Spot O' Cool Weather

Hello,
I guess the fall is officially here in Florida. It's cold this morning! It was starting to get chilly last night too. My hands actually got a lil' cold. I'm just glad the fish mobile has heat! Took a lil' while to run out of needs lists, i was kinda surprised. The BASIC All star crew took to the streets, and did their work well! Handed out a lot of jackets and other things. We need pants!
Can't get enough pants!
here's some prayer requests!

Stacy => "that I will be found faithful in Jesus Name"
Gregory Scott => "Pray for me that I may find or get a regular job real soon ok"
Stormie Knight => "Help make me a good christian in the faith, amen."
Luther Nelson => "Peace for the hurting ones"
Duck => "a Home"
Jack Bishop => "Pray that I find work ASAP"
James D. Kemp => "For my friend and I to make it to having a house and finally off the streets and stay off drugs"
Tony Wagner => "Oh, no sweat!"


Thank you!
GB HOYT!

"Falling" behind...

Just a lil' seasonal Joke about my updating habits!
So,
This has been an exciting fall if you are involved at all with BASIC! We Have had a lot of help this fall, and I would say, that if we had about $250 more dollars in support a month, we could keep doin' this sort of thing well.

Matt Walters and Jessica Brooks have been helping us out! They are a real blessing. I'll have more to say later, but wanted to post these prayer requests before I got too busy this week.

Prayer requests:

Marlyn Lucas => "Angela Joshua, granddaughter"
Victor Washington => "Prayer for Angle"
Andrew Cook => "For Love"
James Sanders => "Pray to get myself together need a place to rent"
Willie Williams => "Strength"
Leon Johnson => "To let go and let God for work, a good job so I can go indoors to live"
David Truhn => "Job"
Willie Sims => "To get off the street"
Orlando De Jesus => "Family"
Jack Bishop => "Everything"
Danny Paul => "Pray for me to get off drugs and alchohol!"
Gregory Scott => "Pray that I may come upon a regular job real soon ok"
Jesse Morris => "For Protection"

Thanks for praying!
GB HOYT

Catfish are Jumpin and the Cotton is High

Summertime is almost over. We are at the peak of the hurricane season, students are back in school, homeless activists are being arrested in my "back yard", and my mom and dad are about under water. It's also been a pretty busy summer. First things first.
We took July and August off, as far as street ministry is concerned. Many of the people and churches who support us had things going on, and couldn't provide the necessary manpower to get everyone together. Even I took a much needed vacation. It's tough raisin' two kids, holding down two jobs, and trying to run a homeless mission on top of that. I need help! I get some every now and again, but what we really need is someone who can do this every week.

Hopefully, that can happen this year. I'm going to see if I can get a couple of college kids from Florida Christian College to take the ministry on a coupla days a week for pay. It's a lot to ask a college kid to give up a coupla days a week for free, and I don't mind shellin' out a little dough if it means that ministry can happen every week. I have a few things going on that keep me from doing ministry in Orlando the way it needs to be done, and I'd like some prayer in that regard.
1. My truck is about broke down. It's got over 180,000 miles on it, more than one ding, and a leaky head gasket. I have every confidence in the world that she'll leave me stranded one day, probably on my way to or from Orlando. I can't afford another car payment, and I can't afford all the repairs necessary. So mostly, I just need to take it easy right now, and be happy if I make it the 6.5 miles to and from work.
2. I had to take a second job. One day the truck will need replacin' and the girls will need to go to college, so I got a second "at home" job with a website developer. That's right, I'm a paid hacker! It's great work, but requires I spend time doing it, and that means my time to spend with my family is greatly impacted. These kids don't raise themselves you know.
3. There is a lot of work in Lakeland to do. I honestly feel guilty not doing more here. This is my community, I can't pretend that I'm connected to Orlando beyond ministering to homeless people once a week. If students were more involved with BASIC I would feel a lot better, and could do something useful here.

What do you think?

peace out!
GB HOYT

Here I am!

Hello,
incase you have forgotten, this is Brandon Hoyt. I just had a baby, and while when we only had one, i could blog while she napped having two complicates things a little bit. but now the oldest is watching the little mermaid, so we should be alright.

sorry for the few capital letters, the shift key is the enter key right now, and it's a long story!

ok, so the quick update is this:
BASIC continues, i've been doing inner city work now for nine years, and still doin' what i can do. being daddy though, has made me cut back quite a bit, especially since i can't do ministry for a full time living. i've been working on getting a job that would pay more than the bills so that i don't have to worry about pay, but we'll just see about that. Right now that mostly involves learning computer programming, both in school and outside of the formal educational setting. If you know anyone who would be willing to hire a new C++ or Ruby on rails programmer, lemmee know. Also i'm slowly learning the trickier aspects of linux system administration, and learning some lessons the hard way as it were. Namely, get your disk partitioning space right when you install the operating system, but that's enough nerd talk, let's get to the ministry!!

We've been going downtown almost every week as BASIC since august of 2003, starting january this year, i've changed our weeks to the 2nd and 4th sundays of the month downtown, mainly cause i need the other sundays to get stuff ready in the office. if i could get about 3 or four volunteers to commit every week, we would be able to get everything done that we need to get done, and go downtown every week, but until then, we just don't have time. I need to go shopping, sort clothes, clean the office, update a database, and keep everyone informed all by myself. Also, so that we can really help more people, i have decided to limit the number of people we serve every week we go downtown to forty. That is a sustainable number for us to help, and make an impact in their lives on a deeper level.

We do have some prayer requests:
Dan Siegfried: Thank you Brandon!
Parice Wallace: Mom
M.L. Taylor: for myself, for alcohol
Nelson Daniels: need job!
Michael Wright: that i will be able to get a job
Jack Bishop: everything, sleeping bag.
Curtis Latimer: Family members
John Duck: I need a job and a home.
Krystal Coleman: that God continues to answer my prayers, forever.
James Wilson: gainful employment volunteer to lead to employment in field.
Sheral Ables: Pray that we all stay safe.
Dwight: pray for everyone.
Theresa McDonald: for my wedding and babies.
Shameekia Smith: yes my child and myself.

also, remember my family, we were in a car accident superbowl sunday and our car was totaled, the guy drove off, but the police caught up with him, and we still don't know if he has insurance or not. Kelly's leg received a little abrasion, and my back hurts a little, but the kids seem to be alright. So far it's been a yucky ordeal, our car was paid for, and now we'll have a car payment, but with prayer, and hope, we'll come to a swift resolution to the matter.

so thanks for listening!
keep the faith,
GB HOYT

Creating Perspective

Much of what BASIC does involves "creating perspective".

Ok, let me define that: Creating perspective is the art and science of giving people the chance to remove their assumptions about anything. Once their assumptions are removed, and they have a chance to re-examine a situation and consider a different way of viewing the situation, then perspective is created. The goal is to understand that no one person knows everything, and that knowing everything about a situation is the only way one person can permanently judge someone's actions as being damning or liberating. Ultimately, this should lead to a service producing humility where one can obey the command to display a sincere love to others, even our enemies. Romans 12:9-13 says:

9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

I must admit, I have a hard time displaying love toward everyone. Seems like if I have a chance to ignore the situation of someone who either doesn't like me, or if I can find a reason to not like them, then I will ignore their situation, or pose some cutesy little paradigm to their situation that neatly absolves me from responsibility to help them overcome their sin.



What I need is perspective.



If I had the right perspective I would understand who my real enemies are. A couple of posts ago I asked a question about my enemies. I don't remember mentioning the names on that list. I mean, I suppose the only people who are my enemies are the ones who directly oppose the spread of the message of God. They are not drug addicts, prostitutes, murderers, adulterers, abortion doctors, or other "sinners" that many preachers preach against. I would say that most muslims are not "my enemy" because they are at least willing to talk to Christians and hear us out. This article is not about who is and is not my enemies though, I'm writing this so that hopefully you will understand what I mean when I talk about creating perspective.


What perspective do you need?

I know homeless people who need the perspective that they need to know me before they make demands of me. There may be very good reasons why I don't hand out money to them, even thought that's what they say they need. I know people with money who need perspective about homeless people, that they are not just hopeless alcoholics without morality. I know liberals who need to understand that Jesus really does need to be involved in the process of restoration. I have never met anyone who didn't have a comfort zone from which they examined the whole world, and thus missed out on something that is so obvious;



When you have the right perspective.
Love,
GB HOYT

God Loves You, me, Tina, and Steve!

Back from downtown.
Here I am, I didn't get too worked up, but I did yell. I wonder if you can guess the parts of the sermon that I yelled. I'll give you a hint. I really don't think that some things are fair...
;-)
Anywho. I served about twenty-four people Sunday Nite, me and God, and some of them helped eveyone. Things went really well. I arrived about six downtown, and was done by seven. I call that a perfect plan, even though it rained lightly the entire time. Somehow, the rain was enough to feel appropriate considering the subject matter of the sermon.
Crazy...
Let me give you an interesting God story about today. In my travels, I have to decide by the time I get to the end of my street tolls or no tolls. Paying tolls means I save half an hour sometimes in travel time. Not paying tolls means I save about $3.50. Hmmm. It's not really an issue right now, because I don't have any toll money!!! :-D Hooray for simplicity!
In my simplicity, I prepared to exit highway 98 onto I-4, and I spied some hitch hikers. Two of them to be precise, a man and a woman.
WARNING!!! I am not about to advocate picking up hitch hikers. There are just too many way to creepy Urban Legends to just go picking them up. I knew them both!!! I also knew they were homeless I recognized Tina Bishop right away. She's small... I didn't recognize Steve first off though. They are the ones mentioned in the title of the post. They had come to Lakeland for the weekend to give Steve's Kids some good news and they were on their way back. Well, I was able to give them a ride to Orlando in the A/C. God has great timing.

So: Here are the prayer requests:
Jack Bishop: Everything
Adrian Hendy: Things get better
Cathy: Grandma
John Santrock: My Grandma
Nelson Daniels: Need Job, Place to stay.
Mona Thomas: To fight hunger and pneumonia while it continues to rain.
Steve: That we make it through another day.
David Fahrmer: For my mother and for our safety on the streets.
Robert Duncan: Pray for my mother.

Nearly fifty percent participation this week on the requests! Hey, that ain't bad...
So. Everyone have a good week, I'll have some more news later.
God Bless you!!
GB HOYT

Six People, Six Helper, make 12 Together for the Glory of God.

We saw Six people this last sunday downtown. Not too many. We took the time to do a bible study on the book of John. It's three questions long, and you can participate by going to this website: The Pirate Preacher's Discussion on the Book of John Have fun answering the questions. If Orlando is going to change, it is going to change by the grace and power of God as God's people proclaim and act out the word of God.
Some prayer requests:
That we faithfully proclaim the word of God.
That the guys we saw last week get the work they need to find a place to live. Several had work, but needed it to not rain for a few days so they could do it!
Pray we can find a permanent place to meet downtown or in some area where there are homeless people. Also pray that we can find something to do with the homeless here in Lakeland, cause they be here too!!!
Thanks and God Bless,
GB HOYT.

Today and Last Week...

Ok, I feel like I can give an accurate account of my life last week and the few weeks before. On May 21st my wife and I got some scary news. She's pregnant and due early October, and the Dr. said the baby had fluid on her lungs. He said that this could be because of a hernia in her diaphram. Kelly (my wife) and I were scared. We were also prayerful. We decided to tell our family and friends, and soon a lot of people were praying for God's will to be done. I spent some time in God's word, and reviewed the story of the man born blind. The people in Jesus' day wondered at a person's maladies and thought many times that they were due to sin either in the life of the one who suffered or in the life of their parents. This is a common and typical response I think. I know I was kinda feelin' that way. You want to play the "if only" game. Well Jesus' response was interesting, he said that neither this man nor his parents sinned but it happened this way so that God could be glorified. I thought about that for a minute and remembered that in Romans we are promised that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love the Lord (Romans 8:29). These ideas floated around in my head, and I began to become confident that somehow God was going to get a lot of thanks for this, and even if we got bad news, God would work it out to be something good.

We were scheduled for an appointment to see a leading doctor in fetal surgery, and a lot of people were praying for us. Thursday, we went to Tampa to see this doctor, and they took a full sonogram. I didn't know what to expect but I was confident that God would be there, and that he would take care of things. For some reason I kept expecting them to say things looked fine, even though there was no reason for such an expectation, everything I had read about so far suggested that the problem our unborn child was having was a serious problem that would require surgery, and could have some grave consequences. The Doctor who saw us came in, and did little sonogramming. The head guy came in and looked over her shoulder, and then she gave us the good news. There is nothing wrong. There is no fluid on our baby's lungs. Everything is good.
Thank God that He is good!
Your question for the week is, Does God still work miracles?


G. Brandon, Kelly, Katie, and Emma (current working first name for lil' bit)
bid you grace and peace!

GASP!!! a new Post!!

Pardon my slacking, I haven't known what to say.
Sundays have been weird. The city of Orlando has pretty much determined that we will always have a hard time getting some consistancy in the lives of the homeless because they will always be hurried off when they inconviniance the city council. I don't know what it will take in that regard, other than a permanent meeting space. Until they get their act together though, I'm considering a change of venue so to speak. There are homeless people here in Lakeland where I live, and I think we'll start doing some work with them. I can invest a lot more time with a lot less effort, and if there is one thing that I know makes a difference it is the amount of time you spend with people that matters. The congregation where my wife and I currently worship has a youth minister that seems to be willing to see what happens in Orlando so we can start sometime here in Lakeland, I will keep you posted.

Until then,
GB HOYT

All that you Can't Leave Behind...

According to U2, the answer to the thing you can't leave behind is love. While most people treat love as a trite thing that is solved by some mysterious feeling, a quiver in your liver as it were, I want you to think about something...
God commands us to love...
Why would He tell us to feel anything?
My point:
There is a choice in love! Who do you choose to love?

I have a couple of challenges, then we'll get to the homeless news:
Challenge number one: Find the homeless people in your community. No seriously, do nothing but find one homeless camp, or one street corner where you know homeless people congregate to fly signs or whatever.

Challenge number two: Find somebody to love!
Not the "I need romance " type, but make a conscious decision to love someone you don't know. Maybe you do know them, but you've had a strained relationship.
Post your resutls in the comments sections.

News:
Ok, BASIC is changing things up a little bit. God willing, we will start a small group in March, and that will be our main focus. We will meet the needs of the people more intensely at the small group. We will continue going downtown on a monthly basis, but not weekly. God willing this will enable us to have more pants and things like that to hand out to everyone. Two weeks ago we went downtown to serve the homeless, and it went well. We had our usual group of Winter Parkians (if that's a real word) and also four young men from Florida Christian College. It was a great group.

Have fun with your assignments!
Next week Corey, Rafi and I are going to be getting el offico better organized. Man it would make a great community service opportunity to have someone who could get there a couple of times a week to make sure clothes were sorted...
hint, hint...

Later,
GB HOYT - your tardy positive activist...

Prayer Requests, Update on People, Future Plans

Interesting Sunday this last week.
Everything went pretty much the same as it's gone since we moved to the general location we are at right now. Only differences, we started a little earlier, and we were back under the bridge and not in the fenced in area. Rafi and I travelled seperately, Rafi to First Christian Winter Park to get our helpers for the week, and I directly to downtown so as to find out where we are meeting. I was on my way to a potential spot, when I thought, "why don't i swing by the old haunts, just for kicks?" Low and behold, there were people there!
For the time being, OPD is letting people sleep there as long as they get out by the morning. We'll see how long that lasts. Something that disturbed me was someone (homeless or not I don't know) had graffitied one of the poles with a phrase that said "We shall not be governed" I don't know what that means... And that bothers me... Does it bother you?

Ok, we served about 50 people.
Here are the prayer requests.

Jack Bishop: "Yes Prayer for an opportunity."
Vincent * : "Strength, Power, Love for God!"
Thomas Tugman : "For Good Health"
Krystal Coleman: "Peace"
Sherri Phillips: "That my husband gets his promotion next month at work."
herbert Freeman: "Yes to lvoe Jesus"
Leon Stephene: "for a job"
Denise Henn: "my health"
John Mizell: "Pray that I have a better life with my new job."
Samantha Howell: "Get off the street."
Dee: "Wealth, Prosperity, Distinctfulness, Knowledge"

BASIC is going to change format soon! It was nice to have almost enough of the most needed things (Pants, socks, hygeine kits) for a change, and even a few shoes. The biggest reason why that was possible was because it's been 3 weeks since we last trekked downtown. That means we had enough time to collect things. Rafi and I have talked about starting a small group, all we have to do is put it together. If you are willing to have your home be opened to such a prospect, lemme know!

Your myspace lamewad (again) positive activist,
GB HOYT