January 7, 2010: Side Trip

"Test me on this."

Good Morning, my dear brothers and sisters. It is cold, even at the Southern Location of the North Pole it is cold. And no need to move South for it is cold there also. Are we thankful for a warm house today, on this our family day on the line. Yes, folks, family day and the day we pray for families. Again I ask that you pray for the family in the White House and pray first for Salvation and that our President takes things to God before he brings them to us.

Today I want to take a side trip from the journey and bring all of you up to date on Carry The Light Ministries. We have such an outpouring of support from a lot on this line. This is really needed. So bear with me as I go through some past history and bring you up to date...

Malachi 3: 10 - "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me on this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessings that you will not have room enough for it." (NIV)

In 1980 I was Born Again, although I knew Jesus, I really did not "KNOW" Him as having him in my heart.

On May 30, 1982 Dolores and I were married and that November she purchased me my first Santa Suit... I started being Santa that year and from then to 1992 I did Santa on a motorcycle (got cold sometimes). December 24, 1990 (Christmas Eve) I was stopped in traffic and was hit in the rear by a car. This accident caused me to have many back surgeries and changed my way of life. The accident turned out to be a blessing... Although I still have severe back pain, this is when I changed from working for dollars to working for Jesus... and someone said PRAISE THE LORD.

In 1993 Santa moved from motorcycles to a big red pickup and then about 8 years ago we moved to the big antique charter buses. We do not charge to do Santa but we must be able to tell folks about the Lord Jesus and we do try and get donations of food for doing this.

It was in 1993 when Carry The Light Ministries was formed. The ministry started out singing at retirement and nursing homes, something that we still do today. We still try and sing about 50 concerts a year, in the earlier years we did more than that. We wore out our 1993 GMC Van that was purchased new, and last year updated it with a high mileage 2004 Chevrolet Suburban. We do not travel the distances that we once did. Amazing how many retirement and nursing homes there are. We have NEVER charged for any concerts and we do not ask for donations, however, they are not turned away. I would like to give Glory to God for this and thanks to Doug Boyer, Tim Beitzel, Duane Nicholson, Neil Enloe and Phil Enloe for getting me started on this gospel mission of singing. It was going to their concerts that got me interested in singing. I would also like to thank Pamela Bower, our Ministry partner, for standing beside me and singing for all these years. There were others in the group and we have appreciated all of them... Dolores is our Piano Player.

I do not remember the date but it was near the beginning of Carry The Light Ministries when I started writing the daily message. God gives them to me fresh daily.

Thirteen years ago when Allenberry Playhouse started their Christmas plays, I was honored to be their first Santa... and to this day Dolores (Mrs. Claus) and I still do this outreach. Again, we are not paid for this program which lasts two months each year. The Heinze family, who owns Allenberry Playhouse, donates food to the ministry (this year 50 hams and 50 turkeys) ... Thus the forming of our food Pantry.

Food Pantry... Oh how it has grown. For many years we dropped the food off at different places each year, most often New Hope Ministries in Mechanicsburg, and a mission in Harrisburg. Five years ago God talked to me about starting our own food pantry to reach out to the hungry. The first two years it was a Christmas thing only. The past three years we are open year round, and last summer we built our basement like a food store. It was a major investment, but thanks be to God we have those bills just about paid off. This past year we furnished food, and I mean a lot of food, to over 100 families, and you just need to know that although our checkbook is flat right now, the shelves are not empty... WE HAVE LEFTOVERS to start this year and just yesterday sisters Wanda and her husband Grant saw to it we got the "day outs" of bread from our local Giant store and later yesterday her sister Glenda came to the house with cases of canned food... Praise God...

About ten years ago I did a home study and got ordained. Since then I have done weddings, funerals and have been blessed to be Pastor at The Bridges of Bent Creek retirement home in Silver Spring Township, Mechanicsburg, Pa. The Sunday before Palm Sunday it will be five full years. Dolores is our minister of music. This again is done without charge or pay... we do not pass an offering plate, although we do set one out for some people who want to give to their storehouse. We also do many hospital visits related to this ministry.

What else does the ministry do? Plow snow, and again at no charge. This does bring in donations for the ministry. I am also one of the Vice Presidents of the Museum of Bus Transportation, and this past year Dolores and I were blessed to be able to donate five of our antique buses to the museum. The museum is a lot of fun and I am also the Chaplain of the Museum, and yes, before our meals together and before and after meetings this museum board calls on the Lord to help us...

Other things done with Ministry dollars... We purchased a deliberator for the township and eight hundred dollars worth of bikes for kids to help our local police with their Cops for Kids project.
We have also been able to gift kids with many, many toys. The day after Christmas I purchased all of the left over stuffed animals at our local Wal Mart and the Giant store.

We also adopt senior (small dogs) that others do not want... right now we have a house full of them. We keep them till they either die in our arms or are in pain where their life must be ended. They are a joy. Right now our oldest is a 20 year old Yorkshire, we also have chickens to have fresh eggs for some of the regulars to our food pantry and we have three pet goats and one rabbit. GOD IS GOOD...

Now I want to thank all of you, and I am not going to attempt to list names or businesses for the fear I might miss one. Each one who has helped should have gotten either an email thank you note or one in the mail. Dolores keeps up with that well. OUR MISSIONS FOR THE LORD COULD NOT BE DONE WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF OTHERS. However, folks, we would like to give all the glory to God. Yes, you folks who help us, we appreciate all of you, but the glory is not yours, or ours, it is God's, and I am sure you all understand that. We have many supporters who have stuffed the truck at the AACA Museum In Hershey Pa. with food. We had food carts in four churches and many, many folks stuffed them with food, and we had two schools on board with us this year. And folks, we had food sorting parties at our house and packing parties and loading parties. One lady, Wanda, laid on her back under the bus loading bag after bag of food, and it was a cold day.

Folks, we are so blessed, and each day I tell you when I close to share your blessings. Once I learned that in life and that you give to God from the top, not the bottom, of your pay, things work out. Dolores and I are both retired on Social Security and I have a retirement income as a former school administrator so you can see if it were not for those blessings we receive in the mail this mission could not go forward. Folks, if you saw our basement right now you would know the meaning of this scripture that I wrote at the top of this letter to you. While our store house still has room, we just rebuilt it this past summer. If it was like the year before there would not have been room. The time might come we need to put in more shelving, or purchase more freezers. We purchased two of them last year.

IF YOU KNOW OF PEOPLE NEEDING HELP WITH FOOD, please let us know, and we will do our very best to help. Our information is at the end of this note.

FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS... THANK YOU JESUS, AND thanks to all of you for reading, for praying for us, for the notes of prayer and notes with a few dollars in to them to notes with fives, tens and checks for more, and for the food being dropped off at our door... and for those helping at the packing parties. WE COULD NOT DO THIS WITHOUT YOU.
Thanks again. Pastor Daniel W. and Dolores C. Lehman, Pamela S. Bower, and also Martin, Martin, K-9.

Dear Father in Heaven, Thanks for taking care of us, thanks for trusting us to work for You... Thanks for being there for us. Thanks for Jesus... In the name of Jesus, I pray, Amen.

Now go forth and keep sharing your blessings. love ya, dan.

Carry The Light Ministries
16 Dewalt Drive
Mechanicsburg.. Pa. 17050
717 691 8200
717 991 0754