Tag: faith

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Inspiration Road Trip Testimony

My Wildest Ride of Faith

People around me know that my motorcycle is my favorite way of transportation. I love motorcycles. I am a pastor, and when I ride I spend time in prayer. That is where I feel closest to heaven. It makes my heart jump! I heard somebody express it like this. “Four wheels move the body, but two wheels move the soul!”.

This blog is dedicated to one of my most adventurous bikes, a red Yamaha 1300 V star 2013, that has followed me since 2018. I only had it for a short time, but my time with this bike has been a a powerful testimony about Gods guidance and provision in my life.

God Loves Motorcycles

One day as I was riding my bike, God spoke to me with an audible voice. “Sell your bike, and send the money to your dad in Denmark”, He said.

This was my chance to clear the debt to my dad, so I listed my motorcycle for sale and waited for months, still riding the bike.

After three months somebody contacted me from Trinidad. He had seen the add, and he was ready to meet me at the church the following Sunday. He already knew I was a pastor, and he knew he was supposed to buy the bike. Gold told him to buy it!

I thought this was very interesting. I am convinced that God loves motorcycles and especially mine!

A Significant Sunday

The following Sunday the man from Trinidad was in church sitting in the front row together with his wife. During service a pastor friend of mine showed up outside. He said God had told him to come to our service, and that he had something to share.

We invited him to the pulpit. This pastor had just finished cancer treatment and looked like skin and bone in a suit. This was his first Sunday in church since the treatment, so I understood the significance, that he was with us in Orlando and not in his home church in Daytona Beach.

We all looked at him as he took the microphone. “I am here in the office of an apostle. God has given me wealth and I am here to distribute it”, he said.

What happened next was unbelievable. I was sitting in my seat as he pointed at my son and daughter in law. “God is giving you pick up truck and a car”, he said, and then he turned towards me. “And this is for you pastor Christian…”

Next thing I hear is a roar from huge motorcycle, like the one I just sold to the man from Trinidad in order to pay the debt to my dad. I looked at the pastor from Daytona Beach. “God has seen your sacrifice, this is for you to keep and not to give”, he said.

I was chocked and so was the man from Trinidad sitting next to me. He was here to buy my old motorcycle, and right there God was giving me a Yamaha V star with lower mileage and all the extra equipment that I had been dreaming of!

The following week I looked in my calendar and realized that God had given me this new bike exactly one year after another significant church service in August 2018 where I gave my former motorcycle in the offering in order to raise the downpayment for us to buy the church!

I Yamahappy Biker

The following months I was driving my new bike, and my new friend from Trinidad was driving my old bike. He invited me and my wife to stay in his house, and we became biker buddies. He even gave me a t-shirt so we could ride together. The printed message on the t-shirt was clear. “I Yamahappy Biker”, it said.

One day my new friend was heading back to his home in Trinidad, and the day he left, he left the keys to the motorcycle in the offering at the church. “God told him to do so”, he said.

I was still living in his house, and the motorcycle was still standing in the garage, next to my motorcycle. But now it was my job as a pastor to find a buyer for my old bike, so that the money for the sale could be given back to the church.

This was the second time I posted the same bike on Facebook, but this time it did not belong to me. It belonged to God, so I believed He would have to find the buyer!

MC With A Mission

It took a while, but in the beginning of March 2020 during a conference in Texas, I was sitting at the breakfast table telling the testimony about the motorcycles, how I gave one in the offering, sold one to give the money to my dad and was blessed with a third one on the exact same day as I gave the first one in the offering.

I was sitting next to a native pastor from the Rosebud Sioux Nation and showed him a picture of the bike that now belonged to the church. I had no idea that he was looking for a bike, so right there, at the breakfast table, we made the deal.

Right there I called my friend in Trinidad, and when he heard the motorcycle was going to the Rez in South Dakota, he started laughing. He told me, that he always have had a dream of visiting the Rosebud Sioux nation, so he was super excited to know that his motorcycle would be owned by a pastor on the Rez.

Long story short. The motorcycle was sold in March and delivered in July. I put it on the bed of a truck and drove it to Amarillo TX where we met with the pastor from South Dakota and unloaded the motorcycle from my truck to his trailer. The ride continues, and only God knows what happens next!

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Lifestyle

Finding Faith In Times Of COVID-19

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have all learned how behave as responsible human beings, keeping social distance, not gather in groups bigger than 10, wait for one another as we manuever through our favorite store, that has introduce one way aisles and limits on toilet paper, kitchen towel, paper plates and more.

In this season I have received countless of e-mails from different organisations and institutions of how they respond to COVID-19. Messages from my insurance company, my bank, paypal, the movie theater, different churches and charities, places I have visited or realtors I contacted years ago. I did not even realize they had my email address, so I responded with “unsubscribe”.

What Is Your Response?

As you can read in this blog, our first response has been “feed the poor”. Extravert instead of intravert. Reaching out and touching lives, even though we can’t touch them physically. When non essential business shot down, we can still open the door. Changes motivated by love and respect for our community and authority and not from a fear of COVID-19.

Now is an incredible opportunity for the Church to rise up in love and in service to communities around the world. The need for Jesus is more apparent than ever, and our potential to influence the world is great. What the enemy intends for evil, God can use for good. 

With Vision Comes Provision

In this season we have been feeding our community every night, giving out hot meals to go, close to a hundred meals a day. We started during lock down not knowing if there would be enough hands to help, but so many people have joined the vision.

Since we started feeding the poor, provision has been rolling in, as we have started to give it all out. It is like a constant flow, pallet after pallet, as we keep sharing, a supernatural multiplication is taking place!

Yesterday we received a huge load of t-shirts, and this morning it was distributed so that we could make more room for food. We were organizing and sorting things out for our foodbank. So many people were out there, waiting in line, just to get a few essentials. We gave out 62 boxes, and as we were packing down, we made a final drive for three single mums plus a daughter, her mother and her grandmother!

Where Is Your Faith?

This blog is about giving, but it is also about living. In this season everything we knew has been shaken. This has been a season of turmoil and change. There have been sickness and death, loss of jobs and financial stability, and many people don’t know what to hold on to anymore.

I made up my mind long time ago. Since we don’t know how many years we have in this world, we should live our lives more intentionally, finding purpose and faith before it is too late.

To trust in God is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. The Bible describes faith as the substance of things hoped for. This solid hope is unshakeable, like an anchor of stability that we can hold on to when the oceans roar and rise.

Life is fragile. We cannot take things for granted anymore. Suddenly we see things in another perspective. For some people it might be blurred by fear, but for others it is clear as faith. The world has changed. What is your vision? Is it fear, or is it faith? What is your response to COVID-19?

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The Promise

Introducing The Promise

A crazy faith project. This is “The Promise”, our new property in Florida.

In 2010 God gave us a calling according to Genesis 12.12, to leave our country, our people and go to a land that He would show us. We left our homeland, Denmark, and moved to Orlando, where we started to reach out to the community, feeding the homeless people in the downtown area of Orange Blossom Trail, OBT.

In Denmark we owned lots of land, we left our 60 acres ranch, to pursue the calling of God, and we arrived in December 2013 with our three teenage sons, five suitcases and 200 dollars in our pocket, plus a visa to work as a pastor in the streets.

We moved in to a rental home in a cookie cutter neighborhood, from where we started their outreach to Orange Blossom Trail. In the beginning we served 2,000 meals a month, just us and a few friends, and eventually we established a church, from where we reach out to the poor community, still giving out food and clothing on a weekly basis.

Our vision was to “Build God’s house”, but all these years we have not been able to purchase a house for ourselves. First time we got scammed, second time we gave our downpayment to another family, and third time we gave it all to purchase the church. No regrets, just pure faith!

The Pursuit of The Promise

We believed that God would “show us a place”, a house with land and lot’s of space, where people can come and visit from many states and nations and be a part of the vision, reaching out to the poor and needy practically and spiritually from this place to the end of the world.

First time we saw the land was two years ago. My husband went out there and prayed over it, but he was never able to find the owner. Next time he heard about land was last year, when a pastor friend of ours had found the owner and was buying the land. And third time we came across was in July 2019, when the sale was canceled and we were able to pursue the property ourselves!

This happened in July 2019, and in August we were able to purchase The Promise, which was nothing less than a miracle. 12 acres with a 12,000 sqft construction shaped as a cross. Nobody had ever lived there, because nobody had the permission to build. The house was doomed for demolition, but with us as the new owners, the process will be reversed. Right now we are going through the permitting process, and as soon as we can, we will be moving out in an RV to live and build on the land.

The Vision for Nations

The vision is to have a home with multiple living quarters, a beautiful place where people can come and find rest for their souls. We want to grow the land and prepare the buildings for events such as weddings, gatherings, retreats and spiritual training school.

We call it “The Promise”, signifying God’s promises, not only for us as a family, but for everybody, who will come and take part in the vision, donating their time and money to this place.

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Powerhouse Church

Don’t You Ever Give Up Hope

This Christmas it has been seven years since we first came to America and started feeding the homeless people on Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, Florida. Every Wednesday and Sunday after church, but also a lot in between. Even before the church was established, our family has served tens of thousands of people, and if somebody asks me if it has been worth it, I will always say “yes”.

Honestly, I don’t think about it, I just do it. If I start to think too deeply about what we are doing I might start to lose courage. Orange Blossom Trail needs a lot of change, and we all know that it’s not the food, that will change the community. It is Jesus Christ. My focus is so strong on Jesus Christ and the vision that I refuse to look back and faith in him keeps me alive and strong in all the daily problems.

I have many pastor friends now in America and sometimes I have to pinch myself in the arm when I hear about their problems, how I wish I sometimes could swab problems with them. Just last week alone, two of the people that come to our church regularly have died out in the street, but still, I am convinced that I am graced to do this job.

There is a Reason, Pastor!

Let me give you three fresh testimonies that kept me going this past week:

In our church we have this homeless man that I have fed for seven years, he always sticks to himself, he has a long beard and white wild hair, and not so long ago he told me why. “There is a reason, pastor. I want people to think that I am crazy so that they will stay away from me”, he explained. “I am not crazy, but I am so hurt by people, I just want to sit on an island alone and die”, he said. This man has been expelled many times because he has been drunk and aggressive, but last year he detoxed himself off one bottle of vodka a day and has been sober for a long time. Now he has decided to follow Jesus, and Sunday he was in our service for the first time ever and got baptized in front of everybody. Even I was astonished to see him take that turn. For many years it seemed like nothing was happening but now, all of a sudden, he is changing big time.

My Other Sheep

One of my other “sheep” have been coming to our Community Cafe for a long time. They are always around, and they are always high and drunk. They live in a different world of substance abuse and we have had many problems with one of them in particular. No matter what I say, they will never listen, so I must admit that I kind of wrote them off, still knowing that “nothing is impossible with God”.

This week I saw the impossible. I was outside the Community Cafe talking to one of the guys, and when I came into the building everybody was real quiet. I had to look twice when I saw my “case impossible” speak in front of everybody. “So many people have died out here, but this church has saved my life”, he said. “This is our street, and we must stand together to change our community. We can do it. If they could change me, you can change as well. But it takes faith in God and faith in the church”, he said.

I was stunned. This man has threatened me and my family and my volunteers over and over again. Recently we gave him the “last chance”, he has been asked to leave the facility several times, but now I am happy that we had faith, patience, and longsuffering enough to love him through. Now he is pulling people into the church.

We Saved his Life …

My last “case impossible” is a young man that I don’t remember “not high”. A few months ago he told me that he was starting in school, A young man that I do not remember “not high” on drugs told me a few months ago that he was starting to go to school. I took the time to talk to him but it looked like the word was just going in through one ear and out of the other. I also prayed with him, and next time I saw him around he was sitting down, talking to another young drug addict about Jesus Christ. “You know me from the streets”, he said, “but I have changed, ever since pastor prayed for me and I started listening to him, my life has changed. I am going back to school. This pastor saved my life!” he said.

I almost fell off my chair, I had not seen that one coming and I realized right there that our word is like a living seed. We must preach whether people like it or not. We must not stop speaking about Jesus Christ. The word is alive and has mighty power to save.

When I came home Friday I was still in awe. Two of the most impossible cases were testifying in front of other people that I had saved their lives and I did not even know it. The third “impossible” guy was baptized on his first Sunday in church. Wauv, I never get tired of serving Jesus Christ.

Happy New Years from all of us here in Orlando. We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Don’t ever give up hope!

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Family

He Who Finds A Wife …

10 months ago I wrote a blog about our three sons, how we had a prodigal son party on Valentines Day celebrating how they all three had come back to the Lord. It was the coolest party – we had almost 100 guests for dinner at our church, as we were giving glory to God, worshipping and celebrating together.

https://evangelistministries.international/2018/02/17/me-and-my-house-will-serve-the-lord/

This week we are preparing for another party. Our number 2 son, Hector (23), is getting married this coming Saturday, which means that the Hedegaard family will be expanded with another Mrs. Hedegaard, our first daughter in law!

Proverbs 18.22 states that “He who finds a wife, finds a good thing”. Another translation says “finds a treasure” or “a gift from God”, which I would prefer since a wife is so much more than a thing! First of all, you can’t buy her for money, she is priceless, and secondly, you can’t treat her like a thing, consume her, use her, or put her as a trophy on a shelve.

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”(Genesis 2.18). The word helper in Hebrew is “ezer”, and next to the “ezer” you find the word “k’negdo” which shows us the deeper meaning of the way she should help. An “ezer” is not a helper in the house, somebody who will cook, clean the house and do the laundry (even though she might do so!). An “ezer” is so much more,  used in other scriptures to describe God, who is our “ezer”, our helper in times of need (Psalm 115.9-11). 

The word “ezer” signifies that Eve would come alongside with Adam as a defense, the shield, and a glorious sword, standing sentry, watching his back, as he was watching her back. Do you see the picture? This was how man and wife were supposed to fight side by side in the battle of life, not against one another, but against the enemy.

I am so excited that our son is finding his “ezer”. Her name is Nashali and she is the most beautiful treasure, inside and out. She is his best friend. She is a Proverbs 31 woman, a woman of noble character, wisdom, clothed with strength and dignity, who does not get worried or discouraged but can embrace the days to come with great joy. 

Besides this, she is a walking talking testimony of the goodness of God.  Same thing with our son Hector. They have come a long way, and now is the time for them to write their story together.  I believe that they will be history makers. They have both been through hell and back, and now they are heaven bound, determined to serve him who has called them out of darkness into the light!

The Bible says that two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer (Ecclesiastes 4.9-11).

The passage ends with the famous verse 12 describing a “triple braided cord” that is not easily broken. Two is good, but three is better. That is why man and wife, as long as they are united around Christ as their center, in holy matrimony, always can stay strong.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing, I already stated this at the beginning of the blog, but that’s not all folks! If you read the last part of the scripture, it says that “he obtains favor with the Lord”. This is a serious promise. Who does not want to get married and move into this level of favor with the Lord? Can’t wait till Saturday to see our son and his bride enter into this blessing together. More pictures will follow!