We serve a great GOD

Today the weather has been pretty bad; it has rained non-stopped for the 4 hours we were opened. It wasn't just natural rain, which came down; the rain of the Holy Spirit came into Genesis today. We had the privilege of helping a pilgrim from Uganda in Africa, who had missed his flight to Sydney. He came in confused and disorientated. We spent an hour with him trying to find out his journey and what had happened. Once we found out he was heading to Sydney for world youth day, We contacted Qantas to see if we could re-schedule his flight, and made a phone call to international flights HQ, and before to long he was booked on a flight to leave Perth tonight, in time for him to join in with all the festivities in Sydney.

God’s spirit rained down when he got up to leave, he said "I will pray for you guys, I will pray that God keeps you strong in your job, and I have thanked God already for sending you in my path to help me. How good is our God". Immediately all the staff where touched by God’s spirit.

After this was said and he finished giving all the staff a hug, I think most of the staff was really in tears. Today we experienced God breathing his fresh spirit on us today. We thank God that all worked out for this young man today, and that he always takes care of us even when we are in need. We do serve a great God.

Hi all

Hi all.

Currently I am on holidays, hence the big gaps in blogs. I apologise for this. Seeing it is a Genesis blog, I don't normally want to say to much about what is happening to in mylife, I just want it to be a blog spot where you can have first hand experience of all the good things God is doing at the Genesis centre.

What I will say, is that Iwent to a church service tonight and the pastor spoke about us all having a story to tell. When we come into a relationship with God and ask the Holy Spirit into our lives, they are transformed forever. He then went on to say that we all have a story to tell. I have a lot of stories about Genesis. But more importantly we each have individual stories about how God is working in our lives. We have a powerful story to tell about Jesus Christ, which can change peoples' lives forever. How great is our God.

The support for this blog has been gathering. I ask that you pray for the workers and volunteers at Genesis this week, as they are 3 workers down and the work load will be much heavier for them. I pray that God's protection keeps them safe and that there will be lives transformed through the work they do this week.

Creating Culture

Sorry for the lapse in posts over the past week, I have been in adelaide for 3 days of last week and for 3 days this week our internet has been down at work, so it has made it very difficult to post on the blog. Thankyou all for your support.

We want Genesis to be a place where people from all walks of life encounter God and experience his character through the staff and volunteers who work at the Centre.

At Genesis we want to cultivate a culture of celebrating victories. Working on the front line doesn’t always have positive experiences but in learning to celebrate our victories and as a team encourage each other through our Genesis history book, positive emails and letters and throwing out the critical ones after they have been dealt with… this keeps us healthy and encourages us to keep moving forward.

We can’t sit back waiting for “Holy Spirit fairy dust’ to magically change the culture of our Centre. We need to lead – to intentionally shift the culture to one of passion, faith and grace. Of course we take into consideration the socio-economic and community factors, but this doesn’t change the fact that the ultimate responsibility for creating a powerful culture lies with the team.

One thing we are constantly made aware of at our Centre is that people don’t quote the Bible….they quote you! They mimic your behavior, speech, body language, sense-of-humour and attitudes because you are their teacher. In a perfect world these people would take their cues in life directly from the Holy Spirit….but this isn’t a perfect world so they follow you! And in doing so, you create CULTURE.

Broken wheel chair

Well were do I start? What a week it has been at Genesis.

Today was the end of a long journey, which started Tuesday this week. We have a 85 year old who frequents the centre and on Tuesday he walked from his home to Genesis. To put this in perspective it would take me 5 minutes to walk this distance. It would have taken him 30 to 45 minutes to walk this distance. He came to tell us that his motorised wheel chair had broken. I have never seen this guy so lost and so sad in the time he has come to the centre.

I don’t know if you understand what it is like to be with out your mode of transport for 4 days? But for him it was not just a mode of transport it was what his life revolved around. After looking at the wheel chair we decided it needed to be fixed. For 3 days he walked from home to genesis and after we shut we dropped him of home.

But, there is good news. Today we went to pick the wheel chair up, it had 4 new tires, new battery and charger, a new basket on the front and a cover to stop it from getting wet. When I drove it into Genesis he was so happy. His face had joy written all on it. All week he had not been able to do any shopping, the first thing he said to me was "thankyou very much" then he said " now I am of to buy some bananas". We thank the scooter shop for fixing his wheel chair.

We thank God that over this week he has kept this man safe.

We also thank God that his wheelchair is now fixed and working better then ever.

We also send out a special thanks to Perth Family Support centre, for helping with 50% of the cost involved for fixing the chair.

Good news

For many years one of our friends at Genesis has been living in her home. Over this period of time she has struggled to get a person to come and do some maintenance on her house. With deteriorating taps, fly screens and fans, her house was becoming a bit of a hassle. One of the workers at Genesis made one phone call expressing these concerns last week.

Today we had some good news, our friend called up and said all maintenance had been completed and everything was working well.

We don’t know why after many years of this person trying to get stuff done, it only takes a phone call from a caseworker to get something done. All we do is thank God that all is working well now at her house.

Matthew 7:7-8

Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be open to you. 8. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be open.

Feed back

Hi to all who read this blog.
It has now been 2 weeks since I started this blog and during this time we have had so much success in people’s lives through the centre. I thank all those who have prayed for all the staff and clients at Genesis.

I am just wanting a little feedback from those who read this blog frequently on whether it is worth continuing? You can give feedback by writing on the comments page or send me an email steven_freind@hotmail.com.

Look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Thanks again for all your support.
God bless.

Lending a helping hand

Just before lunch today I was getting ready to take all the food down to the park. At this point I still did not have any volunteer organised to come and help me give out the lunches. As I was walking back inside I was thinking who could I get to come and help? Then I heard a young guy only 17 ask me if I needed a hand with lunch. He came down to help me with lunch; I was able to have a really good conversation with him about what he would like to do with his life. I really enjoyed the time spent with this person and will hopefully have the opportunity to catch up weekly for a chat. I thanked him very much for helping me with lunch; he replied,

"I can tell my mum that today I was able to help the Salvos give out lunch".

It made me think yet again "how great is our God". It amazes me how often we need something and God seems to put someone or something in our path to make things a lot easier or more helpful for the task at hand.

Numbers 6:24-26

May the Lord bless you and keep you: the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you: the Lord turn his face toward you and and give you peace.