Disciple Making in Arizona: August 2016

How are my donations used in supporting a local missionary?

- You are creating a position in ministry that would not be there without you.

- You become part of a team that reaches young families for Christ who are not being reached in their town.

- You are helping start a church that will plant more churches.

What type of donations are the most helpful?

- A regular monthly donation helps provide a consistent salary for this huge ministry task.

- One prompted by God. He is the Provider, and He does so through His people.

- One which you want to see make a difference all over Arizona.

Hitting the Ground Running

Dewey has been an amazing place to do ministry. We are meeting people and forming relationships faster than we thought could happen. In fact, after being on the ground for a month, God brought 31 to our first Sunday service. That included three from Corona, our incredible sponsor church, who came up to encourage us, but the rest were people from the community that we had meet naturally and who were without a church home.

The Wilkersons are a family that I overheard asking for directions at a parade because they were new. It turns out that they were Southern Baptists from Tennessee who had been in town for 3 weeks. Now Gary leads prayer before our church service for my sermon, Michelle is helping prep food for everyone (we have a meal after each service) and serving in Children’s Ministry and one of their children and our kids love to play together. They had a Bible study leader tell them that when they left Tennessee that they would be helping start a church and they are right there with us (all hands on deck, meeting needs we didn’t ask them to), even in our first outreach project before our first service. Their friendship and involvement is a HUGE blessing and provision for us.
We have another family who came as a result of our backpacks (story on the other side) who have 11 kids between the ages of 27 and 2 who have not been to church for about five years. They have been coming and worshipping with us and it’s been really exciting to see that many kids. What excited me was that during my first sermon I challenged the crowd to eat with someone evangelically, basically to invite someone to have a meal with you so that you can encourage them and love them like Jesus loves us. They followed through with it and took a mom who had just been divorced and having a rough time camping with them.

We met another family who had moved into town while pumping gas. After two minutes of talking we had their phone number and dinner plans. While we were at dinner Jamie started sharing the gospel with the mom and I was able to listen to some of the dad’s issues with religion and do some apologetics. He will need some prayer because there are some walls to break down before he will be open to submitting to Christ.

There are so many more that we have met and it has thrown us off a bit simply because we were ready to ease in with a Bible study, but instead we have started meeting as a church and already outgrown our living room!

Backpack Drive

Thanks to Corona for 50 backpacks that were used to meet people in our community! The first thing that Dewey Fellowship did was a service event (!), even before we met to worship together. We were happy to serve and the families were very happy to be served. We had to get more backpacks as we ran out and we passed the new ones out at our first Sunday. We had two families at the first service as a result of the Backpack Drive!

Jamie met a mom who had also lost a daughter at the Backpack Drive and they are going to meet for coffee. The mom said that meeting Jamie at the backpack drive was the highlight of her day because she hasn’t had anyone to talk to about her daughter. Pray for her and Jamie as she loves on her like Jesus.

Powers Update

We are SO thankful that God called our children to Dewey as well as both of us. The boys left the house that they had lived in since birth, with grandparents two streets away, the school that they LOVED, with all of their friends, an amazing, loving church and their life of college students everywhere and they did it willingly and joyfully and God has blessed that. They LOVE Dewey and our new life. They wonder why EVERYONE doesn’t live in Dewey (“WHY did we live in Mesa so long!?” “Why doesn’t EVERYONE live in Dewey?!” “I LOVE Dewey” “I LOVE our new house!”)! We are thankful every day for God’s direction and Will and provision for us. He changed our hearts and desires for Dewey and for the country and then led us here: He is AMAZING!
It’s hard to be the “new kid,” but we could not be more proud of the way that our kids are introducing themselves to new kids at the park, at Fireworks and nearly everywhere we go to invite them to Dewey Fellowship.

They each have at least one new friend at school, as well as the Wonderful Wilkerson children (Praise the Lord), but we are still praying for at least one Strong friendship with another boy who loves Jesus for each boy. Please join us in that prayer.

We were SO thankful our Dee Dee (kids’ name for Bryan’s mom) helped us move. We

also had many dear friends help us in Mesa and NEW friends (strangers, then) show up to help unload us! WOW, do we feel LOVED! Thank you!

The boys also fell in love with Kentucky. Bryan’s Grandma generously flew us in for an AMAZING family reunion that we’ll never forget!