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Starting on a new adventure


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And so this morning...I woke up to my hubs yelling my name...

On Friday, he saw a black spot on his bad foot (broken many years ago in college, set incorrectly so it didn't heal right, and because of multiple varicose veins had a leg ulcer). He picked at it...Fast forward to Sunday morning...when we got home from morning church, he took off his shoes. His sock felt wet...and it was. With blood. Yes, the place on his foot broke open. We were able to get a bandage on it and put some pressure on it so that he could make it back to church and preach.

Apparently when he got up this morning, there was a scab on the sore. So he went about his business. While in the shower, the water washed away the scab...that's when he hollered for me.  Blood was spurting. We were once again able to put enough pressure on it to stop the bleeding (which, since he is on coumadin, is a tremendous blessing) and bandage it again.

So we took another trip to the ER. Although this was a slower trip - we let him sit with his leg propped so that would help keep the blood from starting to come out again. We made it to the ER, saw the doc who said the wound looked good and that he thought it would heal nicely.  He bandaged it again, in a water-proof, see-through bandage. That way we can see if it begins to bleed again. They gave me 3 more, so we can change the dressing 3 more times (every 24 hours). He gave the ok for hubs to go back to work, but work had already taken him off the calendar for tomorrow. So hubs left it at that and will be home through tomorrow, resting/relaxing and propping his foot to help speed the healing. (and enjoying the extra study time)

I think I've had enough adventure for a while.................

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Tonight is the church vote for permanency as pastor. Sadly, there is a member (who does not come regularly) that has been trying to enlist folks to vote "no." The vote will take place in about 2 hours. My hubs believes God wants him to pastor this church. But we will see if the majority of members listens to Him...

If you see this before 6:30 pm Pacific time, I'd appreciate prayer that God will have His way. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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As evidenced from the earlier photo of our members, the church is small. Very few of the members have ever been involved in special music. At our ladies' lunch in Sept, I asked the ladies if they would sing as a group. They agreed and this past Sunday, we had a few of the ladies sing "Glory to His Name."  It was exciting to us, as well as to the others in the church.

 

LAdies 2 (2).jpg

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42 minutes ago, DaveW said:

 

What's with you being part of the "House Church" movement?????:4_2_109v:

 

(Jk - look in the top ledt corner of the pic.... I assume it is half of the "Lighthouse Baptist church" sign.... :8_laughing:

Now that's just too funny!

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1 hour ago, DaveW said:

 

What's with you being part of the "House Church" movement?????:4_2_109v:

 

(Jk - look in the top ledt corner of the pic.... I assume it is half of the "Lighthouse Baptist church" sign.... :8_laughing:

Yes, that is our banner - it's one my husband had made with the logo, adding our new slogan: Church on the Grow. One of the men in the church loves to repeat that. Often. LOL

I must confess - we do meet in a manufactured home.  And when we first started going, it looked like a very flower-y-decorated home. But now...it's looking more like a church that meets in a manufactured house. LOL

The church was given 100 nice chairs from a funeral home several years ago. We use those rather than pews. They are quite comfy.  The master bedroom is the office (and we will be setting up my hubs' office in there sometime in the near future). The second bedroom is the children's Sunday School room...when we get some kids coming. It's small. But it's on the grow...slowly, but surely.

So, actually, I guess you could say we are part of the "manufactured house church" movement. :4_joy:

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I know a church that had a triple-wide mobile home as their first building. After 8 years they moved and sold that building to an HVAC company.

I was assistant pastor in a one church that bought the old Elks Lodge building and again in another one that bought an old Redneck bar. Our building where I pastor used to be the RLDS building.

I also know a church whose first building was a 40 y.o. barn and the parsonage was a single-wide mobile home.

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We are renting the building from a friend of one of our members.  The landlord owns a gravel pit - I'm not sure if he's ever rented the building out or if he used to use it as an office. Because it's a gravel pit, we aren't allowed to put permanent signs up, so we have one on wheels to put by the main road, a folding sign to put at the turn onto our road, and the landlord allowed us to put up the cross that has the name of the church on it - it is by the gate (it's the back gate of the property, actually), attached to the block that the chain hooks to. One of our members designed the cross to fold so that when we are not having services, it lays down. 

We have talked to the landlord and he is open to the possibility of us obtaining a couple of mobile classrooms to turn them into an auditorium.  The landlord had a heart attack a while ago (his third) so any discussions like that have been tabled. But it's heartening to know that our landlord is so willing to help us - he, as far as we know, isn't saved but he's very supportive of us.

I'd love to see us be able to get those classrooms for the auditorium, then we can turn the manufactured house into a fellowship hall/Sunday school. One plus for us purchasing the classrooms is that if we own them we can bring them with us if we move to another place. 

Our landlord's name is Bill. If you would join us in prayer for his salvation, I'd greatly appreciate it.

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This Sunday Randy will be preaching on Hell. He's encouraged folks to bring friends. Please be in prayer for the day that, if there are any lost they will get saved, and that those who are saved will get convicted about and surrender to be stronger witnesses.

Heh...and then Sunday night he'll be teaching on Halloween...

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Well, we have less than a dozen of our second batch of brochures left! That means we've handed out almost 500! Considering that our membership is so small, and that all of us are heading to 60 or older, I think that's pretty good! 

We've not seen any fruit yet, but we know God will honor what we're doing because we are doing it for Him and not ourselves. We did have a good visit today with a lady who was quite clear that she is saved. She has mostly gone to Foursquare and Calvary Chapel churches, so her doctrine/standards isn't completely what ours is. But she is very interested in trying our church. She can't make it tomorrow, but she wrote down the info for next Sunday. And I think maybe we'll stop and leave a reminder  next Saturday.

One of the our deacons and his wife met one of their neighbors a couple of weeks ago (new neighbors). There are two kids (I start salivating when I hear of the possibility of kids coming to church :91_thumbsup:) and 5 adults, apparently. They have expressed interest in coming to church, and two of the adults have said they will be there tomorrow. I sure hope so!

Hubs has asked our members to bring in food for Thanksgiving boxes. We want to do a good box for a couple of needy families. Folks are excited about it. The tub we brought in is already just about full, so we may need to get another one. Good problem to have!

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Woo-Hoo!  The visitors came to church this morning. And they liked it! They are in their 20s, and planning on getting married eventually. They both have salvation testimonies, but have been backslidden. They want to do right, get involved, and grow. They came back tonight, and are planning on coming Wednesday night. Next Sunday they are bringing his nieces with them. YAY!

After church this morning, we were all enjoying our pizza when an elderly man came in. He was quite upfront about the fact that he is a Christian, and that he had not been able to get out to church for a while because he had no car. But God has given him a car, and now he can come to church. So he came by. Randy offered him pizza, he accepted and stayed and chatted for a while. He came back tonight, liked what Randy taught about Halloween, took the Bible study sheet for Wednesday night and said he'd be back.

A gentleman who has been coming for the past few weeks (he's dating one of our members) talked to hubs tonight and told him he'd like to join the church. He's studied our constitution and questioned my hubs about it very thoroughly. We are thrilled - we've already talked with him and know he's saved. He seems to really want to serve the Lord. Interestingly, the older gentleman and he knew each other from a church they attended together, but he didn't know the gentleman was attending.

What a day! The devil fought Randy preaching on Hell (it was a great message), and he fought him on the Halloween message, too. But God gave the victory.

We are excited at the visitors. We are praying for fruit that remains. Mayhap this is the beginning. :17_1_10:

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We all know that when one victory happens, the devil tries to derail it. Well, he's at work...I would appreciate some earnest prayer on behalf of our church and my hubs. Someone who is influential in the church has allowed pride to grab hold and may create some real havoc. Please pray that God will protect and that God will grab hold of this person's heart (and that this person will allow God to do so). And please pray for wisdom for my hubs. Thank you.

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Thank you to all who prayed. God worked in a great way!  While we are not convinced nothing like this will happen again. we saw God's hand moving in several members today. And...this morning we welcomed a new member - the first since hubs became pastor. The children didn't make it today due to circumstances, but hubs and I will be going to their home on Saturday to meet them. Hopefully they'll come next Sunday and we can get our children's ministries off the ground.

Our newest member is engaged to another member. At the end of the year, there's going to be a wedding...Below is a picture of our newest member, Frank, and his sweetie Diana.

 

 

diana adnd fran.jpg

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So far the kids haven't come. I know they will, it's just that "life" is getting in the way. :1_grinning:

But! There is a couple who are neighbors of one of our members. The lady visited our monthly lunch several months ago. We have visited them at various times, inviting them out to church. This past Saturday my husband and our deacon visited them again. Both were home - and they came Sunday morning! Praise the Lord! She told my husband that the reason they came was because we kept going back.

They said they would be back.

The gentleman recently finished a dependency program and has been sober for 30 days. They told my husband Saturday that he needs new friends. They took my hubs' phone number, too. 

This is exciting! It really encouraged some of the members, especially the neighbors who've been inviting them.

While the situation I mentioned in an earlier post has cleared up, there is still something below the surface.  I would appreciate continued prayer for protection for our church.

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