October, 2011

Great Retreat with a Diverse Group


I am always amazed at who will pay to go to a tiny city four hours away with people that they have known for a month, in a group whose purpose is to share Jesus. There are so many people opposed to what we do on campus, and that is understandable because our beliefs are in complete contradiction with the University's secular humanism.


But when they come with us, it's really exciting, because they start to realize that all Christians don't match up to their stereotypes and that we may be on to something. One quote from the weekend was from a girl who is wrestling with her sexual orientation. She said, "It's really cool how you guys believe everything in the Bible. I've never really thought of it that way before."


There are the students that we are reaching. She is part of the group and we're going to love her, but not be afraid to share with her.


For worship, we exhausted all of our contacts and Thursday night, the day before we were supposed to leave, we still had no one. The morning we left, God had provided a freshman who was willing to lead for us and it was awesome. We did some campfire worship and gave the students some time to spend one on One time with God, challenging them to surrender.


After the message, the girls met by themselves and each of them took something different that they needed to surrender. The guys connected as well and one freshman stood out as a leader. My nightmare of Ryan and Kelsey graduating is approaching, but as I'm seeing new leadership develop, it is really encouraging. 


Please pray for the students that God was working with on this retreat and for the new students that we are reaching this semester. 





New Bible Study!


We now have two quality Bible studies going at ASU Downtown. Thursday has been operating as a large group and we are starting to bring in guest speakers. The GCU students are coming as part of them and have been helping out. Because both universities have big nursing schools, it's been a natural fit.  


Maria has been doing an excellent job and has made it through James with the students. She has lead Bible studies before, but is now really getting the hang of it and sharing some good insight. We have some students coming to her study that couldn't make it to the other Bible study, like J who has been a great servant and who is planning to be a missionary. 


We've also had a hand in helping a girl start a Bible study who couldn't come to either of ours. We encouraged her to do it , then gave her some material to use and she is planning on coming to our Bible study leader training. 










Powers Update


Dallas still loves Kindergarten. He became a "Spark" in Awanas at our church and he loves that! I (Jamie) get to teach a few of the Council times and Dallas and I are very excited about that.


The "Little Boys" are also in Awanas. They are Puggles! The two year old class is sooooo cute! It's so much fun getting to hear more and more words and understanding from them. They are SO excited when they say a word and we understand. Dallas enjoys teaching them new words and is still the most amazing, kind, patient, loving and attentive big brother  that we could have asked for. He genuinely enjoys them and being around them.


We are venturing out more to museums, the zoo, libraries, parks, etc. The little guys aren't just wild 18 month olds running around! They know that they have to obey, they just want to see how soon and how often! SO they try to run off every once in a while, but for the most part, they're more portable(!), which is MORE FUN! But please pray for patience for Bryan and me as we are training up the TWO's! They are so precious...and so mischievous! 

At the zoo:

I was shocked when I went into the twins' room and saw this empty crib!

Then I looked over at the other crib and saw this:

Thank you for your prayers! 
Please pray:


-Maria, our new Bible study leader
-Ryan and Kelsey
-New church!
-Handling two campuses
-Kids in Mexico
-Healing with losing our Madison Grace
-Us to train our boys up in a Godly way
-Our financial support
-Sanctuary Church
-More salvations

September, 2011

How are my donations used in Christian Challenge?

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

- You become part of a team that reaches students for Christ who are not being reached by a typical church.

- You allow there to be light on a spiritually dark campus of 15,000 students.

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

Strategy for success!

If you were praying with us for Grand Canyon University and its role as a strategy to reach all the college students in Metro Phoenix, thank you because God has answered our prayer!

We have formed a partnership with GCU and we’re requesting ten students who will act as Christian Challenge interns! These students will be serving across the Valley on various campuses. Three Christian Challenge staffers (including myself) are serving multiple campuses.

The goal is for these students to serve Christian Challenge for the four (or five) years that they are students while we train them to lead Bible studies, disciple other students, evangelize and lead missions. They then will have had such a positive experience that they will want to step into a staff role with Christian Challenge and help reach the dozens of other college campuses with absolutely no evangelical presence on them.

As the campus and program grows, we will soon have a pool of people with experience and a heart for college students to choose from to reach the campuses that our staff of seven doesn’t have a chance to reach yet.

This has been such an answer to prayer and makes the goal of reaching the 350,000 college students in Metro Phoenix that much closer to happening.

Please pray for us as we serve at two campuses. We are still very much involved at ASU Downtown, where some great things are happening. We have a new Bible study leader stepping up this year, and we’re very excited to see how her life experience and personality color the Bible study.

We are also taking more people to Mexico to visit the kids at the orphanage that we love so much. We just got back from there with some students who had gone before and were missing them too. We’re taking more students down in October.

Helping a church get started!

Planting Sanctuary Church taught us the pressures and difficulties of getting the initial group together and every step along the way as the church plant grow. This problem is multiplied when you are doing an urban church plant in downtown Phoenix.

There is a church planter moving just a couple miles from our campus and we met and hit it off instantly. We were finishing each other sentences on what we felt with our experiences with church planting, we both drive impractical 4x4s that we love and we have become friends already.

Since we have a strong group downtown already, we are going to help him get started. He’s going to lead some Bible studies downtown for our group and in a partnership with him we will help evangelize downtown Phoenix as his home church network grows.

Powers Update

Our “Big Boy,” Dallas started Kindergarten and he loves it! It’s hard to believe that he’ll be gone so long each day for so many years! We miss him! But he loves being a big kid. J

The “Little Boys” are growing so fast. This month they will turn TWO! Our little men have given us a “run for our money” the last couple of months, with DESTRUCTION!!! They found new ways to destroy their room after every nap. We had to turn their dresser around (the knobs towards the wall) because they climb on it (using the “child-locked” drawers to get up!). While up there, they threw their CD player onto the floor and ripped the antenna completely off of it. They broke the straps that kept their closet doors shut, and the next ones we bought. Then when Bryan drilled some straps into the wall, the pushed the closet off of its rails into the closet. They pulled down an over-the-door shoe rack SO hard…that it broke the hinges of the door! That is to just name a few! Thank God they are gorgeous, hilarious, SWEET little guys and are a gift from God…because all of that could get pretty irritating!

How God Used You;

We could not do this ministry without our team:

§ A new campus!

§ Great trip to Mexico!

§ New Bible study leader!

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

§ Maria, our new Bible study leader

§ Ryan and Kelsey

§ New church!

§ Healing with losing Madison Grace

§ Handling two campuses

§ Kids in Mexico

§ Us to train our boys up in a Godly way.

§ Our support

§ Sanctuary Church

§ More salvations

How can we pray for you?

Summer 2011

How are my donations used in Christian Challenge?

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

- You become part of a team that reaches students for Christ who are not being reached by a typical church.

- You allow there to be light on a spiritually dark campus of 15,000 students.

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.

New Campus in the Fall!

We will be starting a new campus again with Christian Challenge. Sanctuary is still going strong, ASU Downtown has solid leadership, and now we will be at Grand Canyon University, the college that I left Kentucky to attend.

We will still be at ASU Downtown as well, because we do not have a staff member to turn it over to. That’s one of the huge hurdles that we have to deal with in college ministry. There are FAR more campuses and students than our staff could ever reach. There are 300-350 thousand college students in Metro Phoenix spread across dozens of campuses. Christian Challenge at Grand Canyon University (GCU) will be instrumental in reaching the other campuses, by recruiting Christian Challenge leaders and staff.

We are in the beginning stages of partnering with GCU in an internship program. There are students who come in on a large scholarship provided by GCU, and they are required to spend time with an outside ministry which they choose. We are praying that Christian Challenge will be one of those ministries. Please pray with us in that. We think it is going to go through, because up to now everything to start Christian Challenge at GCU has been provide, including some student leadership.

This will be strategic in reaching other campuses, because these students will be serving with our staff like an intern would. Our plan is for these students to get connected to college ministry with Christian Challenge and to come on staff when they graduate. At that point they would have four years experience with us would help accomplish the task of reaching the college students of the sixth largest city in the nation.

Jamie and I met and started dating at Grand Canyon

in 2001 and now ten years later we are going back to start a ministry there!

Training our very own evangelist!

It is always surprising to hear what kids have to say. We were talking as a family about how good Dallas was with two of his friends. He prays for them all the time because "they don’t have Jesus in their heart." While we were talking, Dallas piped in and said that he had asked one of them if she wanted to have Jesus in her heart. She did and he led her in a prayer!

Dallas had been in Vacation Bible School this week and this is what he had been learning. So, all on his own, he asked her to pray with him to invite Jesus into her heart. They were spending time together and God was at work in a little six-year-old through a five-year-old. We couldn’t be more proud!

Dallas "show boating" at VBS Family Night.Dallas is in the black shirt.Colton and Hendrix in their VBS class
Colton and Hendrix in the wagon that the Children's Minister got to transport them around!

Powers Update

Summer has been busy. We helped at VBS this year, Jamie was the missions teacher, and it was the first time that the twins were able to participate. I went into Kentucky for my grandfather’s funeral and to move my mom back to Arizona. We drove a moving truck back from Kentucky to St. Louis after packing the truck that day, then from there to Albuquerque after being on the road for 15 hours, then finally home.

Before I left, we asked Dallas if it was okay with him for me to be gone for week as long as I brought his grandma home. He said, “Yes!” and was excited to see her.

We’ve been doing foster care meetings and lots of preparation for that. We are getting closer and we are looking forward to the day when we have a little girl in the house. We are hoping and planning that this will happen before Christmas. Dallas has been praying for the kid who will come to our house and that we can make "her feel comfortable."

Colton and Hendrix are both talking more and more. Every fruit or vegetable that they see is an “apple.”

Back in Arizona at her birthday party!

How God Used You;

We could not do this ministry without our team:

§ We have a new campus starting in the fall!

§ Awesome discipleship.

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- One of our girls who has slowly come out of Mormonism

- New campus at GCU

- Wisdom & God’s Will with fostering

- Healing with losing Madison

- Handling two campuses

- Heading back to the orphanage in Mexico

- Us to train our boys up in a Godly way.

- Our support

- Sanctuary Church

- More salvations

We thank God for you & pray for you. How can we pray more specifically for you?