Update from Duke

Greetings to all! This is D-love Duke reporting from the promise land in Springfield, Ohio. It has been awhile since I last talked to you all; mainly cause I haven't known what to say or I simply I haven't felt like saying anything at all--what a shock to some of you. There has been a whole lot of shaking going on. "And the Word of the Lord tested him." We are being tested--with many contrary circumstances, conflicts within and conflicts without, opposition, internal uglies, feeling pressed beyond our ability to handle it, even as Paul said, "despairing of life " itself; feeling alone, isolated and displaced; But thanks be to God!

In His great love for us He who is in control and reigns over all our lives and circumstances, allows these wonderful gifts to overflow into our lives; for His eternal purposes. To see Him, to know Him and to be conformed to His image. To break us to a place of absolute dependency upon Himself. To crush the yoke of the delusion of being in control; to deliver us out of fear and expose the unbelief in our hearts. Our Jesus is worthy of our trust! Our Jesus is worthy of our faith! And yet the fire only exposes my nakedness and my lack. I thought I had faith only to realize how small and puny it is. I am thankful for the fire--Jesus I lack and I see the ugliness of unbelief in my heart; Thank you for forgiveness! Thank you for cleansing me! And I now receive your faith Jesus (Gal 2:20). Selah!



When the Lord spoke to us many times that we would be like Abraham, I didn't think He meant literally, dwelling in tents in the promise land. He does have an awesome sense of humor. So here we are almost a month living in tents--what a challenge and adventure it has been. Maybe we will start a new blog called "The glamorous life in a tent".

I gotta tell ya--one early evening a guy warned Maureen and I of an impending storm coming; since we don't have TV or even listen to a radio; We were very thankful for the heads up. We battened down the hatches as best we could; created barriers with the vans around our tents and trusted for the best. Oh My Gosh! Suddenly a huge dark wall cloud was upon us with intense winds--predicted to be up to 60 Mph; I walked down to the site of a fellow camper; to find them huddled in their car; these are local Springfield people, afraid to drive home because of the storms intensity--I thought oh oh we are in trouble. We, like a bunch of scattered chickens, rushed into the big blue van (by the way, the name of this big blue van is Abraham) so we jumped into Abraham and drove close to the bathroom/shower facility in case we needed to take refuge in it. At a heightened level of prayer, we of course read Psalm 91! What a show--shock and awe of God's lightening and thunder. It was a little freakish and frightening. At one point we found a classical radio station and with music playing as though it were perfectly timed with the light show; we listened and watched! Wow!



The Lord has been challenging me with a few specific scriptures, including putting childish ways behind you. Paul said though I am free from all men ( most of you know, I am a freakish wild man), yet he said I make myself a slave to all in order to win as many as possible to Christ. The other scripture is in John when Jesus said (paraphrased) "Peter when you were young you went where you wanted to go; When you get older, I am going to take you to a place you don't want to go." We know that this speaks of Peter's death, but the Lord spoke to me through it--Lord not my will but Yours be done is the only way- and His will for me is leading down a path that is calling me to a place that I would not have expected or chose. I am free--but surrender in obedience (really His obedience in me) to be a slave--and in His love dial down and adjust myself to others in order to bring the ministry and message of the gospel and His heart for many sons in glory!



The Lord told me that I would have Acts 10 experiences. So, let me share what I believe to be an Acts 10 experience. A guy "randomly" came to our tent site and gave us the rest of his fire wood (only Maureen, Micah and Ethan were there at this time). His name is Dave. He and his wife are Mennonites and sold and left everything a year ago to live and travel in a trailer and follow Jesus. Dave happens to be from Springfield. Our story was shared and a significant connection occurred. So much so that Dave determined to tell his parents (local leaders of the Mennonite fellowship) about my family. He left his card, so later that day I called to thank him him for his kindness (by the way he said the main way he worships Jesus is by simple service to others). It just so happened that right when I called him he was talking with his parents about us. He said that he challenged his parents to pray about coming and visiting at our tent site. If I recall correctly, this was on a Wednesday.

The next day, "randomly" a photographer of the local daily Springfield paper stopped at our tent site and asked if he could take a picture of our family camping. He said he needed a picture because a reporter was doing an article about camping in Ohio. So, Micah posed for the picture, stoking the fire with the tents in the background. Well Dave's parents were praying whether to come see our family, and the determining factor for them to come was a "random" picture of Micah in the Sunday paper.



The caption read, "Micah Level sits by his family's camp fire this week at Buck Creek State Park". The next day Leon and Glenda called. What sweet and treasured people in Jesus. They called and asked if they could come and visit us that night (Monday). One of the first things they asked (having never met) was "Do you need anything? can we bring you anything?" Talk about a timely visit; Maureen and I were at a place of "despairing of life" that very day. Leon and Glenda, a couple in their mid seventies, so full of the gentleness of Jesus came to our tent home. What a divine appointment and connection in the Lord. So much so that there on the spot they invited me to preach at their church on a Sunday morning. Also the boys have an opportunity to play music. It blows me away, for our Lord is highly unusual and very unpredictable. You see, before coming to Springfield, I would google map it and look around. I kept feeling very drawn to Limestone St, a road that cuts right through the center of Springfield. I kept sensing the Lord say "The Limestone Revival". Well a week or so prior to meeting Leon and Glenda, we (Micah, Jesse, and I) prayer walked the South Limestone St area. Guess what: the Mennonite Church building is right on South Limestone. The Highly Unusual One is up to something. And we are excited to find out.

Let me finish for now, with a song the Lord put in my heart about 15 years ago.

A hopeless generation,
A fatherless nation,
without the knowledge of Christ.
Man's solutions,
bring confusion,
people are bound in fright.

I'll awaken My Church to the task I have called.
In the day of My power she will go.
I will raise up an army obeying My command,
To take My heart to every Man.

Many Sons in glory, The Spirit cries out.
Many Son\s in glory, Is what the Father's heart is about!

The Church in it's flesh,
tries it's best.
Barrenness prevails.
With no power ,
in this desperate hour,
men are going to hell.

But in one instant moment,
I'll pour out fresh oil.
My Bride will revitalize.
With sickle and scythe in every hand,
a harvest will sweep through this land.

Many Sons in glory, The Spirt cries out.
Many Sons in glory, Is what the Father's heart is about!

Thank you for your timely and obedient intercession for my family. Thank you for your timely gifts and support.

Love D-love Duke

Update from Jesse

After a weekend in the Carolinas, we're back in Springfield, Ohio with our tents pitched at Buck Creek State Park. Carolina was a bit of fresh air after the drudgery of staying in the same campground for two and a half weeks. The journey there was long and fraught with arguments, especially near the end when an uproar of opinions rose up over where we should stay that night. Most campgrounds were closed. The only one that wasn't had street names like Scream and Halloween and, well, wasn't really nice enough for it's price tag. In the end, we settled on a Motel 6 in Fort Mill, South Carolina, not really settling considering we hadn't slept in beds for a while. So that was a nice break for most of us. Mama, however, wasn't feeling very well and a bed was little relief. So prayer is appreciated on that point.







The next morning we packed up our begs and drove off to Ebenezer Park, where we quickly found a campsite and prepared it for living (set up is becoming a quick-fire routine after three weeks of this). Unlike the sites we'd been using in Springfield, this one had water and electric. So that was a bonus. Plus they had Wi-Fi, so we didn't have to drive off someplace to use the internet. That night (Friday night) Leah, Micah, Stephen, Chloe and I went to a free John Mark McMillan concert in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you haven't heard of John Mark, you should definitely check out his music. Most people know him as the author of "How He Loves," a song that's been covered by everyone from Kim Walker to David Crowder Band to The Glorious Unseen. But he's written plenty of other good songs. And he's been a huge inspiration to me and Micah. So we were excited, to say the least. The concert was awesome. A little band called Matrimony opened. They were cool. Then JMM and company took over. They rocked. I encountered God more there, singing those songs, than I have in all the church meetings I've been to (no offense meant to church people). So that was cool. After the show, Micah gave John Mark one of our CDs and we got some autographs and whatnot then left for the campsite.





The next day, Papa told me and Micah that he'd had a dream that we went to Morning Star (a ministry located in Fort Mill, SC if you aren't familiar with it) and that something was going to happen there at 1:00 PM. So the three of us and Chloe headed for Morning Star a little after 12:00. We wandered around the building for a while, checked out the sanctuary, stuff like that. We asked if something was planned for 1:00 and the answer was no. But obviously God had something planned for 1:00. At about five till we ran into a lady who was heading for the bookstore. We ended up talking to her. She needed healing in her right hip. We prayed for her and Papa spoke sonship over her. She cried. The Spirit was touching her. We didn't see a full manifestation of the healing but she said it felt better. She left. Then Papa prayed for a girl who worked in the lobby. On our way out, he noticed a girl who he recognized from his dream. So he went and prayed for her too. Then we left.











On Sunday the four of us went to the Morning Star church service. It was good. I didn't feel very connected, but whatever. They're doing what God's called them to do and I suppose God's called me to something else. Rick Joyner spoke on various things, including a dream he'd had and stuff like that. A lot of it had to do with the vision the Lord's given them for their ministry. A lot of big stuff. It's almost overwhelming to come into contact with something like that, that has such a wide-spanning focus. Humbling too. I'm struggling with vision for myself, let alone the world. So it's cool to see people who have vision for and connection with the wider body of Christ. Obviously our family has vision for the body of Christ but it's different. Not so governmental. Maybe that's not the word. Well, the means is different. Let's say that. So anyways, not a lot happened there. A lady there gave me a word, which was cool. And Papa prayed for a couple of people, one a man he recognized from his dream. So that was pretty much that. We spent the rest of the day at the campsite in 106 degree weather. And then the next day, Monday morning, we broke down camp and journeyed (fairly smoothly) back to Springfield, picked up our minivan from our friends the Bell's, and then set up camp at Buck Creek. So there you go: a rather long telling of the events of the weekend.





Now to the important stuff. One of the things we've been going through is struggling about whether or not we're supposed to stay in Springfield. Various ideas have sprung up: let's go mobile, let's go back to Washington, let's go find a cave in Africa. Stuff like that. But over the weekend God has made it clear that we are supposed to stay in Springfield. Who knows what will come of it? Maybe we'll live in tents for the next three years. Maybe God will provide a house. We'll see. But we believe this is where we're supposed to be right now. Already God has accomplished great things: in our relationship with the Bells, in our hearts, in the way we relate to people, even with our vainglorious ideas of what moving to Springfield would look like. So, yes, God is doing things, and I trust He will continue to do things. After all, His primary goal is to conform us to the image of Christ. And what does that mean really? It means hardship. Testings. Failures. Disappointments. Scourgings. (That last one was a half-joke.) It means foregoing comfort for the will of God. And learning to rejoice in all circumstances. As I write this I am sitting in a canopy at a picnic table in a campsite at Buck Creek State Park. It is raining. Birds are chirping. I can feel the water dripping on my back. And (you know what?) there's no place else I would rather be.

Jesse

Quick update from Leah

The reason we haven't been keeping the blog updated the last few weeks is that we've been without internet. As of the 21st of June, we have been camping. Living in tents like Abraham. After almost three weeks of this, we are pulling out of the campground today and heading to North Carolina for the weekend, but we will be back in Springfield on Monday. We are at a point where we need some clear direction about what our next step should be. Please be praying for us.

I miss you guys.

Leah