Clinton Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

And so ends follow-up summit number 2! As I type, I am being bounced around as me and Senor Blake Mathis drive the semi-truck to our next destination: Oxford, Mississippi. He’s listening to a sermon (aka his “alone” time) so I figured I’d go ahead and get you all up to date on life!

The Church

We have been in Clinton, Mississippi at Morrison Heights Church for the past week, following up on a summit that the Blue Team did just last year. This church happens to be the home church of another LA team member (Joel Purvis) and I even got the honor of staying at his house this summit. This summit was a little different than others because instead of starting on Sunday, we started with a Home Life Café on Saturday. Since this church had a Home Life Café just last year, Steve, Jeremiah, and Mrs. Debbie re-vamped the lessons and created Home Life Café 2.0. (And they might be using some of their stuff again!) Mo Heights was more than happy for us to come back, and the final testimony night was really cool to see how God brought so many people back to principles and truths that they had learned a year ago. Dr. Greg Belser was a blessing to our team and we are going to miss being in Clinton.

The Ministry

Although short, these summits have shown our team that God does not need a certain amount of time to work. He can work in someone’s life in 2 weeks or in just one night; it depends totally on Him, not our schedule. This summit, I got to stay with Clinton native Joel and along with Nathan Cowles, we had some good times playing Mario Party, Tennis, and even making a short horror flick. We also got to hang out with Mr. and Mrs. Purvis (shout-out since they get this email!) on the tennis courts, in the Froghead Grill, and even just sitting in the kitchen talking about life. They were amazing hosts and will be missed! (Maybe we’ll see them again in Pell City?)

The Team

Ok, so by far the two coolest things that happened in our team this summit was a Baptism and Valentine’s Day! Mandy (a girl on our team) decided that she wanted to be baptized while we were in Clinton, and after seeing the baptistery, I can tell why. (This thing is a swimming pool) So we all got to get together after the service one night, and got to watch her get baptized! Valentine’s Day was cool because of something called Secret Sister. The girls on our team are right now in the middle of something called Secret Sister, where each girl on the team has the name of another, and so for this half of the year, they will do random acts of kindness/buy them things that they like and secretly give them. The boys on the team are in on it because, well frankly, it’s easy to keep it a secret if guys deliver the presents instead of the girls. So Valentine’s Day looked like a Florist shop as guys were walking all over the church with bouquets of flowers to go from girl to girl.

My Life

Not a lot has changed this summit from the last one. God is right now teaching me the importance of choosing Joy in my life, and what happens if I don’t. Happiness is great and all, as long as you can keep yourself happy. But what happens when that runs out? Joy is the only thing that can come out us when we are truly exhausted, and it’s NOT through our power, but only through God. (That was for free J ) Signing was good, I saw some people in the audience try to sign along, especially kids. I really love that. Like REALLY love that. Haha I love how God encourages us with the little things.

For those of you who don’t know, I have made the decision tooooo STAY with Life Action for one more year! I really feel that this is where God has me for the time-being, and I also feel that I have the most potential for affecting His kingdom on the road for the next year. So yep, there ya go! I look forward to this Oxford church, so I guess I will talk to you all in about 3 weeks!

Josh