July, 2014

71 Salvations!

         Zona youth camp was an amazing camp. I was on the planning team this year and will continue to be because of the camp’s great impact.  

          The best part was seeing our college students who had never led anyone to Christ doing it for the first time, and then a day or two later, a second time. I saw Alice’s face beam when she was able to talk to her student and see her come to Christ. 

         One of the nights we had 205 students come forward, mostly believers dealing with sin or needing to talk through some issues. It was an amazing night where each college staffer with us was meeting with (on average) 5 students. God moved. 

        The day started at 7am with a meeting and did not stop until about 1am, so we were working 18 hour days, which is just what it takes. Our college students know what they are getting into though and they are paying to serve. We truly have some great leaders.

   

Alaska Mission Trip

          Alaska was an amazing time to do missions together as a family. Thank you to everyone who contributed. We were able to see our friends the Hallams and minister side by side with them.

         The school was in need of snow awnings that had a possibility of 500 pounds of snow hitting them. We were able to build three so that during the winter they would be able to enter their buildings. Also, we spent a lot of the trip splitting wood, several cords, which is a life or death need in Alaska. 

While we were there the kids were able to see God’s creation and help with a VBS. It was great that they were able to have an impact, too. 

 

One of the 71 Salvations 

          This is an amazing Facebook quote from one of our leaders. 

          "I had the chance to pray with a girl who decided to accept God as her personal Lord and Savior for the first time ever! However, the happy news doesn't end there... Last year Bethany and I encountered a girl on the tennis courts after evening worship who was so broken. She was very angry at the world and anti God. Her uncle was a Satanist and she was heading down that path. It broke my heart to speak with her because she seemed like she never learned what love was, it was like she had never experienced it before in her life. 

           "Well, I saw her this year at ZONA go out onto the tennis courts on the last night with her friend because she was supporting her friend who was coming to Christ. I had heard that she was already a Christian and helped encourage her friend to take the next step. As soon as I heard that she had come to Christ I broke down in years of joy. I found her later that evening and told her who I was and asked what changed in her and when she came to Christ. It was one year ago yesterday when I talked with her on the tennis courts, she went back to her dorm afterwards and she felt... Different, she felt that gentle tug on her heart and she knew she was just being stubborn so on that same night a year ago she gave her life to Christ. There is nothing more amazing than being used by God. 

           "I am overjoyed to have been able to see him at work all around us this year at camp and to know a conversation I had with a girl last year that left me heart broken, that me and Bethany prayed for every single day for the past year, came to know Christ. It's been an amazing year and an amazing week and I can't wait to see how God continues to move as we all go back to school and we are able to start evangelizing on campus again. God is so amazing, there are just no words. But I am so blessed that he chose to use me."

 A special visit: Bryan’s sister, Mary Audrey came to see us at Zona! 

Powers Update

A long term prayer request has been answered and as I write this we are having new AC units put on! They should help lower monthly bills too. God blessed us with a guy who gave us a minister’s discount who is the husband of Hendrix’s old preschool teacher.  THANK YOU, Ministry Partners who helped financially and prayerfully with this and Praise God our old AC units worked as long as we needed them to!

Several students served as Summer Missionaries in Arizona. We are SO proud of them. This is their Farewell Party.

May 2014

Help Needed:
Mission Alaska: Frozen Chosen

Our former Christian Challenge co-workers, Steven and Lindsay Hallam answered a call to become missionaries to Natives in Kenai, Alaska at Alaska Christian College. They told us of the school’s need for a team of workers to come do various updating/maintenance projects that will enable the college to continue reaching students all over the state of Alaska . We are very excited because we get to lead a mission trip of college students from Arizona to bless college students in Alaska. 

Alaska Christian College seeks to: Empower Alaska Natives through biblically-based education and Christian formation to pursue excellence in character, learning, and service as followers of Christ. We have the amazing opportunity to train, inspire and disciple Christian Challenge students, while serving Alaskan Natives. Many A.C.C. students have had very rough backgrounds and A.C.C. can literally change and in some cases, save their lives. 

We cannot do it alone and we  would like to ask you to consider partnering with us by praying and/or giving. The total support needed is $5500.00.  This money will go for our whole family’s airfare, food, room on the college campus for Bryan (Jamie and kids will stay at the Hallam’s house) and for some supplies for A.C.C work projects. We prayed a lot before making the decision to include the boys in the trip and feel like it’s important for them to serve on missions with us (as at home with Christian Challenge and church activities) and our missionaries set up a Vacation Bible School for the children to serve at! They will be helping run a Vacation Bible School for Native children and other missionary kids while the Christian Challenge team does the work projects at the college!!! The boys are very excited to tell people in Alaska about Jesus, pull weeds and work at the college  (if safe with work projects going on) and serve in the Vacation Bible School, passing out flyers for the church, or serve any other way that is needed. They are also excited to get to see their friends since birth: Noah and Gracie Hallam (Dallas and Gracie spent many hours each week on the Mesa Community College campus with Christian Challenge!). We need your prayers and, if you feel led, support. 

Thank you so much for your prayers! I look forward to seeing what the Lord does in Alaska through Christian Challenge.

Our monthly support is handled through the North American Mission Board, but donations for Alaska are being handled by the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention. If you feel led to donate, please make check to: ASBC and mail them to us (please email jamiempowers@yahoo.com) for address. 

Salvations and more!

This month is really exciting to write about because in spite of some difficulty, God has been doing some major work. Two girls who are on Paradise Valley Community College accepted Christ! The cool thing about it was that it wasn’t me who invited them or shared the gospel with them.  Tim, one of my disciples who will be on staff with us next year had invited them to a Christian Challenge worship gathering.  I meet with him once a week going over Scripture and accountability and ministry development. PVCC is his campus. I pour into him, and he pours into other students. It is truly a multiplication effort.  He’s become part of our family as we minister together, pray for him as he follows up with these two girls and for a lady to really step on this campus. 

If that wasn’t uplifting enough, one student that I shared about months ago that isn’t even on campus anymore at GCU texted me and said, “I think I found God.”  He was an atheist who was assigned community service hours and I was able to give him the hours. We talked about wood working, cars, family and the Gospel. It was all very natural, but I thought that all that had come of it was a seed.  

Thank God that He lets us plant, but He makes it grow. Recently this guy watched “God’s Not Dead” and saw the logic in there being a God. He may not be a Christian yet, but he wants to experience the God he said so long wasn’t there. Pray for us as we meet again and talk about what is next. He’s already in Scripture! 

A Cool Facebook status from Chasen 

We have loved Chasen as he has become part of the family. He’s played bass in worship for us and shared Christ with non-Christians after our outreach games of ultimate Frisbee. He just puts his experience with Christian Challenge better than I could.  

        “As my freshman year of college concludes, it’s time to say goodbye. As happy as I am to return home, I am reluctant to leave this place…I feel that there have been many things left unsaid. So, here it goes.

I began this semester with no friends, no connections, and no idea what to do. I was a brand new man in a foreign land, surrounded by strangers. This was just as expected-I knew going from homeschool to college was going to be a culture shock. I had to put down roots-I just wished I knew where to start.

Then I met an old friend. Old face, new place. He introduced me to a group called Christian Challenge. At the time I was involved in many groups at GCU, testing the waters. Little did I know just how much impact that fateful meeting would have. 

This semester has been an awesome time of growth and renewal for me. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some pretty awesome people, and made some fantastic friends. I’d like to give a shoutout to Christian Challenge in particular-without you guys, I might still be in my room, wondering why I feel so alone. I can’t thank you guys enough for the impact you’ve had on my life this semester-I’ve made many good friends, been introduced to a thriving church community that extends far beyond Phoenix, and grown closer to God through CC. I look forward to getting involved in the ministry of Christian Challenge, and drawing closer to God and my brothers and sisters in Christ because of it. 

Time to say goodbye…but I’m reluctant to leave. While I may be going home to family, I know that I’m leaving family behind. This has been one of the greatest and most fruitful years of my life, and I wish it didn’t have to end. Leaving will be hard, but I look forward to the coming fall semester. Goodbye, GCU-I wish you all a fantastic summer.”

Winter Retreat

This was the first year that we have had no snow in Pinetop, AZ for the retreat.  It didn’t slow us down though. God moved like He always has at our Winter Retreats. Our staff came together and improvised and it was so good that the students who had paid for and expected a winter weren’t disappointed nor did they ever complain.  

Every year we come back and students say that it was the best one they have ever been to. I was proud to have my team make up a bulk of the worship team, especially since it was the highlight for many of the students. 

That wasn’t the only highlight though. We were able to get Byron Banta to join us as the speaker. I made sure to ask him nearly a year in advance because we had actually tried to get him the year before and he was booked. He was absolutely amazing. The students were deeply impacted by him. They were gleaning knowledge from someone 60 years older than them, not judging him for “not being able to understand them.”

Largest Spring Night of Worship we have ever had. Ryan and I did an intro video which has sparked a desire for some media people to step up and do more media in our events. 

Facebook post from Tim, who is “Uncle Tim” to our boys. When we couldn’t take the twins to their tee ball game, he and Uncle Ryan and Uncle Patrick took them for us. 

“You know I spend a lot of time with Bryan and Jamie Powers and their family, when their son makes it into my profile picture. I really do love this family and how much they pour into my life. I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you so much, you and your family have been such a tremendous blessing. I'm sure Ryan Storch and Patrick Fry completely agree with me. — feeling grateful.”

Thank you, Partners, for enabling us to give our lives to these students in 

His Name.

GCU Leaders dinner, planning, learning and fellowship at our house

How God Used You; 

We could not do this ministry without our team:

- Making disciples who are making disciples  

- Great worship community

- Students’ roommates getting involved 

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- New Salvations!

- Tim at Paradise Valley CC

- Sarah at South Mountain CC

- That we can keep the leadership team together as we are now spread all over the country for the summer. 

- Hallams serving in Alaska

- CC Mission to Alaska

- Our guys group 

- The strong personalities to be soft to God and new people.

- Ryan as he comes on staff 

- Orphans in Mexico 

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

- Our support

- Sanctuary Church 

- More salvations

How can we pray for you?

February 2014

It’s a new semester! 

Usually the spring semester is about discipling the students that we were able to reach in the fall semester. By this time, students are pretty set in their routine until summer. We are gaining new students like crazy, though. Here is one that posted on Facebook about Christian Challenge. 

"It has been over a week now since I moved on to the campus of GCU. I was VERY nervous because I did not know what to expect… I am still trying to meet new friends to hang out with, but that is not as easy for me as it sounds since i am not that out going, but God had his hand in that situation. Yesterday afternoon as my friend Vincent and I went to get some lunch we ran into a friend of his who runs this thing called GCU Challenge, which is basically a group of college students from my school getting together and hanging out and having Bible studies and thing like that. I got Invited to the one of their Bible studies last night and afterwards we played Ultimate Frisbee , and when and at dinner at Thunder Alley, which was fun. Today we all met up and had lunch together, and tonight we are going to do another Bible Study. I am glade God has brought me some friends that I can hangout with and also have Him hangout with us.... This is going to me an awesome semester for me at GCU."

After knowing Robert for two days, I was walking by him as he was talking to two people and he asked me to come over and explain what Christian Challenge is. As a self proclaimed not outgoing person, he has already been reaching out to others. 

His passion has already spread to others in our group and has sparked a desire to reach more students. Pray that we can keep these students because right now we have a group filled with very strong personalities. 

Please pray that the new students coming in will help balance our group out and that the new students going to the winter retreat will connect.       

Overturning Temple Tables

Over the years, I’ve worked with a few students who, to put it nicely, were difficult. I am working with one difficult student right now who at the very end of last semester, I felt called to be very forward with him. (To put it nicely. I was pretty harsh and combative, but not without reason.)

This student has made it a goal to make life miserable for his Christian roommate for his beliefs even though he claims to be a believer himself. He was swayed by the atheist who was also a roommate to double team him.   

He was in the lunch area, so I sat down and started talking to him, after building a relationship with him for a semester. He started talking about how he didn’t like reading the Bible because he felt like he knew it all. He talks like this because he thinks it will make me mad, which he likes to do. I asked when he stopped reading, and he said junior year, so I just launched back, “So, you have the equivalent of a high school dropout’s understanding of the Bible?” I haven’t let him get under my skin, but I will joke and jab him like he tries to do me. He had no real answer for that and we continued talking. I went on tell him since he found the Bible boring that he might not have the Holy Spirit, and on the spectrum of his super Christian roommate and his atheist one, he was far closer to the atheist one in his thoughts in actions. 

After the Holy Spirit started convicting him, we got to a point where I could ask, “Wouldn't it be a good thing to desire God more?” He couldn't disagree, and so I asked, “Would you be willing to give an hour a week to try to get there by going through some Scripture with me?”

I felt like I threw over his temple table, but he is now coming to Bible studies and we have a time set up to meet together once a week. Pray for “S” that he will follow through and meet with me and that he won’t try to shut God out.    

 Powers Update: Colton and Hendrix Ask Jesus to Forgive Their Sins

Well, we were blessed with a day that we have prayed for since God created Colton and Hendrix.   Sweet Colton bowed his head and said, "Jesus, please forgive me of all of my sins." And then his face LIT UP and he said excitedly, "ALL MY SINS ARE FORGIVEN!!!" Dallas and Hendrix came in and celebrated with us and then Dallas shared the whole Gospel w/ Hendrix and asked if he wanted to. He said, "Not now." Dall said, "well, when you're ready, tell us." 3 or 5 minutes later, he did.

Then we had a party!!! (That was really more like a laid back dinner, including homework for Dallas, but DID involve DQ icecream!) They were yelling, "We are CHRISTIANS!!!"

Colton asked me (Jamie) to "show me Jesus Christ" on an Evangecube that Dallas has and I did and walked him through the whole Truth and when I said, "He died so that our sins could be forgiven," he said, "But not ALL of my sins. I still have some." I said, "No, Baby.  ALL of our sins." and he said, "All of grownups sins, but not kids'." I said "ALL sins for ANYONE who asks Him." He bowed and asked Jesus to forgive him. 

Support that doesn't cost a penny: Choose Where Your State Tax Dollars Go

AZ residents, if you have State tax liability, PLEASE consider donating it and getting credit for paying it.  http://www.acsto.org/  If donated by 4/15/14, it can count dollar for dollar against your owed state tax dollars and help us with Dallas’ Christian education (please use his name and email for his school's name (jamiempowers@yahoo.com). 

All about what God did at Winter Retreat next newsletter, but here are some pictures: 

Bryan (with some of the band) sporting his “Winter Retreat mustache” (which made for endless jokes)

We took the boys for the first two days 

Pastor Byron Banta preached and God used him to speak into the hearts of students and leaders, convicting and inspiring

How God Used You; 
We could not do this ministry without our team:

- Making disciples who are making disciples  
- Great worship community
- Students’ roommates getting involved 

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- Colton and Hendrix surrendered to Christ!
- Brian at ASU Downtown
- Sarah at South Mountain CC. 
- Hallams serving in Alaska
- We need a new roof and new AC unit.
- Our guys group 
- The strong personalities to be soft to God and new people.
- Ryan as he comes on staff 
- Orphans in Mexico 
- Us to train our boys up in a Godly way. 
- Our support
- Sanctuary Church 
- More salvations

How can we pray for you?