Ministry Update

We have now been in northeast Missouri for almost 5 months!   When we arrived the week of Easter, we hit the ground running and haven't slowed down much since.  So a ministry update is seriously long overdue.  Here's what we've been up to lately:

VBS
The last week of June we hosted a Vacation Bible School.  The Lord was so gracious that we had a total of 19 students - that's up from only 9 last summer!  So much fun was had by all and we had one student come to faith in Jesus and two realize their need to be obedient in baptism.

Revival
PBC hasn't had a revival in several years and one deacon in particular really desired to have one.  So one we had, indeed.  James' friend Lenny came down from Chicago and preached wonderful messages on the transformative power of the gospel.  Local believers provided special music each service.  Again, like VBS, the Lord was so gracious to bless our efforts and we had great attendance.

Salvations and Baptism
We've had three people profess faith in Jesus in our last five months - two adults and one child.  The two adults have had to move from our community but quickly connected with a local church and have already followed in obedience in baptism.  The child who professed faith was baptized along with the two other children from VBS.  It was James' first opportunity to baptize anyone.  We are so thankful that the Lord has allowed us to see fruit quickly and we pray for even more.

State Fair and other Associational Work
One thing I immediately noticed about our work here is how tightly the local association works together.  So many of the local pastors (including our Director of Missions) came to our revival which was such an encouragement.  I recently got to go to the Missouri State Fair for the day with other ministers from the association to share the gospel with other attendees at the fair.  In our four hours of work, we shared the gospel with 95 people and 7 professed faith. 

 

These are just the highlights of the past five months.  In addition, we've had the youth and children over several times, visited the local nursing homes every month, gone visiting with other church members, worshiped at local hymn sings, attended WMU meetings, etc... 

 

How you can pray for us:

• Time Management!  Particularly for James, our time is stretched and we need to be more intentional about using it well.
• Relationships - we have befriended several people/families in our community who are not believers.  Pray for these relationships to grow and that we might be bold in sharing the gospel.  Pray specifically for LH, JM, RL, and the S family.
• Beginning New Ministries:  We have plans for two or three new ministries at PBC. 
• Praise!  I had recently been struggling with a bit of loneliness as there aren't too many stay-at-home Mamas my age in our community.  The Lord very quickly answered my prayer as at our revival I met another pastor's wife from a church about 45 minutes away that hosts a weekly "Mornings with Moms" Bible Study every Thursday.  It starts next week and I can't tell you how excited I am about getting out and meeting other Mamas.