Dear Partner,

Exo 16:35   And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.

We have no record that manna ever appeared in the wilderness before the Lord began feeding the children of Israel with it after they left Egypt. Also, there is no evidence that the manna fell everywhere all over the entire wilderness. If such were the case, surely history would have recorded some other peoples who had discovered such a miraculous event. No, the manna fell around the camp wherever Israel was geographically located in the wilderness on any given day. Israel followed the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. They camped wherever the cloud moved. Therefore, it is apparent that the manna also followed the cloud. If you wanted to have the opportunity to gather manna, then you had to follow the cloud wherever it moved. That is a type and shadow of the leadership of the Holy Spirit when it comes to us receiving our provision from the Lord.

Since Paul declares in the New Testament that manna is a type and shadow of the "opportunities" God makes available to prosper His people, then it is also apparent that we will have to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in order to partake of those God-directed opportunities. It is possible to prosper in the world without the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The drug cartels are proof positive of that statement. But James refers to the folly of God's people endeavoring to prosper without the leadership of the Holy Spirit when he says,

James 4:13-16   Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

In everything we do we are to seek the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ via the agency of the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We are bought with a price and our lives are not our own. There is a prosperity that is God directed, led by the Holy Spirit. As we follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit throughout our lives, we can rest assured that no matter where He leads us ... there will be manna, there will be provision, there will be "opportunities" for us to "gather." It makes no difference whether we are living in the abundance of the United States or in the desolation of the Sahara desert, our manna [our provision] will be there! It is vital that we always seek the mind of the Lord for direction concerning every aspect of our lives, including our occupations in the world. As long as we seek the Lord first regarding His direction for our lives, we will not lack.

Mat 6:33   But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things [food, water, clothing] shall be added unto you.

We have been adding many new features and teachings to the web site. There is a lot more to come. In prayer the Lord has instructed us to make the vast majority of our teachings available at the web site in audio format between now and the first of the year.

That is going to be quite a task, but that is why He has pulled us off the road this year in order to get it done. We have lots of work to do, but we are excited about it because the Lord said only after we have concluded this assignment can we step into the "next phase of our ministry." We don't know yet what He means by that, exactly. But we have learned over the years to follow the cloud when it moves even though we do not know where it is leading us.

The Lord reminded us of when He told us to end the original Bible Study we held in our home years ago. People were being saved and healed at those bible studies. To our minds it didn't make any sense to end them so abruptly. At the time we thought He was firing us. In truth, He was promoting us and people around the world are still hearing the messages from those bible studies to this very day. Now those messages are being heard by thousands of people each month instead of the dozens of people who were hearing them then.

He said, "Do you see how I am able to remove the tree from your life without losing any of the fruit?" We saw it then ... the "tree" (the bible study itself) is no longer a part of our lives, but the "fruit" that was garnered from that tree is still being eaten by the multitudes. Amazing! The present "form" of GCM is about to undergo a major metamorphosis. The "tree" may no longer exist in its present form a year from now, but the fruit will remain for those who are hungry.

At present, we see all of this "through a glass darkly." We only see enough light to take the next step ... but that's all we need to see for now. We are presently converting ALL of the teachings into MP3 format, editing them, and preparing them for uploading to the web site. Once that task is completed ... instructions for the next step will come from the Holy Spirit. Stay tuned … THE BEST IS YET TO COME!

Sue and I love you and appreciate you. We thank God for your generous and giving heart. God bless you!

Your friend and co-laborer,

Gary Carpenter

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