Christmas Newsletter

Hello all! I hope this little message finds you all enjoying your Christmas season! God has been teaching me so much over the break, but I really wanted to share something that God showed me today, especially considering the time of year that we are in right now.  

During my time on the road, my Mom has had the opportunity to minister to a very sweet lady named Kay and her husband Gene for a full day, once a week, for about the past 4 months. Kay has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and now is to the point where she forgets things after about only 10-15 seconds.  Mom mainly just spends time with Mrs. Kay for a day so that Mr. Gene can go out and just spend some refreshing time by himself. I learned that Mom would be going over a couple of times while I was home ,and I wanted to get a chance to meet them before I left, so yesterday I took a detour and went to their house to stop by and visit on the way to spending a day with extended family. When I first met her, we talked for about 3 minutes (and got to dance to Christmas Songs, I was sold after that J) and then she took me into their living room where their Christmas tree was all set up. We had “a really good time” in her words. J The first ornament she showed me was a snowflake, her favorite. A couple others were shown off, like a church steeple and a picture of her and a friend of hers. And then, all of a sudden, she went back to the snowflake, and started all over again. This happened for about 6 times, sometimes the order varied, but it was always the same ornaments. She also showed me little knick knacks that she had collected, and a little bit around her house. I only got to stay there for about 30 minutes before I had to leave, but God used Mrs. Kay and Mr. Gene to impact my heart in several ways in those few minutes.

Mrs. Kay is so in love with God, to the point that it is part of her very being. Even if she can’t remember from minute to minute, she still knows the truths that she learned years ago about God, and she is still sharing them with anyone she comes in contact with. What a testimony and what a challenge to become more like Him. Words of encouragement for me about God always being with me, finding value in Christ, and totally leaning on Him all came out in just those few 30 minutes. What a blessing to my soul!

Mr. Gene is 100% loyal to his wife. You can clearly see that he still loves her, and will love her “until death do they part.” After only 30 minutes of spending time with Mrs. Kay, it was great, but it was very physically and emotionally draining. I cannot imagine the amounts of patience that Mr. Gene has to live day in and day out with her, but I was shown an example of marriage today that I hope that one day I can at least come close to being worthy of living out in my own life.  

Lastly, as I look back on my day, I can only think, “How silly are my worries and troubles that plague my mind every day?” The most that Mrs. Kay knows about Mr. Gene is that he is a very nice man, who takes very good care of her, and yet he still lives with her, fully aware of that knowledge and cares for her every day. And I find myself complaining about things not going my way sometime or someone getting what I would really like. How selfish. And even especially around this time of the year when the biggest problem we have might be as little as someone cutting us off in traffic, how silly does that seem when compared to Mr. Gene and Mrs. Kay’s life? And yet, how do they respond? With love, joy, peace, patience…hey, those sound familiar don’t they? So often we talk about living through the Fruit of the Spirit, but I feel like today, I got to meet two people who truly live them out, not just in an “easy” life, but in one that if they were to get angry or depressed, the world would think it as the “normal” reaction. What an encouragement to see two people not being normal, but instead looking to Jesus for strength and comfort. Wow wow wow!

All in all, an incredible time, and I hope that it was an encouragement to you as well. As I close, I just want to take a moment to thank you all for all of the support and prayers that you have given me this past 5 months, and for some of you, perhaps even longer than that. It has been such a blessing to see God work in these churches, but without your support and prayers, it would have made things a tad more difficult to make this a reality. J I look forward to sharing with you all what God does in 2012, and I am so excited to hear about how God moves and works in your hearts in the days to come.

God bless, and remember the TRUE reason for this season (and for the rest of the year as well!)

In Christ, 

Josh    

Aledo, IL

Last summit of 2011- Aledo, IL

(This one is going to be a little bit longer, but that is because this is probably the last post of 2011)

For the last summit of the year, our team left the Life Action Camp after Thanksgiving Break, and hopped down to Aledo, IL, a small little town of about 3,700 people total. (Note: I have found out this year that I am a huge fan of small towns) This was our only 8 day summit of this half of the year, where we arrived on Friday, started Sunday and continued until the following Sunday, and then tore down that night. But this week showed us that God does not need a “time frame” in order to change lives and hearts as we got to see many different stories told and lives change in just the short time we were there.

The Church

First Baptist Church of Aledo has about 300-400 members in it, but since the community is so small, this church still has a big impact on the town. Pastor Luke has lead the church for a number of years, and every single member that I ever talked to had nothing but glowing comments about him. I got to talk to him a little myself, and he was very deliberate and thoughtful when he spoke, but still could carry on the conversation and was interested in what was being said. In short: I like him. J The stories that came out the last night during popcorn testimonies were pretty amazing, including one couple thanking God for bringing their daughter’s boyfriend to Christ that morning, a prayer request that they had been praying since the beginning of the relationship. Please continue to lift up Aledo as they continue to seek God’s Will for their lives, and also about some important decisions in their church’s near future.

The Ministry

The Praise team got really stretched for this summit, in more ways than one. First Baptist has a much smaller stage than most churches, so we had to drop two male and female singers, so that we only had about 4-5 singers for every song. This put a LOT more pressure on the ones leading, but they held up and carried through to the end. Our worship leader Dustin left on Thursday to get home to spend time with his wife, Jen, who has been having medical problems for the past 2 months (Please keep her in your prayers, we’ve kind of adopted each other as siblings J) . In his absence, Trevor Jones picked up the slack, and led the worship team on Sunday morning and night. (And might I say he did a fantastic job too!) Me and Jason Farson roomed together this summit, and we got to stay with Jo and Paul Kernan, a dear couple that I KNOW we will miss (Along with Banana splits, late night talks, and all the bickering we did back and forth J) I am going to save the comments about signing for the “My Life” segment, because this church touched me in signing much more than most of the other churches.

The Team

Short and sweet…I miss my team. A lot. But I know that if we stayed which each other all year….we’d probably kill each other. Haha, the entire team is now officially home, but I have a feeling that we will all be Facebooking, Skyping, and texting throughout the month. A couple team members even get this newsletter so this is a shout out to them! Please pray that as we are home for a month that we do not grow slack or lazy but that we will continue to pursue God, and come back more in love with Him than when we left.

My Life

This summit, I was asked to play a couple of parts in skits for Base Camp (2^nd-5^th grade) and I loved it! It was a great group of kids and it’s a LOT of fun to act with the BC teachers because they are very “improv” minded when they act, so sometimes you just go with the flow and the resulting skit is much funnier than the original idea. Now, onto signing. J

Since we only had two male singers, I kind of knew that I would be one of the ones off, but I got a surprise when I was told that they still wanted signing, just no singing! I got to sign without a mic! It was definitely one of the most fun and enjoyable times I have ever had on the team, and at the same time it helped me learn self control in signing while still putting joy and energy into it. God really blessed me again through signing this summit by encouraging words from the congregation. During popcorn testimonies, an elderly woman got up and thanked the team for being there and then thanked me for the signing that it had greatly blessed her. It was truly humbling, and even more so when more people came up afterwards to thank me. Praise God, because without Him, I couldn’t sign, let alone take my next breath. However, my biggest encouragement came in Base Camp. One of the teachers asked a young man what he had liked about the summit so far. The boy turned to me and said, “I actually kinda really enjoyed the signing, it’s really cool how you do that on stage, even though you don’t sing.” Out of the mouths of babes. That one little answer encouraged me more than that boy will ever know, because that was the first time a kid had said that he appreciated the signing. Up until then, I had just viewed it as a ministry to adults, but now God has encouraged me that in the next half of the year, He can use it to bless anyone He wants to, even kids.

Prayer Request: I am so thankful to go home, but I must admit I am a little afraid that I could easily get into the mindset of “I’m not in Life Action right now, so I can just go back to what I want.” That is so far from the truth. Please pray that I would continue this upward climb towards knowing God more that started this year, and that I would never be satisfied with what I know of Him. 

Well, here I sit in Midway airport, ready to take off. Thank you again so much for the prayers, they honestly do mean the world to me. Thank you all again!

Merry Christmas!

Josh  

Adrian, MI

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from the North! And when I say north, I mean Adrian, Michigan! The email finds me sitting in my fourth host home, enjoying one of our rare (and much needed) rest days. Let me start this out by saying that I need to apologize to a lot of you on this list. I have been trying my best to keep up to date on my “blog” online, and whenever I wrote on it about a summit; I would post it to my Facebook page. However, I realized this summit that a lot of my supporters either don’t have a Facebook, or just don’t get on it that much, and in that, I have not been able to allow to enjoy all that God has been doing in me and through me at these last four churches. So from me to you, I sincerely apologize. I have taken a different route now, and instead, I will be sending out an email update instead. This is actually much better because if you have sponsored me at all, it shows up on my private page of the ministry website, along with information such as email address, that way I won’t be missing anyone.

Let me start by showing this link. This is a web address to my first blog posts about our first three churches that we have been to so far, along with other musings from before the year started:

http://alifeinaction2011.blogspot.com/

So now, hopefully that you are all caught up, let me go ahead and tell you a little bit about what is going on.

The Church

Right now we are serving Ogden church; it’s a church of about 750 and it is right outside the city of Adrian, Michigan. We have had some really cool stories come out of this church, but please keep praying that God continues to give this church “Ah-ha” moments as they learn more about him.

The Ministry

 God has been using music and signing in some really cool ways at this church. Ogden is a much more contemporary church than ones we have been in, and so we have gotten to break out some of our more “energetic” songs, which has been a lot of fun! Our host home (Jerry, Wendy, and Paul) have nothing but incredible to me and Clay Debolt, and I know that he and I will miss them greatly. I had an elderly man come up to me one night, and talk to me a little bit about signing, and how much he appreciated it, so I take that as a confirmation that I am still totally in God’s Will for doing it in worship.

The Team

You all can be praying for the team. As we get closer to the winter months, more and more of our team members continue to get sick, and right about now we normally have about 4 or 5 people feeling really under the weather. It’s going to be really hard saying goodbye to the team in December, but on the plus side, we get to spend Thanksgiving with them, so that’ll be nice. In fact, we are getting ready for our Christmas Party as we speak!

My Life

God has been using this summit to teach me that I can learn so many things from those who are older/wiser than me. Throughout this summit, I have gained more wisdom from older men on the team than all three previous summits combined, and I am so grateful for that. I hope and pray that it becomes a reoccurring theme and that I will continue to seek counsel from Godly influences in my life. I would like to ask for prayer. I am getting very homesick. Don’t get me wrong, I am going to miss my team so much, but I have not been home in almost 4 months, and I really do miss my parents and family. Please pray that God can work through me, so that I can finish with a spirit of Excellence and bring Him glory, so that I can then rest in Him during my month off.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, and I look forward to seeing you all soon!

           In Christ,

                              Josh