November, 2009

How God Used You;

We could not do this ministry without our team:

Read more about most in the sections below

-New name in the Lambs’ Book of Life!!!

- Meeting a very spiritually diverse group of students and having an impact on them.

-Starting a new Christian Challenge Club at an unreached, super liberal Arizona State University Campus

-Our new leadership

-Weekly events and Bible studies.

-Lots of students are being met through ASU events.

-Student leaders are being invested in and trained up.

Made possible by God’s mighty power and your prayers & giving:

thank you!

New Salvation!

This has been one of the most exciting months we’ve had in a long time, and there is no way to put it all in this month. We have some awesome highlights though. I’ve been leading my Man Clan Bible study, in which we have four very different men coming from four very diverse backgrounds. The only thing that they have in common is the fact that they haven’t accepted Christ, until this month. Pat accepted Christ on his first time at a Christian Challenge small group and said afterwards that he knew God brought him to our group.

We have more people hang out with us after as we watch UFC in the main social/common area in Taylor Place, a 14-story, two tower dorm on campus. This activity has helped us meet a lot of new guys and relate to them.

Two of the other guys in the group, the “pothead” and a another student are very close to making decisions. I can feel God moving in the group and pushing them as they interact in discussion and as nothing is being held back. I’m building up some trust with them as well. David, the body builder and guitarist in a metal band is very open to the Gospel as well, and has already attended a service event with me.

I’ve been telling people that my Bible study is like the Breakfast Club. Our small number has been perfect for the guys who are coming, and I am so happy to get the opportunity to lead a group who is all somewhat close in their spiritual lives. If things continue to go well, we will be writing about some more salvations and baptisms soon! Please pray as God moves.

HUGE Coed Bible Study

I (Bryan) gave Thursday night to Ryan and Kelsey, two of my most involved leaders and they have run with it as I’ve been training them in action. I have never been so impressed by such instant growth and intentional use of influence.

Kelsey is one of the student leaders on her floor, and her pull to get some of these non-Christian and Christian girls in our group has been amazing. We have had 25 people there after only being on the campus for part of one semester.

Ryan is recruiting guys to the group, including one former Jehovah’s Witness. The spiritual diversity in no way keeps us from teaching what God wants us to, and it’s been awesome.

1 on 1 Discipleship

I (Bryan) have been reconnecting with one student because God is bringing us back together. He started reading Ezekiel, a book I’ve done intense studying of, and he came to me to share what God was showing him. We both wanted to start meeting one on one again, and so every Monday after he gets off work, he comes over and we spend some serious time in the Bible, in each other’s lives and as friends. Something that has been nice after have one of the best friends I’ve ever had moved away recently.

I’ve also started to meet more intentionally with my student-leader Ryan on a one on one basis. He is a student that may someday be leading a campus by himself. I feel so blessed by how God has let me be a part of His purpose and allowed me to grow in Him significantly the last couple of months in my own life.

Cooking Group

One of our awesome leaders, Kelsey asked me (Jamie) to lead a cooking class for the ladies in the dorms. I was so excited as I’ve been focusing on a more supportive role in ministry and can’t be on campus with the newborns. Granny Dee (Bryan’s mom) stayed with the babies and Dallas while I was blessed to teach the girls how to read the ads for sales, use online recipe sites to always get a positively reviewed recipe and then cook Chicken Milano (mmm!) and eat a homemade meal together (a luxury for a student). I was astounded at how many students came! And several of them were unchurched students and/or it was their first event with Christian Challenge- Praise God! It was also an opportunity to share about what a blessing it is to get to cook for our families and how I thank God for the food I have and the people it will feed when I get overwhelmed or tired.



Powers Update

Oink, Oink! The swine flu hit the Powers’! We got Dallas some “oink-ment” and some Tamiflu :). He recovered, and then, most likely due to his asthma, got bronchitis (and an antibiotic), and finally (Lord-willing!) pneumonia and another antibiotic. Dallas also turned FOUR years old, November 5th. Praise the Lord for His amazing gift to us of parenthood: what an amazing blessing!

Colton and Hendrix are doing well! Hendrix is ten pounds and Colton, 9.5. Dallas has done better than we expected with the transition and so have we, thanks to help from our parents!!! We love you!!!

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- PRAISE Colton Isaiah and Hendrix Elijah are doing great!

- PRAISE Pat accepting Christ!

- PRAISE & Prayer: New Phoenix Campus

- Our Aunt Betty and Rio as they deal with a sudden loss of husband/father, Bob.

- Our roles as Jamie focuses more on being a homemaker.

- Healing with losing Madison Grace

- Our support

- Sanctuary Church

- More salvations

- Growth and development of more leadership.

- -1 has accepted Christ on the new campus.

- C., G., S., J. & M. to accept Christ

How can we pray for you?

August/September 2009

How God Used You;

We could not do this ministry without our team:

- Mission trips to orphanage in Naco, Mexico

- Students’ hearts opened and children loved with His love

-Starting a new Christian Challenge Club at an unreached, super

liberal Arizona State University Campus

-Our new leadership

-Meals and fellowship each week!

-Lots of students are being met through ASU events.

-Student leaders are being invested in and trained up.

-We’ve been praying for you.

Made possible by God’s mighty power and your prayers & giving:

thank you!

Mexico: One Giant Step for Mankind

For new readers, to catch you up: Sanctuary Church has an ongoing ministry to children in an orphanage in Naco, Mexico. On each of our week-long trips to Mexico, we have gotten to build things. The first week we built shelves ad did a lot of painting. This week-long trip we got to build the children a rock wall! It was a lot of work, a lot of painting, and a lot of telling children: “No Listo!” “Not ready” because they wanted to climb on it before it was finished! The moment we had all been waiting for finally arrived and the children lined up and took their first climb up the wall. They LOVED it! And we loved watching them. It was so rewarding. They have had the same playground equipment and toys for a while and it was very cool to get to see them enjoying something very special. We did it in Jesus’ name and pray they saw Him in us.

This was one of the best experiences we’ve had with one-on-one time with the children. Nearly every child/young adult was talked to one-on-one: some an opportunity to speak into their lives, share Scripture, cry together over things they’ve gone through, etc. and some (especially some of the older girls), just building rapport and building a relationship to “earn the right” to speak Truth into their lives. It was one of the best (as far as Kingdom issues) and one of the hardest (as far as children testing our patience!).

ASU Downtown Already Growing Strong

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” (James 1:27).

Before a fall semester welcoming students to the campus, God has already been welcoming students into the team that is going to be an amazing ministry on ASU Downtown. It will also be the only Christian ministry dedicated solely to ASU Downtown, a campus that expects to grow to 17,000 students.

With lots of prayers, strategy meetings and planning going on, we are very excited about what God will do through Christian Challenge at the ASU Downtown campus. Bryan invited all of the students we know who go to Downtown for a time of prayer, dinner and a chance to get to know one another. We were excited to have students we already knew and got to meet one Downtown student we’d never met: the Student Body President of ASU Downtown. God moved mightily and connections were made, vision was casted and a group of people met in a house and talked about how to reach students in Central Phoenix for Jesus Christ.

Support Raising: Faith & Worth It:

Our new supervisor, Brad Schneeflock gave us the amazing opportunity to go to Support Development School where we learned a lot about Biblical reasons to support raise, etc. We also learned (and this was an important discovery for us): that we are not asking for support for ourselves; we are asking for partnerships that enable ministry to happen on the campus we work on for the students we love. And they are worth it. The sixteen students who have accepted Christ are worth it, the students who are disciple and living lives that glorify God are worth it, and being obedient to God and doing what He tells us and our partners to do…worth it! Thank you for being a part of this. It encourages us in Christ and enables ministry to happen on a campus where it otherwise would not be happening. We love you!

Powers Update!!!!!

The babies are here and doing well! Colton Isaiah and Hendrix Elijah Powers were born at 3:50 pm on September 25, 2009! Hendrix was just under 6 pounds and Colton was 5.5 pounds. They were delivered by C-section at 35 weeks because Kim had pre-eclampsia. Please pray for Kim as she recovers. What an amazing gift she has given us: children we never thought we could have. God is so good. "I prayed for

this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of Him." I Sam. 1:27 times TWO!!! Praise the Lord! Colton is home, but Hendrix is in the NICU for some breathing issues. He’s doing well and should be home soon!

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- Kim as she recovers

- PRAISE Colton Isaiah and Hendrix Elijah are here and well!

- PRAISE Mexico Mission Trips!

- PRAISE & Prayer: New Phoenix Campus

- Bryan and Jamie's Uncle Bob and Aunt Betty as Bob was put in hospice

- Children in Mexico: their Spiritual walks, Christian families to adopt them and documents to be worked out.

- Healing with losing Madison Grace

- Our support

- Sanctuary Church

- PRAISE – Sanctuary’s amazing student leaders

- Growth and development during the summer

- PRAISE: New church plant

-16 have accepted Christ

- C., G., S., J. & M. to accept Christ

June/July 2009

How God Used You;

We could not do this ministry without our team:

Read more about most in the sections below

- Mission trips to orphanage in Naco, Mexico

-Starting a new Christian Challenge Club at an unreached, super liberal Arizona State University Campus

-Our new leadership

-Meals and fellowship each week!

-Lots of students are being met through ASU events.

-Student leaders are being invested in and trained up.

-We’ve been praying for you.

Made possible by God’s mighty power and your prayers & giving:

New Ministry Opportunity!

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” (James 1:27).

We have been working with Sanctuary for a couple years, starting with one student to 40, growing and serving, leading people to Christ and developing leadership. A club on campus has become a church. We’ve baptized, gone on mission trips and enjoyed fellowshipping with each other.

Now we are expanding our ministry to a new campus. All of the leadership God’s allowed us to raise up, Eddie Fearing and Brad Schneeflock will be heading up the Poly campus, and we will be starting a BRAND NEW campus at ASU Downtown with a couple of our Poly students.

Sanctuary under Brad will gain more credibility and we are praying that it will become a model for collegiate church plants in Arizona. We will still be connected with our church, but we will be spending most of our week starting a campus again from nothing. It’s exciting to see ministry expand, especially to a campus like Downtown.

Many majors, including Communication (Jamie and I both graduated with Communication degrees) are moving to Downtown, making it a very strategic campus. Also, considering many ministries and churches have moved from the city into the suburbs, it’s refreshing to get to lead a ministry from the suburbs back into the city. Phoenix is the 6^th largest city in the nation, and we are very happy to get to serve there.

Pray that we will get connected with the students God has been preparing, learn the culture of the campus quickly, have leadership come in quickly, meet the right faculty, and glorify God, because He’s the reason we’re there. As we’re very outreach oriented, we would love to vision-cast to students who are already Christians and join with them to make disciples of their unchurched fellow students. Please pray for boldness, etc. And please keep Poly in your prayers as it transitions to new leadership.

New Bible Study with Focus on Mexico

We have started a new “Bible study” which we’re very excited about. We are going to be praying for the kids in the orphanage in Mexico, and learning Spanish on the $500 program, Rosetta Stone that we get to use for FREE, thanks to the Southern Baptist Convention. This way will be able to better connect with the kids, and we set ourselves up for a more long term partnership.

We will be going down for the fourth time July 18^th-24^th. It’s so exciting, and God has already started to answer our prayers for the trip. We have been praying for a translator and for a connection to get some climbing holds so we could build a climbing wall for the kids. Both of those prayers were answered last night, which is why I’m writing about it now. I’m just excited that we get to do this, and that God is actively putting together our trip.

This has become one of the key ways that we disciple students so that we can get them outside of American Christianity to experience Christ in a different way. It has become a great focal point of the church and we love doing it.

Pray for the summer to be all it can be

We have the summer to finish raising all of our support, preparing to work at ASU Downtown, transitioning leadership into our roles at Poly and getting our house and our lives ready for twins.

We were BLESSED to be able to go to Support Development School and learn that God’s call on our lives to this ministry doesn’t involve us asking for money for ourselves, but asking our team to give to HIS ministry and that the ministry He does through us is worth the extra effort of support raising, because the students we are blessed to minister to are worth it! THANK YOU for enabling this ministry!

Powers Update

Dallas is getting ready to have two brothers. We, as usual, are still discussing names, and as usual Jamie is threatening to leave me off the birth certificate because I like some names that are a little out there. Dallas is excited for two boys and calls them either “Twin 3” and “Twin 4” or “Brachiosaurus” and “Diplodocus.” He says he’ll share his toys and he wants to hold them with one hand under their head and one on their back so that they can hold their heads up. He also wants to feed them baby food and will pretend that the food is a car so that they will eat it. He’s very excited about being a big helper.

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

-PRAISE Mexico Mission Trips!

- Kim as she’s pregnant in AZ heat and she just moved

- New Phoenix Campus

- Children in Mexico: their Spiritual walks, Christian families to adopt them and documents to be worked out.

- Healing with losing Madison Grace

- Our support

- PRAISE – Sanctuary’s amazing student leaders

- Growth and development during the summer

- Prayer and PRAISE: In-vitro and surrogacy: we’re expecting!

- PRAISE: New church plant

-16 have accepted Christ

- C., G., S., J. & M. to accept Christ

How can we pray for you?

April/May 2009

How God Used You:

- Mission trips to orphanage in Naco, Mexico

-Bible Studies and discipleship

-Meals and fellowship each week!

-Events for community including free oil changes for people in the domestic abuse shelter on campus as well as for students

-Sanctuary and Christian Challenge students’ eyes are opened to human trafficking.

-Lots of students are being met through ASU events.

-Student leaders are being invested in and trained up.

-We’ve been praying for you.

Made possible by God’s mighty power and your prayers & giving: thank you!

Painting the "Great Room"

Bryan and Derek...ready for work! They got up every morning at 6 AM for breakfast and kept going until after the evening guitar sessions.

An organized shed!

Spring Break Mission Trip: Orphanage in Mexico

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” (James 1:27). We had an amazing time getting to know, spending time with and loving the children in Mexico this Spring Break. In fact, we loved it so much: we’ve already been back!

Bryan and I have a heart for orphans; since Dallas was a newborn, the thought of a child not being loved and cared for as Dallas is, moved us. We felt like we were in our element loving these children. Our team was able to take down some food and toys, do some construction work and our favorite part: spend time with the children.
On our first trip the students cleaned out and organized a storage shed, painted the girls’ bathroom, the boys’ closets, several other small rooms and the “Great Room,” built some much needed shelves, helped serve food and wash dishes. The children were slow to warm up to us, mostly the older children. They craved attention and physical touch. It broke our hearts when three of the children grabbed six of us (three girls and three boys) and played the “Mommy, Daddy” game. Each of the three picked two of us and called us Mommy and Daddy and pulled us around the playground having us do various things.
The older ones were “won over” by Derek bringing out his guitar each night and playing songs, dancing, etc. This was a very special time together: our favorite time. Instead of us having an agenda for them to follow, it was just a time when they could request songs or dancing games, they sang for us, etc. Although there was a language barrier, I know that they felt the love of Jesus through us. I Peter 1:22 “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.”
Please pray for these sweet children. Several have adoptive homes, but cannot be adopted because of a lack of documents (birth certificate, etc.)

Identifying with the Children: Madison Grace’s Birthday

The students’ Spring Break fell on Madison’s birthday/one year anniversary of her death. We had planned to have a little service of family and friends at the cemetery to remember her, but felt peace about being in Mexico on the day. I thought it would help if we were serving and loving the children: so we wouldn’t be focused on ourselves.
We didn’t intend to tell the children about our loss, but one of the girls was “Grecia” pronounced: Gracia. I told her about how special her name is to me and why and I showed her Madison’s pictures. She told some of other children and two nights later they asked to see her pictures. It was during the evening (the time Bryan and I loved the most with the children) and in God’s amazing and sweet timing: it was on the exact day Madison was born: March 12th. I tried not to cry, but of course teared up when talking to them about little Madison. They hugged me and said, “pobrecita” (poor thing). Then many of them began sharing their deep loss: my sister, my mother and father, etc. Because of our understanding of loss and pain, we identified with these amazing children in a way we never could have without our broken hearts with the loss of Madison. God used our sweet girl’s life to bond us with some children in need and we fell in love with them and I think it’s mutual :) .

Praise God from Whom All Blessing Flow…

We will be Fifteen weeks along on .comMay7th and we could not be more excited about welcoming the twins into our family in October. Kim is doing well and starting to show. Kim and I were featured on our local Fox news about Madison and our surrogacy process. You can see the video on my blog about Madison: madisongracepowers.blogspot

Powers Update

Dallas LOVED Mexico! He fit right in and had what family in Kentucky would call, “a big time.” He even picked up some Spanish! He could be heard on the merry-go-round yelling, “Rapido, rapido, rapido!!” Once I walked by and he was yelling, “Alto! Alto! Alto!” (Stop.) I told our two students who were pushing it, “I think Dallas wants to stop.” One replied, “No, he thinks it means faster!” So he’s not fluent yet!

Two days before our 2nd trip there, I asked him, “You want to go see our friends in Mexico again?” He immediately pushed his chair away from the table, got up, and said, “Yeah, let’s go!”

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

-PRAISE Mexico Mission Trips!
- Kim as she’s pregnant!
-Children in Mexico: their Spiritual walks, Christian families to adopt them and documents to be worked out.
-Healing with losing Madison Grace
-Our support
-PRAISE – Sanctuary’s amazing student leaders
-That students, especially unchurched/unsaved will continue to be drawn to CC & Sanctuary
-Prayer and PRAISE: In-vitro and surrogacy: we’re expecting!
-PRAISE: New church plant
-16 have accepted Christ
- C., G., S., J. & M. to accept Christ
- Sharing the Gospel on campus

February and March, 2009

How God Used You:

Read more about most in the sections below

- Mission trip to orphanage in Naco, Mexico

-Student-led trip to Pinetop/Lakeside!

-Bible Studies and discipleship keep getting better!

-Meals and fellowship each week!

-Events for community

-Sanctuary and Christian Challenge students’ eyes are opened to human trafficking.

-Lots of students are being met through ASU events.

-Student leaders are being invested in and trained up.

-We have been able to have a lot of great one-on-one time with our students & new and/or unchurched students.

-We’ve been praying for you.

Made possible by God’s mighty power and your prayers & giving: thank you!

Sanctuary

Co-pastor, Jason Robinson and his wife (and our surrogate!) have accepted a call to be the College Director at another local church. While we miss them, we are extremely happy about this amazing opportunity that God provided. There are too many things to list that will be such a blessing and a perfect match for the Robinson Family.

God has also provided for Sanctuary. With the huge loss of the Robinsons, God led several people to take on more leadership at Sanctuary and as they have stepped up and led, we have seen God pour out blessing. This loss led to a vision and passion for Sanctuary that has been amazing and exciting to see. Many new worship styles, preaching styles, strategies, etc. have begun to happen and God has been leading and blessing each step of the way.

Sanctuary loves Co-planter/ Co-pastor Jason and his entire family and they will always be a part of the Sanctuary family. His last sermon was a bittersweet time. Please pray as they begin this new ministry.











Spring Break Mission Trip: Orphanage in Mexico

We are so excited to get to go to an orphanage in the city of Naco. We will be doing a Sports Camp for the children in the orphanage there and “loving” on them as much as possible. They are building another building and our contact told us they have only one hammer!!! The Sanctuary team has been gathering tools to donate as well as the food items they requested: peanut butter, mayonnaise, and kool-aid. Please pray for the children and for our team.




















Acts 2:42

“They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Acts.2:42

God has really laid this verse on the Sanctuary Team as a model for our small groups, called 242 groups. We have four 242 groups each week: two co-eds (Truth Project & Romans), as well as a “Man Clan” and a Ladies 242.


Community is the heart beat of Sanctuary, which led us to begin a Friday Night Family Meal. We meet at one of the student’s homes (on-campus) and eat a homemade meal together and then spend some time together. We really want to create a community where people are loved, feel Christ’s love, and follow after Him together. It’s a great place for “un-churched” friends to come and meet us.



Praise God from Whom All Blessing Flow…

The implant was a success and we are now expecting! This whole surrogacy process has been very emotional for all involved and we feel so blessed that God has taken us this far. We are guarding our hearts as we are still in the first trimester and are not telling Dallas until it’s a little closer. Thank you so much for your prayers. Although it’s been a painful-beyond-our-wildest-dreams kind of year, this amazing blessing has been very healing and we have seen God’s amazing provision through each step. Kim and her entire family have sacrificed for us and we are so grateful. Please continue to pray.

Powers Update

Bryan has begun working two additional jobs to help make up for our support deficit. While one does take away time from the ministry, the other complements it: working twice/week at the House of Refuge East, on campus. This is the home for victims of domestic violence and their children.

Dallas (and Mommy) are excited about best-friends, the Hallam family moving back to Arizona next month! Although he and dear friend, Grace are so young, they have continued to ask for each other and love each other from afar!

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

-Mexico Mission Trip!
-Robinson family with new job
-Kim as she’s pregnant!
-Healing with losing Madison Grace –it has been especially difficult for Jamie
-Our support
-PRAISE – Sanctuary’s amazing student leaders
-That students, especially unchurched/unsaved will continue to be drawn to CC & Sanctuary
-Prayer and PRAISE: In-vitro and surrogacy: we’re expecting!
-PRAISE: New church plant
-16 have accepted Christ
-C., G., S., J. & M. to accept Christ
-Sharing the Gospel on campus

How can we pray for you?

January 2008

How God Used You:
Read more about most in the sections below

- House Church is a huge learning experience

-Peru mission trip being planned for Spring Break

-Bible Studies and discipleship keep getting better!

-Events for community

-Sanctuary and Christian Challenge students’ eyes are opened to human trafficking.

-Lots of students are being met through ASU events.

-Student leaders are being trained up. One is the youth pastor of our sponsor church!
-We have been able to have a lot of great one-on-one time with our students & new and/or unchurched students.

-We’ve been praying for you.

Made possible by God’s mighty power and your prayers & giving: thank you!



Sanctuary House Church

For New Readers (to catch you up): I (Bryan) got a heart for Church Planting while Jamie and I were commissioned as missionaries by the North American Mission Board. They shared that Church Planting is the most effective way to reach college students and where Christian