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?

November, 2013

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 five spiritually dark campuses of more than 70,000 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 Arizona.

Easiest Way to Give…Online: Automatic giving through your bank's online bill-pay or through NAMB's giving site, Kintera (Link: Ministry Partner Page of C Bryan and Jamie Powers)

Making Strong Discipleship Stronger 

One of our students who is discipling another student. He just took his disciple to do ministry together for the weekend in Lake Havasu. He’s coming on staff with us soon

A large part of Christian Challenge’s success on multiple campuses has been following God’s call to disciple students. A large part of my time on campus has been meeting one on one with students giving advice and counseling where needed as well as encouragement and discipline. 

I am discipling more students than I usually take on, but the rewards of seeing past disciples investing spiritually in their students, becoming pastors and youth pastors and going on mission, has made it worth it. 

One student has been overcoming some issues of sin in his life and has been making huge strides this semester. Another is a future Christian Challenge missionary to a west valley campus. I have future ministers and husbands who God has given me to invest in. Some of them are at the level where they can invest in others as well. 

The new thing that we are doing on Wednesday nights is getting together as a group, and then breaking up into groups of 2 or 3 and having some of the stronger students join me in discipling other students. We have always hoped that this would happen and talked about it, and sometimes it did, but we are being deliberate about it now and we are seeing some real growth. So we have multiplied our efforts and the disciplers are still being watched over and cared for. 

This idea came to me driving home from a Bible study and God laid it on my heart that the Bible study we were doing was good, but we had others that were similar. It was so simple and Biblical that we had it implemented in two weeks time. It’s awesome that after seven years of collegiate ministry, God is still teaching me better ways to reach college students.       

Too Much to List!

God has been doing so much on our campuses this semester. He has provided a local mom of one of our students who is discipling the girls on Wednesday nights at GCU, a great need. As a result, we've had several new girls get plugged in. 

One of the girls in our college group at our church stepped up and did the Harvest Festival. We were proud of her for doing it and thought the she deserved a mention. 

Many have already seen the pictures from our worship night where we had 182 people. We were too excited to wait to put it in the newsletter and had to put it on Facebook. We even had three students drive four hours to get there! 

We took a regional director weekend and talked long term strategy. It was good to evaluate what we’ve been doing and how to improve on our strategy. This has been a dream for years to have all four regional directors in place so that we can best reach all 23 campuses in Metro Phoenix.



We had a guys camping trip with some college students and all three of our boys. Where we were camping, there was a drunk girl who kept screaming that she wanted to go home. The boys started praying for her and within seconds, she started crying out for God to forgive her. 

It’s amazing to get to work with students whose first thought is to pray, not to yell at her to shut up like the rest of the campsite. It’s been a great season of ministry with some great students. 

Powers Update

 This month the boys got to hang out with college students more than ever! They LOVED the camping trip with the college guys! They all said it was their “favorite thing ever.” We had an impromptu Veteran’s Day Party at our house that turned into a Nerf War for awhile, so they LOVED that and had some fun wrestling. Colton and Hendrix turned FOUR Sept. 25th and Dallas turned EIGHT Nov. 5th! 

AZ Partners: Giving That Doesn't Cost a Penny:  Instead of paying State Tax to the State, you can donate (for a tax credit, dollar for dollar) that money to be used for Christian education, specifically to benefit a missionary family. You can bless us tremendously by using some of your owed Arizona State income tax dollars to donate to ACSTO (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, Inc.) designated for Dallas Powers at ______ School (Please email me for school; I don't want to post it on the internet! jamiempowers@yahoo.com .) You will receive a tax credit dollar for dollar against AZ State income tax. Please call me for more information or there is lots of information on their website: ACSTO.org 

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…

- One of our beloved former students and his wife 
lost their sweet baby girl. Please pray for healing 
as they grieve.
- Two Ministry Partners lost a parent.
- Brian at ASU Downtown

- Sean at Chandler Gilbert CC

- Aaron at Central Arizona College 

- Sarah at South Mountain CC and her support raising

- Tim at Paradise Valley CC 

- Hallams serving in Alaska

- We need a new roof and new AC unit. (PRAISE –it (34 yr. old unit) made it through the summer!)

- Orphans in Mexico 

- Chandler Gilbert Community College and the church partnership

- Healing with losing Madison 

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

- Our support ($350/month away from FULLY FUNDED!)

- Sanctuary Church 

Colton fell asleep while "helping daddy" on campus