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| It's been a week since we last gave an
update and much has happened. We traveled up to Nokesville,
Virginia this past Wednesday for a meeting at Victory Baptist
Church. It was a good meeting, but we didn't like seeing the
snow again (it's about as far north as Winchester and the snow/ice was
still on the ground). Fortunately the response of the people was
much warmer than the temperature outside! Yesterday we did a
"drop-in" visit at Fellowship Baptist Church in Powhatan
during the morning service and then went to Calvary Baptist Church in
Midlothian for the evening service (a scheduled meeting). I had
taken the teens from our sending church to Calvary a few years back
for a revival service, so it was good to be there again. The
people were extremely friendly and seemed to be genuinely interested
in our ministry. Melissa made another new friend whom she can
draw from as she learns more about the Spanish language. She
always appreciates those opportunities! We enjoyed our time with
them and look forward to the possibility of working together with them
for years to come. This coming Wednesday we begin a 5-day
mission conference at Jetersville Baptist Church in neighboring Amelia
county. This meeting was a miracle in the making and we look
forward to great things from it. Our big prayer request at this
time is for a large mailing we are doing to churches to attempt to
fill out our 2007/2008 calendar. We have a lot of meetings
scheduled, but we want to make full use of every date we can.
Therefore we will be sending out over 1,300 letters on
Wednesday. Members of our home church will be getting together
Tuesday evening to help stuff all those envelopes. Please be in
prayer that this will be used of God in a great way to move us even
closer to reaching the field of South Texas.
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| We are back in Powhatan at this time,
parked again in my mother's front yard! It's good to be out of
the snow, and it's supposed to get up into the 60's here this week, so
we are greatly looking forward to that after being in the single
digits several times recently! Braden and I had the opportunity
to attend the Men's Prayer Breakfast at our church this past
Saturday. The pictures below are of that event. We enjoyed
a time of basketball after the breakfast. It was interesting to
say the least! We were also able to attend our sending church
Sunday morning and enjoyed seeing our "home folk"
again. Sunday night found us attending the final service of the
mission conference at Calvary Baptist Church in Colonial Heights,
Virginia. Many of the students from the college that I graduated
from attend this church, so again we were able to see many familiar
faces. In fact, we were already acquainted with both of the
other missionaries that were presenting that night as well. It
was an enjoyable time together, and we had an opportunity to
individually meet many of the church members afterwards during a
"finger food fellowship". Unfortunately we forgot our
camera, so we have no photos to share of this event.
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| I
waited until many folks had finished eating before I began taking
pictures. Here Rick Eggleston, Jimmy Jewell and Tom Hills chat while
A.J. Hughes and Pastor Blackwell take some practice shots in the
background. |
Paul
Hartman continues to eat, eat, eat while Darryl Stewart gets ready for
some basketball and Ed Reynolds enjoys some fellowship time. |
Pastor
Blackwell talking with Braden while warming up. |
Alex
Cominsky takes a sailing shot while David Bass and A.J. Hughes warm up as
well. |
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| Same
three as the previous photo. Wish I had some pictures of the
games....that would have made you smile! |
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| Our meeting last night at Rosedale
Baptist Church was cancelled, as was my time to speak at their
Christian school today, both because of snow. I did have the
opportunity to meet Pastor Martin today and spend some time with
him. I am impressed with the work they are accomplishing and
with how the Lord is blessing them as they faithfully follow
Him. We did receive a blessing from all of this. We lost a
Wednesday night meeting, but Pastor Martin invited us back for their
mission conference in November. It's amazing once again to see
the Lord working to give us His best, even through circumstances that
seem contradictory to that when they occur. We will be heading
back to Powhatan tomorrow, having to forgo our opportunity to visit
with Front Royal Baptist Temple (an unscheduled visit with a
supporting church) due to weather. They are calling for more
snow Saturday into Sunday, which would keep us from being able to make
the drive back to the Richmond area for our visit Sunday night.
Once again, please pray for safety while we travel. They cleared
the roads in the RV park, but right around the unit it is still frozen
solid. I helped another gentleman get his motorhome out this
morning and we had a time of it.
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| Let it snow, let it snow, let it
snow. We managed to make it into Winchester last night around
7:30pm. It was the third time we've had to setup the house after
dark. Praise the Lord we broke our habit -- we didn't break
anything on the RV this time! We did beat the snow in last
night, but we woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. It's
been snowing all morning and is supposed to continue, at least off and
on, through Wednesday morning sometime. We are scheduled to be
with Rosedale Baptist Church on Wednesday evening and Pastor Martin
there says they will be having services. Since we are only a
couple of miles from there, we can guarantee we will be there
too! Still not 100% sure about this weekend. It looks like
the storm they thought would hit on Saturday/Sunday may not
materialize, which would mean we could maintain our visit with Front
Royal Baptist Temple (one of our supporting churches) on Sunday
morning. Otherwise, we will head back down towards Richmond on
Thursday to be close by for our Sunday evening service at Calvary
Baptist Church. On a side note, I had mentioned on the 8th that
I was going to go on visitation with Friendship
Baptist Church in Bristol, Virginia. I did have the opportunity
to go out with a member from that church and we visited a gentleman
who they had been working with for years. He was a very nice
man, knew the plan of salvation and knew that he needed to be saved,
but he was not willing that evening to accept Christ. We did
have a chance to talk with him for a while, but again, he was not
willing to make a decision that night. I received a phone call
letting me know that he did go to church this past Sunday and came
forward during the invitation and accepted Christ as his personal Lord
and Savior. What a blessing!
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| Our
house on the lot at Candy Hill Campground in Winchester, Virginia.
Oddly enough, there aren't many people camping here! :) |
A
closer shot of the truck. |
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| We are just finishing up another
conference, this time in Cedar Bluff, Virginia. It has been a
good couple of days. The main speaker for this conference was
Dr. Andy Simpson. He is an energetic man who is being used to do
a great work for the Lord. The other missionary family that was
present was the Zwingles, who will be going to Russia. Mrs.
Zwingle is a native of Belarus and now has the opportunity to go back
and continue reaching her own people. Dr. Simpson and his wife
will be church-planting on Indian reservations in the American
Northwest, as well as developing satellite Bible colleges from
Macedonia Baptist College. This small church is in a rebuilding
mode and is working diligently to reach their own neighbors with the
Gospel of Christ. Our intention was to leave tomorrow morning
and head to Winchester for our next meeting. Unfortunately, the
weather is not cooperating. They are calling for freezing rain
here starting tonight and for snow in Winchester. Therefore, we
are in the process of packing up and should be on the road by noon, to
try and beat the storm to Winchester. They are calling for
anywhere from 2-12 inches or more of snow in Winchester before the
storm breaks up on Wednesday. We will be able to stay there, and
should be able to head out again on Friday and travel back to
Powhatan. We had planned to stay in the Front Royal area over
the weekend, but another storm is due to hit Saturday into Sunday
morning, which would prevent us traveling back to the Richmond area
Sunday afternoon for a presentation there. Please continue to be
in prayer as we have to work around the weather situations that arise.
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| Calvary
Baptist Church road sign, as seen from behind the building. |
A
shot of the "side" of the building. The front is to the
right. |
The
view from behind the building. |
Another
shot showing the front of the building, as well as the
educational/administrative wing. |
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| The
church owns a vacant lot across from the church where they are working to
add some RV hookups. We "borrowed" power from the
neighbors house, but they will be adding full hookups in the coming
weeks. |
The
sanctuary is very nice and has ample space for this congregation to grow. |
Pastor
Samples in the middle, along with Dr. Simpson to the right and myself to
the left. |
Bro.
Zwingle and his wife Larissa, missionaries to Russia. |
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| Mrs.
Zwingle and Mrs. Simpson chatting before the service. |
Dr.
Simpson and Braden. Braden enjoyed getting history lessons from Dr.
Simpson while we were there. |
The
church is actively promoting missions. |
The
display board for the Zwingles. |
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| The
display board for the Simpsons. |
Addie
and I in the RV before the service starts. |
Braden
plays with the piano during some free time. |
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| We arrived in Kingsport, Tennessee on
Tuesday. God was certainly with the trip. They were
calling for snow Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We arrived
around 2:00p on Tuesday and the snow had just started about 5 minutes
earlier. It lightly dusted the ground and we haven't seen
another snowflake since! In fact, the next morning it was over
40 degrees in the early morning. We thank God for his protection
of us. Last night we enjoyed meeting the people of Friendship
Baptist Church in Bristol, Virginia. I am planning to join them
for visitation this evening, and look forward to this
opportunity. Today we also received notification that Rural
Point Baptist Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia voted to begin
supporting us as missionaries. This is a great blessing not just
because it helps us get the support we need, and not just because they
were wonderful people to be around, but also because we were there
just 11 days ago! This vote maintains our ratio of exactly 1 out
of every 3 churches we visit taking us on for support. This is a
great blessing and encouragement, and we thank God for providing in
this way.
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| We are currently in Salem, Virginia, at
Beacon Baptist Church. We arrived here on Saturday and have
enjoyed a wonderful weekend of fellowship with the pastor, his family,
and the entire church. Although it is very cold here, the warm
reception by the people has more than made up for it! We enjoyed
dinner with the pastor and his family on Saturday evening, wonderful
services Sunday morning and evening, a lunch at a locally famous
restaurant Sunday afternoon, dessert after church with the pastor on
Sunday evening and will be out with the pastor and his family again
tonight (Braden and I will go with the pastor and his oldest son to a
rescue mission where the pastor will be speaking, while Melissa and
the other kids will go with Pastor Kirchoff's wife and other children
for a little shopping). We have been blessed to learn of the
history of this church. Organized on August 1st, 2004, the
church met for the first 8 months in an auto body and frame
garage. They then met for the next 20 months in the fellowship
hall of another independent Baptist church. Now, at only 2 1/2
years old, the church is running 127 people and recently purchased a
$500,000+ facility with over 15,000 square feet of space. The
atmosphere is alive with possibility, and the people are excited about
what the Lord has already done and will continue to do in the
future. Watch for many more wonderful things to come from this
devoted group of believers in Salem!
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| A
view from the left-front side of the building. It's more or less
impossible to get the whole building in a single shot. |
A
view down the left side, showing all three stories of the facility. |
A
view from behind the building, also showing our house. |
Another
view from the back, including a small garage and their bus and van. |
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| It's
hard to see in this shot, but parking was interesting. The rear
parking lot is quite sloped, so we had to drive up on about 6" of
wood to get the trailer close to level. We were just thankful to
have a place to park! |
The
facilities include this small "chapel" that is used for youth
services. |
Our
kids quickly found the air hockey table! |
Pastor
Kirchoff standing on the stair well. |
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| Pastor
Kirchoff and myself working on the sound board, setting up all of the
equipment for our video presentation. |
A
view from the back of the auditorium. They should be receiving pews
in about a month, and are excited about finally being finished with the
folding chairs. |
The
attendance the day we visited was 127. They are growing rapidly. |
We
went to The Homeplace, a locally famous restaurant running from a
beautiful old home. They serve all-you-can-eat food to your table,
and it is simply delicious! |
