FHL Week

Courage to take action and receive the promise

March 8, 2012 Merlin Gonzales FHL Indiana, FHL Week

Today, March 7, 2012 I had the opportunity to attend and participate at 2 Areas (Pendleton/Anderson and West Indy). Tomorrow will be the Martinsville Town Hall meeting. I will share the results of these meetings by the end of this week.

I have said that I will share Taking the land story; here it is:

In Numbers 13, Moses instructed the 12 people to explore the land of Canaan to find out what the “Promised Land” look like. Moses wanted to know what’s the kind of soil, is it a fortified and walled city, and to bring specimen of fruits from the land. They found out that indeed, the land was flowing with milk and honey as promised by God dozens of year ago. However, they all saw that there were giants in the land.

The explorers came back to report to Moses. All of them saw all what’s good in the land and they all saw the giants. The 10 of the 12 explorers told Moses and the people not to go there because they will be annihilated by the people. However, 2 of the 12 (Caleb and Joshua) said that they can take possession of the land.

Here’s the application in our modern time:

We have to come together to once again explore our neighborhoods. We need to identify the needs and the resources and to mobilize our people to take our neighborhoods back. God told the people in Moses time to “take the land”. We are to take the land before the enemy take total control of it. We don’t have to look far to see neighborhoods that are deteriorating because of many things, some of them are non-participation of the residents or because of neglect. Some of them are immobilized by the giants such as drugs, violence, immorality and the feeling of helplessness.

In Numbers 13 and 14, there were 2 camps of people:

those who were afraid, those who did not want to take action and those who were not able to possess the Promised Land
and, those who believed in God against all odds, those who took the courage to take and received the promise

Whose camp are you?

Our generation is responsible for the next generation. If we don’t take back our neighborhoods, we will be driven out from it (both spiritually and physically). We can be a generation that will leave it to the next or the generation that will not settle until the promise has been received. I am for the latter generation that will take action to “take” the land, a generation that will change the course of history and will leave a legacy for the future generation.

After 10 months…

March 4, 2012 Merlin Gonzales FHL Indiana, FHL Week

My message has been the same…Below is an excerpt from my Blog dated May 25, 2011:
“This morning, I was reminded that if we meditate on the goodness of God, we will experience His goodness. The more we focus on Him, the more others see Him in us. We are being transformed to His likeness. In the Book of Exodus, Moses ask to see the face of God. He waited on Him without any distractions. When Moses went down from the mountain, his face was transformed because God met Him at the mountain.”

From the Question – What would your neighborhood like if you could say, “The Kingdom of God is here” to, have higher awareness of His Presence. Proverbs 23:7a, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” -NKJV. Awareness directs our action and our collective action changes our culture. Therefore, the prayer, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” begin with our awareness and faith backed up by our actions.

Action Steps:

Town Hall meetings to gather like-minded individuals who would like to work together towards Neighborhood Makeovers
Identify needs and resources and to see how we can mobilize volunteers (“Take the land”-my next Blog)
Plan together
Implement plan, take Action! during FHL Week (July 22-28)

It’s not too late to start a team in your area. Contact Merlin at 317-578-3370 or [email protected]

Neighborhood Makeovers

March 2, 2012 Merlin Gonzales FHL Week

Here we are in March and now talking about the neighborhood makeovers that will be happening during FHL Week on July 22-28, 2012. We have several communities who are interested in working together. These makeovers start with Town Hall meetings all around Central Indiana. We had 2 meetings already: Midtown and Martindale-Brightwood area. The next step is the formation of the leadership group. There will be Area Coordinators, Projects, Volunteers and other coordinators available at each community. Each area will start their planning meetings in March. Identification of needs is critical in conceptualizing projects and services to be performed during FHL Week. Next would be refining the realistic projects and then the gathering resources needed to accomplish the projects.
The beauty of this process is that we are training leaders to form their groups, formulate projects and services and getting connected with their respective communities. The end result would be relationship building and then the accomplishment of the projects. We have seen in the past that relationship one of the keys to have a successful neighborhood makeovers. Projects and services are tools to bring the community together. However, much is accomplished through the entire process.
It is exciting to see what could transpire when we are all communicating and working together.
The next Town Hall meetings (to explore opportunities to improve neighborhoods) are:
3/3 11a at FHL office (Hispanic community)
3/7 6:30p West Indy Town Hall at Cloverleaf Baptist 616 Mickley Ave.
3/8 7p Martinsville Town Hall at JK’s Cheesecake Cafe 110 E. Morgan St. 46151
March 19th at Southport IN City Hall 7p
March 28 at Beech Grove City Hall 7P

I hope you can join us at a meeting near you.

FHL Week 7/27

July 28, 2011 Merlin Gonzales FHL Week

I had the privilege to visit weveral work sites in Noblesville. My day started at Hamilton Co. Fairgrounds by joining the team for the morning worship and devotion. The first work site we visited was the Meal packing at Recd Cross. It was very educational for me how they mix a balanced meal in a plastic bag.
Out next stop was at children’s outreach at a government subsidized apartment complex. They have been reading the Bible and doing crafts and playing basketball. In addition, they also fix some outside wall siding of a few apartment buildings.
Later, we visited another children’s outreach. They were learning how to make Tie Dye shirts. This was my first time to see how they make it.
Nexxt, we went to a house yard work outreach. The man of family has serious illness that prevented him from doing physical work. The local missionaries helped them in weeding the garden, doing minor construction labor and cleaning the surrounding area.
My last stop was at a Neighborhood Block Party near d’town Indy. This FHL group has been rehabbing a church and doing neighborhood makeover.
I am blessed to be able to see first-hand the works of the Lord. It’s humbling to hear the different testimonials from regular people just like you and me.

God bless you,

Monday am, 7/25 Obedience accesses Faith

July 25, 2011 Merlin Gonzales FHL Indiana, FHL Week

My day starts with my daily Bible devotion, tending my garden, checking FHL web, email, etc. I was just reminiscing how the Lord had rescued us from the extreme heat yesterday.
Early Sunday morning, I asked the Lord to provide us cooler weather, with some sprinkling of rain to cool us down and cloudy.

By 1pm, the cloud starting to form and at 1:30p it rained. (Indianapolis had not had rain and it had been in the 90’s in the past several days) I grabbed the mike and asked everyone at University Park to agree with me in prayer that the event will not be stopped by heavy rain. I also announced that we worship the Lord anytime, anywhere, anyhow. Our ministry leader showed me through his iPhone the current forecast with the cloud of rain just circling around the park. Within a few minutes of rain, all of a sudden, the temperature change to 15-20 degrees cooler, with breeze and the cloud lingered.
I heard from others who just came at 2-2:30p that just a mile or two from the park was a downpour and heavy rain.

The Bible states that the Lord gave the Israelites cloud by day to keep them cool and fire by night to keep them warm.

Lord, thank you for honoring our prayer and for showing us your Glory through the changing of the atmosphere and by blessing our land.

Looking forward for more miracles today. “Obedience access faith and faith access grace. Miracles happen because of the grace of God.”

Praise the Lord!