CARLOS

September 6
135th St, Harlem, NY

We rolled out of the rooftop party around 1:00am and were dropped off at my friend Carla's apartment where I was staying. As we were getting out of the car Carla turned to me and said, "That's my friend out there on our stoop, God is about to rock him!" She wasn't kidding.

Two little blonde girls in dresses hanging out with 3 grown men on a stoop in the middle of Harlem at 1:30am. We weren't scared.

We began talking to her friend Melvin, a new age believer from the neighborhood. I knew he had already told Carla his beliefs but I asked for him to share with me. We began talking and I started sharing my faith and asking questions, when all of a sudden a man sitting a few feet away piped in with, "I have a question."

His name was Carlos, and he was chilling with his friend Jay, they didn't know it but they were just waiting for a message from the Lord. He asked me, "What do you think about people saying "God Bless you," when people sneeze because haven't we already been blessed by God when he sent Jesus on the cross?" That wasn't exactly what I was expecting from a middle aged black man but I was pleasantly surprised. I told him, that was true but we can all receive more blessings from God, we were created to continue to experience God more and more everyday. Meanwhile Melvin had to go, and Carla and Jay were having a separate conversation, Carlos began to open up about his testimony once he realized there wasn't an audience.

He looked around to make sure no one was looking and he pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and showed me his tattoo. It was a picture of the devil cowering under an angel of the Lord. He said the Lord showed him that when he was 5 years old and he knew that he stopped seeing spiritual things because the world had clouded his vision. Carlos knew God had victory over the enemy and then had a story to back it up about how the Lord took a situation meant for evil and turned it to good.

This past June he was locked up with a bail of $3,000 and had no means at all to pay it. While in jail he had began to write letters to God and reading his Bible knowing God would be the only one that could help him. One day he was let out of his cell to go to eat when he walked by a familiar face just coming into the jail, a man from his neighborhood dressed in a full white sweatsuit. They talked briefly, long enough to share why they were there and what their bail was for. His friend told him, "Bro I was sent in here for you." and told him he was going to get his bail paid for and told him he didn't expect payback. Within the next day he was out and he told me he told everyone the story of how God helped him out. I challenged him to live his life in a way that would prove he was still thankful for God showing up, he paused and said he was trying.

He told me he has a court date October 2, and he wanted me to be there. I told him I would be on the road but I could pray for him for beautiful outcome and release, it was as I wrote those words in my phones calendar that my phone started freaking out! Literally starting doing things all by itself and it would not cooperate [and even since it hasn't been right] and I started laughing because I knew why. The Lord has a plan for Carlos and Satan does not want me praying for this mans victory. So of course I layed hands on him and prayed that the supernatural power of God would touch Carlos in a way he would not be able to deny.

Meanwhile Carla had prayed for Jay and he received  the Holy Spirit and walked back home laughing with the joy of the Lord.

PRAY for Carlos to find more and more reason to follow Christ fully, pray the Lord moves in his favor October 2 for his court date and that even now God would come to him and encounter him in a real way.

By the time we got up to the apartment it was 4:00am and by then we were so hyped up on what God was doing that we sat up talking read 'JOB OPPORTUNITY' to hear how the rest of the night [morning] ended up.