards to her and opened my arms wide. She came behind the bags and we hugged like long lost friends. I invited her to Isaiah’s and reminded her, “Being lonely together, sometimes helps.”

Her recent life was filled with mishaps and tragedy. Her beloved mother had died and an attempt to drown her sorrow led to a DUI and then to Isaiah’s. We wrapped her in a blanket of love and treated her like family, which included lots of food, especially dessert, and inducted her into our elf wrapping team. She came with us to Community Night at South Tulsa Baptist Church, on December 5th.

Community Night included a scrumptious dinner of Cordon Bleu and cheesecake followed by an incredible celebration of Jesus in music.  The sanctuary was filled with all walks of life - widows, orphans, alcoholics, physically and mentally challenged, LGBTQ+, blind, hoarders, felons, poor, drug users, lonely – the least of these as the Bible names us.  Many carrying scars from a rich church like this, yet, here we all were, risking judgment for a glimpse of the Child in a manger. Tears welled up and slid down cheeks as judgment was nowhere to be found, only conviction from the Holy Spirit in love.

In mid-November we were deciding how many pre-cooked Thanksgiving feasts we were going to order from Reasors. We buy food our neighbors can microwave and serve because many of our families live in motels or housing without ovens. I checked our bank account, and my heart sank. What we had in our checking account was only enough to buy a few precooked meals. Nothing more.

I sat looking out into my back yard reminding God of the 20 years of miracles that comprised our Holiday Helping Hands Project. I couldn’t remember a year when the needs were so many and the dollars so few. I was struggling personally as well. A hole in my ceiling was getting larger with each rainstorm. David of Covenant Electric, referred me to his grandson, Isaac who works for Conrad’s Roofing. Isaac came over to do an estimate on repairing my roof, but the reality was, I needed a new roof. My insurance company sent me a check for $3,900, thousands of dollars shy of what I needed.

I called out to Jesus in my bewilderment, and I was reminded of George Muller. (You should read about him). He ran an orphanage almost two centuries ago, and one morning he was told they had no bread or milk for breakfast. Rev. Muller instructed the staff to sit the children at the breakfast table with expectation. A knock at the door, “I was compelled to bake bread early this morning and bring it to you,” said the local baker. A knock at the door, “I was compelled to bring you bottles of milk,” said the milkman.

A knock at my door and there stood Isaac with Conrad’s Roofing. He told me Conrad’s was going to replace my roof for the amount I received from my insurance company!  Overwhelmed and humbled all I could think of was our Saturday Bible study. When Pastor Barry is teaching and he shares a testimony that can only come from Jesus, he pauses and points to Chrissy and she shouts out JESUS!! I was compelled to say His name, JESUS, over and over.  Isaac said it’s important for businesses to be at the forefront of generosity, especially those who follow Jesus. I was overcome with thankfulness!  

As we faced the uncertainty of fulfilling our promise to hundreds of our neighbors, a new roof for me does not provide gifts for our neighbors. But it was God affirming to me that even in the midst of the lack, the despair and the need – He is with me and Isaiah’s. It was the inspiration I needed to keep going. I tell people all of the time that God cares about the details of our lives. This was Him showing me He cares about all of our neighbors and me too. What we see and what Jesus sees are not the same. No matter how alone you feel, no matter how bad it looks, no matter how hopeless, if you know Jesus, He is a Man of His word. He is with you in the hospital, in your debt, in your loneliness, in your tent, under your leaky roof. “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.” Hebrews 1:1

For another week no funds came in. Needs were still being miraculously met, not from our buying but from donors giving! I knew Jesus was with us. In faith, we bought 20 precooked turkey dinners from Reasors for Thanksgiving and God provided hundreds of cans of vegetables, boxes of stuffing, potatoes, gravy, you name it! Dr. Rachel Ray and Cura for the World gave 10 bags filled with everything needed for a delicious feast!

Volunteers with Isaiah’s and partners from International Gospel Center, Bible Study Fellowship, Eden Village, and Grand Mental Health served 55 people in Isaiah’s on Thanksgiving Day! Diana and Jeff were our culinary chefess and chef for scrumptious food! One of the teenagers joining us was experiencing some emotional challenges, so Kiiyana invited this teen and her friend to sit in the pantry to talk and stock. After a little while the teen who was angry and sat with her face covered by her hoodie, was now laughing and talking freely, her face beaming!

After one of our guests played some tunes on our piano and Pastor Barry shared a word of thankfulness, teams headed out to motels and the streets to deliver Thanksgiving meals. We delivered meals to 145 people!  We gave Thanksgiving food to 65 families, plus 23 families with The Barn Church for over 425 neighbors! Christy Taylor and her kids and her friend Jason Parks and his kids delivered Thanksgiving to all four corners of Tulsa AND Sand Springs, Bixby, Skiatook, Turley, Broken Arrow, and Claremore!

Okay back to Christmas! Donna set up tables with gifts we had been given by Pam, a member at First Baptist Church Jenks and handmade warm winter gear made by the Threads Ministry with Evergreen Baptist Church and brought to us by Virginia and Joy. We worked in faith believing God would provide everything we needed exactly when we needed it. Then the floodgates of Heaven opened wide! Conrad’s Roofing put a new roof on my house, four substantial financial gifts came in and blessings arrived from GUTS Church, City Serve, and The Little Light House with toys and toys and toys!!! Jonathon, a member of GUTS Church who helped to deliver gifts, overheard Donna and I plotting out another journey to Wal-Mart when he said GUTS Church has toys to give!! Hallelujah!

Chrissy, along with her life group and office team adopted, wrapped and delivered to 6 families! She wrapped gifts, donated furniture to a family and bought special gifts for volunteers and shopped for our neighbors. She arrived with a latte in hand too! Very cool!

Dr. Chyanna Mull-Anthony, pastor of the International Gospel Center brought some teens of missionary parents to help us wrap gifts! Patty and Diane and Bob with IGC Hope and Help for the Homeless wrapped gifts, adopted a family, went shopping for us and delivered gifts plus they brought friends to help wrap gifts!  Wade and Melissa adopted a family, brought gifts and a Christmas tree! David and his family and Jonathan and Kerri and their family delivered gifts! Elaine and Richard adopted families, wrapped and delivered gifts. Elaine addressed and mailed Isaiah’s Christmas card this year!! Tanya and her team with Advanced Pain Management Center of OK cleaned chairs, loaded donations, bagged walnuts and handmade soap to give away. Tried and true Tim with Isaiah’s and F&CS loaded his truck (for one of its last runs as it is now in truck heaven) and delivered tons of gifts! Jean came by to offer words of encouragement and prayers of support, she was also our connection to City Serve and the Little Light House. Rachel and Tim and their family wrapped and delivered gifts. Kristi and Stella dropped off gift cards and I got to meet Bitzy, Stella’s electronic pet! Michaela and her mom, Rachel came to wrap at crunch time – perfectly timed!

Will of Northstar Fabrication has graciously provided and installed siding on our building! They have also provided and installed guttering on our building!  

Tim and Faron continue to love on Isaiah’s and our neighbors with a heart full of generosity! We are adding a server station with shelves and cabinets to streamline serving delicious home cooked meals to our neighbors. Tim, a Jesus follower, carpenter, and electrician is handcrafting the design in my head into a reality! Tim and Faron delivered a beautiful cabinet and are working on phase two! They also travel wherever the need is to do repairs, transport furniture and find bicycles!

Lisa Bain of Lisa Bain Ministries brought donations and gave us tickets to see The Grady Nichols Christmas Show! Jonathan Biddlecombe helped prep for Thanksgiving and is working on a rendering of Isaiah’s Neighborhood – A Place to Belong! We visited 1st Church of the Nazarene to hear Pastor Rob preach the Word and we were blessed with lots of food for our pantry! Dr. Shea Bowling dropped by with goodies and to catch up on old times! Pastor Grace came by to pray for us and gave donations from area businesses. Robert brought donations from Starbucks.

Dana blessed us with a gift and encouragement! Jacquelyn and her son Jay delivered gifts and got to see the joy on kids’ faces! Bill and Adam came by with lots of food for our pantry. We are praying for Adam to be approved for housing at Eden Village! Patty and I went to One Hope Tulsa and got to give resources and gifts away during their “Lights On” Tulsa event at the Rose Bowl! Emric, on Christmas break from OU helped our team deliver two beds, a stroller and gifts to one of our mentor families! Steve our Donor Snap, behind the scenes, website updater and all-around nice guy is transforming the ‘paperwork’ side of Isaiah’s to make things smoother and easier to communicate with our BOD, volunteers and donors. He is also deciphering my handwriting to make Tammy’s, our bookkeeper, life easier too! Tammy and Steve THANK YOU!!

We adopted 7 mentor families through our partnership with Suzanne Richards Ministries and Priscilla with Legal Aid. We also adopted a family through the Children’s Bridge Program with Family & Children’s Services. I was invited to speak to Regeneration a community group in First Baptist Church Tulsa. I took a couple of our guys and a gal who shared about life with Isaiah’s. The directors of the group, Katie and Phil, have been praying for and loving on Isaiah’s and me for a long time! Our guys shared some of the messiness of life in poverty before Isaiah’s became their support system. Because our guys were willing to give testimony to our great God in very difficult times, two families stepped into our HHHP and truly made an incredible impact!  Ron and his family adopted one family, and then 3 and eventually 6 families AND they donated a car to Isaiah’s! Amanda and her family adopted, wrapped and delivered Christmas gifts and Thanksgiving food!

As Christmas was rapidly approaching, requests for assistance continued to come in. Hundreds of desperate people pleading for us to pay their rent, utilities, car payments, and medical bills. My heart was aching as I read each of the texts. Then one came in from Craig, “I’m okay. But I hit a deer. I checked on her and she limped off into the woods.” Craig was driving our ministry car. The left headlight was broken, and the left fender was bent. Thankfully no one got hurt and the car was still drivable.

At 3am the next morning I received a panicked text from one of our guys. He has been on the streets since 2013 and camping in the same area for 12 years. The police drove by using a bull horn to tell everyone to pack up and move on. He asked me to come get him. I did and we put him in a motel until his house is ready at Eden Village. Praise Jesus!

The next day I was told by one of our guys that the house we are constructing in Isaiah’s Neighborhood was broken into and several tools and items were stolen.

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.” Horace   

Good and bad things happen that we can’t understand. Our character develops within the decisions we make in those good and bad times. We sat in these times of disappointment and struggle with our guys. We reminded them our lives with Jesus have purpose and we are destined for trials as we serve Him.

Five days before Christmas we had worried parents checking to see when their Christmas gifts would be delivered. We had desperate parents learning about Isaiah’s and asking for Christmas gifts for the first time.  We also had an exhausted team. Alarmingly there were 7 families asking about delivery for their Christmas gifts that had contacted me, but I didn’t have them on my list, we almost missed them.

My fervent prayer every year is, “Jesus please don’t let us miss anyone.” I spent late nights checking my texts to be sure I didn’t miss anyone, and I prayed for the parents to contact me if they hadn’t heard from us.

Christmas morning. I had texts from a mother and a grandmother asking about gifts. I had quiche and homemade bread with my family before I headed to Isaiah’s. A family of 4 and a family of 7 needed gifts. Come on God, nothing’s open, we need a hair dryer, books, clothes in sizes 4x and 3x, action figures and art kits. I turned on and turned up my smart speaker and prayed, “Let me gather like Donna, wrap like Alice and Cheryl and deliver like Craig and Carol.” Two hours later, I had exactly what was needed, wrapped and bagged! We even had two hams in the fridge to give them!

I headed up north and stopped at grandma’s house. She told me her daughter and grandkids had to move back in with her because her daughter’s rent went up $200/month. “Who can afford that?” She was thrilled to have ham for dinner! I headed over to the single mom’s home. She was sitting on the front porch. She greeted me at the fence, “You know if it weren’t for you guys, my kids good for nothin’ dad didn’t come through again, and well they’d have nothin’.” I reminded her we had gifts for her too. “What! Girl, I didn’t ask for a thing, but ya’ll got me something? What? Whad you get me?” She waved her hands in the air, stepped back and just grinned from ear to ear.

I got back in the car and made it a block before I pulled over and burst into tears.  I was completely overwhelmed with a heart full of thankfulness!

“Andrew had listened to John the Baptist and had heard of the coming Messiah. Now, suddenly, he was face to face with the One he had yearned to see! Andrew’s mind was filled with questions he longed to ask. Instead of entering into a theological dialogue with Andrew, however, Jesus turned and began to walk. Andrew’s questions would not be answered by discussion alone, but by walking with Him.

Christianity is not a set of teachings to understand. It is a Person to follow. As he walked with Jesus, Andrew watched Jesus heal the sick, teach God’s wisdom, and demonstrate God’s power. Andrew not only learned about God; he actually experienced Him! Moments will come when you stand at a crossroads with your Lord. You will have a hundred questions for Him. Rather than answering your questions one by one, Jesus may say, ‘Put on your shoes, step out onto the road, and follow Me.” As you walk daily with Him, Jesus will answer your questions, and you will discover far more than you even knew to ask.”  - Experiencing God Day by Day by Henry T. Blackaby & Richard Blackaby

Isaiah’s blessed over 1,000 people for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year! We delivered Christmas gifts to over 150 families in Tulsa, Pawhuska, Muskogee, Owasso, Claremore, Broken Arrow, Henryetta, Ochelata, Coweta, Skiatook, Bristow, and Bartlesville!! We gave custom made gifts for a family who lost their teenage daughter earlier this year. Chrissy and I visited one of our favorite ladies in a nursing home on New Year’s Eve. Later that night 25 of us gathered in Isaiah’s to fellowship, snack, be encouraged by Pastor Barry, have communion and to pray in 2025!

Want to know the latest that is going on at Isaiah 58ihs, find resources to help others, check out upcoming events and so much more; then visit www.isaiah58ihs.org on a regular basis.  We are working on adding additional information to our website weekly. 

For each of you who gave tangibly or financially to Isaiah’s this year, prayed for us, shared wisdom and your precious time to paint, update, count, measure, plant, build, remodel, repair, give, cook and teach – THANK YOU!!

Isaiah 58, In His Service turns 15 years old in March! We want you to celebrate with us! God has given us a unique and timely vision for affordable housing and we want to share it with you and ask you to step into His vision with us! Before invitations go out, we are praying for you and asking Jesus to overwhelm you with love and lead you to put on your shoes and step out onto the road to follow Him!

Know that you are prayed for!

In His Service,

deni A. fholer, LMSW, CCFP
founder / executive director / social worker / missionary
Isaiah 58, In His Service, Inc.
PO Box 521063 (mailing)
Tulsa OK 74152
5903 East 9th Street (physical)
Tulsa OK 74112
918-260-1933
deni@isaiah58ihs.org
www.isaiah58ihs.org
www.facebook.com/i58ihs
Isaiah 58, In His Service - YouTube
501(c) 3 non-profit ministry

We can do more. We can do better. Together.