Whatever Jesus asks us to do will be contested. Whatever Jesus says will be challenged. First by our own hearts.
A friend told me God told her that I should make many hotels in places I go often so when I travel there would already be a place properly prepared for me. I didn’t think so. I never heard God say I needed one hotel let alone several. When you travel as a minister, well, there are different types of minsters and different kinds of ministries, but yes, dealing with prophecy and equipping people to prophesy, its much more helpful to have a spiritually cleaned hotel room the night before ministry than if I am just going to teach things I already know and have pre-planned. Yes, you really need to cleanse your spiritual environment and be on your guard if you are ministering in prophesy, hearing God’s voice in general for important direction, ministering these things to new people in a new town it’s even more important. From that perspective I thought her advice made sense.
It also made sense from a business point of view, because in this under-developed region, it’s probably a good way to earn money. But I was still thinking more on a very small scale when she said this. And I thought, well, pros and cons aside, it’s just not necessary. I don’t travel that much, I had no money, and just put it way on the back shelf. Back shelf, in a tin, under a bottle of pickles.
Until God told me he wanted me to make hotels.
And a condominium.
And a New Town and …. a Theme Park.
I took it very seriously but it still took me a few years to grapple with these ideas and I approached it very cautiously, not reluctantly but I think maybe a little timidly. I’m not trying to be like Moses and run away from the staff that turned into a snake, but I just don’t want to make a mistake!
When I finally stopped resisting and went all in, I was swallowed by the enormity of the vision. Later I saw a mountain with several peaks and it held all these promises of God to me. And flying around it in fiery circles were angels protecting it. Angels with fire trails zipping around it making a hedge of fire. It was taking YEARS to even hear all the instructions, so many delays and I have no idea when God will actually let me start.
Then he showed me that the planning is the start. So I have already started. And one day he asked me if I want to begin the Theme Park now? I jumped at the chance! Yes! Of Course!!! Ok, he said … write a science fiction novel which I now call STARQUAKE. But that’s another story.
So there are angels flying in fiery circles round God’s plans to protect them … but I still am careful not to share details I feel can be stolen. The fish farm is like this. It’s all just business planning, and easy to steal. But the other projects are not like this. If I share the hotel plans, you can copy it all you want it won’t detract from what I will build here. I won’t tell you where I will build it, so I am protecting that information. But the hotel shape and dimension and things is not sensitive. The housing is, especially the designs the Holy Spirit led me to develop, based in part on ideas I learned from studying Frank Lloyd Wright, but the horse riding school, orphan village, elderly care village, etc., are all ideas that do not need to be kept secret.
The theme park is so huge, and custom designed, I can’t even begin to talk about it yet. Check back later for more details as I feel I can share them. But it’s largely a time issue. It’s over 200 hectares and highly planned and it takes hours to explain even in shallow detail.
But the hotel I can talk about a little, which he called Ambassador.
When he first mentioned this I was still grappling with the overwhelming nature of God-sized plans. I was even still grappling with Man’s sized plans. I had been so pressured and burdened in Hong Kong, so badly treated, so ostracized I could not even imagine plans on a normal scale. I really had to take baby steps to build, or rebuild my confidence and vision. Maybe that’s what God wanted? To strip me down to bare bones so when he build me up it would be in His image not as in a rich, assertive, connected modern Hong Kong Businessman.
To get a real sense of this you should read about the process I went through talking with God about the Theme Park because that was a big part of the early conversations I was having with God about it. Look for that post soon.
After maybe four years I realized I needed not just one hotel, but several, and by then I was ready to treat it without the fear and trepidation I had at first. I also already had a basic framework of the overall vision, so it was not as scary to plan an extra 100 hotel rooms in the main castle, than it was to plan a castle to begin to with, or the first hotel.
Anyway, the Hotel he asked me to call Ambassador will be on a steep slope of limestone, elevated above the sloping hillside that meets the ocean about two kilometers away. It faces fairly straight south. It will have a nice ocean view, a large water park type of pool area, about 217 hotel rooms, a large 4 story rectangular amenities block in the front (facing the hill), and a trapezoidal shaped 8 story rooms tower with a huge atrium in the back (facing the ocean). In this we will have several restaurants, function rooms, business services, offices, a huger ballroom, and on the 8th floor executive offices, a very nice fine dining restaurant and maybe also a church hall. The corner suites are HUGE, at I think 112sqm, more or less, and the 8 story trapezoidal atrium with a skylight of some sort will bathe the hallways in nice but cool sunlight.
I’ve made about 19 separate architectural plans of this building already. I used SketchUp for a while, then my computer died, and as a missionary I could not get it repaired for two years. I complained to God and he said, “Well, I have people who serve me who don’t even have a computer.” I can’t draw but ok, I got out paper and pencils and rulers and erasers and taught myself how to draft it on paper. It’s a good way to plan, its slower and you have more time to think and pray over things. At least I did. God spoke to me many hundreds of small details as I first drew quite childish looking pictures, then moved onto making more accurate dimensional drafts, and finally after several years some quite precisely accurate and detailed drawings.
When he fixed my computer I was ready to get back to 3D CAD designs and that’s a different kind of planning. We had just moved into a Blue House far away from town and he asked me if I knew why I was there. No. It’s to plan the Theme Park, he said. So I got started right away and made so much progress in a short time, I practically redesigned the entire park from scratch. We were stuck there in Quarantine and it was clearly God’s provision for us in so many ways!. Then I also made a total new design also from scratch of the Ambassador hotel. I was getting faster!
Later I realized SketchUp was too limited, so I asked an architect friend if he could made a version in AutoCAD. Send me the file, he said. A year later he hasn’t started. No rush I suppose. But then two things happened. A friend gave me a brand new super fast Dell design / gamer laptop, and I discovered Blender.
I’m climbing the steep learning curve to learn enough Blender to make a model of this hotel in it. Maybe you can help me? It’s a lot to learn. Maybe you can help me with AutoCAD, my architect friend here won’t complain if you do!
So if you want to more detailed info on the Hotel planning, check out it’s main page. I’ll keep updating it as I get work done I can share.
Look for the Theme Park too, it’s so awesome!
And also STARQUAKE, I can share a manuscript with you if you want to review it. I’m currently looking for a literary agent or publisher. I sent so many queries to NYC houses and you know, for some reason, wholesome sci-fi that is rooted in family values, military heroism, true science (mostly true) which I say is like “C.S.Lewis X Star Wars” seems not to push anyone’s buttons in Manhattan. The Holy Spirit gave me so many ideas, so much input, sometimes specific direction, sometimes subconscious ideas, it’s really a great book, if I do say so myself. I am just very eager to share it with the world, that is before we end up using it in the Theme Park as the basis for an entire themed land with space hotels, a space bazaar, rides and food! But, that is for another time as well.