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We meant to post these as we were working; but, well, we were working. So here they are, finally. (Fair warning: Before photos are not for the squeamish.)
more about “Home Improvement“, posted with vodpod
Since arriving here three years ago, we’ve had a growing desire to reach spanish speaking people for the kingdom. Aurora is 19% hispanic. We love living in such a diverse area! The only problem… Our high school level spanish. But the Lord has a plan. Without any recruiting on my part, God has spoken to Gloria, a fully bilingual woman from our mother church CCWC. God is leading Gloria to plant a MiniChurch with us. So sometime in the next couple months, we’ll be celebrating the birth of our third community of faith. I just love it when God does all the heavy lifting!
We moved out of our rental house on September 18th. Since then, we’ve been living with my (Jaclyn’s) sister, Jenae, and her husband, Aaron. They have been such gracious hosts to us and our kids, and we’ve enjoyed getting to spend time with them.
The past (how many? 6?) weeks have been a blur of scrubbing and painting and tiling and installing as we’ve worked to fix up the HUD home we purchased. It was more than a little daunting. It was the filthiest house we had ever set foot in: no carpet, urine-stained subfloor throughout, no appliances, drywall holes everywhere, gashed up sinks, murky windows, and every single surface coated in grime.
But we saw its potential. It’s a big home with a nice, open floor plan, and plenty of space for our 8-foot folding table for TreasureField. And now, after more hours of work than we’ve kept track of, and more help from our parents, friends, and Marty’s grandpa than we can ever repay, we are hoping to spend our first night in the new place on Monday the 2nd!
We are so excited and thankful. Now that it is nearly finished, we can’t believe we get to live in such a beautiful home. Our prayer is that over the years, many, many people will feel God’s love and presence in our home, and that He’ll enable us to bless others through it.
I learned from my Mom that a welcoming Christian home is a powerful thing. We’re eager to put this new ministry tool to work!
Brian and Amy Lovell have been our long-time friends and supporters. Our hearts are aching today as we’ve learned that their baby boy, Noah, passed away this morning. Ten months ago, Amy delivered Noah and his twin sister, Claire, very early due to preeclampsia. Claire was not able to survive long after delivery. We mourned her passing then, and have been following Noah’s progress and praying for him since.
Noah had made good progress gaining weight despite many difficulties along the way; so his recent, sudden deterioration in health was a devastating shock.
Brian and Amy are an incredible example to us right now: they are displaying rock-solid faith and a peace that surpasses our human understanding. But we know they are suffering as well, and we ask you to please pray for the Lord to comfort them and their son, Kaleb, during this awful time, as well as in the weeks and months to come.
We love you, Brian and Amy.
We’ve posted about the Rampeys before, but here’s the big announcement… The Rampeys have moved to Colorado to join the team!
This summer, Matt and Michelle felt the Lord leading them in a new direction. After a visit to CO and lots of prayer and discussion, they have uprooted their family and have moved to CO. Matt has a Masters in Theology and Michelle has a Bachelors degree in Christian education with a minor in intercultural studies. They both have several years of local church ministry experience and a passion for Church health and multiplication. Talk about a valuable asset to our church planting team!
Please pray for Matt’s job search. Although the job market is better here than in SC, it’s still competitive and difficult. It’s obviously essential to their livelihood that he gain employment. But I’m asking God for more than just a job. I’m begging God for a well-paying job (for maximum blessing potential) with Kingdom prospects… people that need Jesus working alongside them. Please join us in praying.
You probably remember us writing about “Allyson,” our neighbor girl with selective mutism. For 3 years, she hadn’t spoken to anyone new in her life except at our home. We’ve been praying for her, that the Lord would completely heal her of this condition.
We are thrilled to report that He has done just that! What started as a trip to Starbucks with her teacher, during which she made a puppet of her hand to speak with, quickly grew into using a puppet to speak at school. When she forgot the puppet one day, she just covered her mouth with her hand to speak, and shortly after that she began speaking normally in class. Her friendships have blossomed and she even sings in the choir.
Thank you for your prayers for her. We are so excited about this miracle!
James, the brother of Jesus writes, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” – James 1:27.
I had one of my best birthdays ever today… not because the Broncos beat the Patriots to go to 5-0 (although that was AWESOME) but because we had the opportunity to really be the hands and feet of Jesus and bless one of his precious daughters, Karen. I wrote about Karen earlier in this post and today we teamed up with CCWC to help her out. She’s had a difficult time keeping up with her house since her husband passed away and some illness stepped in. We had lots of volunteers split up to three service projects – one of which was Karen’s house. We helped her do some spring cleaning, organizing, lay some new carpet and patch woodpecker holes on her house.
What an incredible blessing it was to be able to help someone! Special thanks to all the volunteers who made this possible!
Please continue to pray for our buddy, Zach Buhler. He’s still in danger of losing his sight. I can’t imagine what that feels like… especially to a 7th grader. He’s had surgery on both eyes and the second one seemed to go better than the first, so he’s getting surgery again on his first eye on Monday. If you’d like to read his story, click here.
Usually, I’m a positive person and I don’t tend to get down about much. But for the past several weeks I’ve been getting discouraged that our little church plant isn’t growing like I want it to. We’ve had some people come and stay, but we’ve also had some people come and go. Because each MiniChurch is so small, each person is missed dearly and I’m sad every time someone’s gone.
This isn’t going to be a big sad fest, because I’ve got more exciting news to write, but I just wanted to be open and honest with you all. Please pray for our church plant. It his HIS church, and Jesus says HE will build it. So pray that my trust will grow and that we will care about what Jesus cares about. Thank you.
Eight years ago, our close friends, Terry and Beth helped coordinate our wedding and their son, Zach was our ringbearer. Zach is now a 7th grade sportster and still a dear friend. Last week, it was discovered that Zach has severely detached and torn retinas. He will be undergoing a very progressive surgery Monday in hopes of saving the future of his vision. Please join us in prayer that God will show his grace and power and keep Zach from going blind!
Read Zach’s story and post a comment on his guestbook here on CaringBridge.com
