Newsletter February 20th, 2006

OPEN HEART MINISTRIES
15648 Bombay Blvd.
S. Beloit, IL 61080
www.ohmint.org

Dear Friends,

I'm writing from warm and sunny Florida. Sorry for all of you who are suffering in the frigid northern regions.  Brenda is still in Washington State, but joins us guys here tomorrow night about midnight.  She has had a wonderful time with her parents, sisters, kids and grandkids for a week.  She still needs prayer for a couple of physical conditions.  Please just pray, as she doesn't like to talk about them, not even to me unless I ask.

PRAYER REQUEST FOR ROBERT BARTOW

About 18 months ago Robert Bartow's wife, Charlotte, received a new liver in our Chicagoland conference with Shawn Bolz.  She was told she had only a short time to live without a liver transplant, but God did it miraculously.  Shawn saw it come down from Heaven and go into her body.  Last week she was taken to the hospital for a totally different problem related to her lungs.  They thought she had pnuemonia.  Something rare and unusual happened and she died suddenly.  It's one of those mysteries, but God gave her some wonderful months with health and strength before He took her home.

Robert is the prophetic photographer who lets us use his pictures for our book covers.  He and Charlotte were a wonderful and inspiring couple.  They both were on a worship team in Couer d'Alene, Idaho.  Charlotte played the harp.  She has a better one now in Heaven, I'm sure.  Anyway, it is such a shock to him and his children.  Please pray for them.  We love them dearly.  The funeral will be this Thursday.

HOUSE OF HOPE IN ORLANDO

We got to Florida early and God worked it out that we could spend the weekend in Orlando at the House of Hope, run by Sara Trullinger.  Sara is an awesome lady.  She has had great favor since starting this HOH twenty-five years ago.  She has received many civic awards and honors.  She has been on national TV and honored by presidents, governors, senators, athletes, singers, etc.  The House of Hope is a place for troubled teens that have nowhere else to go.  Now there are many of them in the land.  Some of the kids have attitudes as you could imagine and sometimes they run away, etc., but they listened fairly well.  

Tim and I ministered the first night.  He led worship three meetings in a row, including this morning.  He is getting very strong and leads with great passion.  Tim also shared a testimony, which was very good.  I spoke and ministered to some of the youth afterword.  Some of them really love the Lord and are trying to serve Him.  We did our best to pump them up with an awareness of destiny and giftings from God.  It went OK, but it was pretty hard with very little prayer support in the meeting.  I sure missed Brenda, who usually breaks the ice for me.

On Sunday, Vance Murphy from Atlanta, and Lisa Bourland from Henderson, Kentucky flew down to minister with us.  What a difference having a bigger and anointed team.  Vance preached with passion after Tim led worship again.  There was a great breakthrough, and we ministered to many kids as God moved among them.

This morning - Monday - we had another service.  Lisa shared first, then Vance spoke and finally I wrapped things up.  What a difference it was with the atmosphere changed.  I felt such passion and love for the kids and poured out my heart to them with an anointing that was very unusual, but I sure liked it.  There's nothing like feeling the Spirit of God move through you, while you just let it happen.  Again we had many young people at the altar, especially the young men.  It was really wonderful and awesome.  We plan on returning this summer with our mobile House of Prayer to help them start one in their beautiful facility.

NEW BOOK ALMOST READY

We have run out of copies of our second book "The Dynamics of Biblical Prophetic Ministry."  In the last few weeks I have been working hard to replace it with a new book on Prophetic Ministry.  It will be titled, "Prophetic Ministry - Key to the Harvest"  It should be out in just two or three weeks if all goes well.  It will have another beautiful cover with an eagle overlooking a wheatfield blowing in the wind with stormy clouds overhead.  It also has some fresh revelation on the power and necessity of prophetic ministry for bringing in the harvest.

I am also working on my next book, "Resurrection - A Manual for Raising the Dead."