Month: March 2010

“But God proves His own love for us

in that while we were still sinners

Christ died for us!”

~Romans 5:8, HCSB~

Cheryl Hart Pierre

My sister, Cheryl Hart Pierre, is in need of prayer. Cheryl is going through medical tests concerning a very serious health problem. She and all of her family appreciate every prayer that is prayed in her behalf. A cat scan is scheduled for Tuesday and then she will see the surgeon on Wednesday. I will post an update after she talks with the surgeon. I also really appreciate and sense the power of prayer for Cheryl.

Thank you
Fay Raborn

From Cheryl Hughes Green

They postponed Linda’s surgery Friday to yesterday around 12:30pm. She is doing well and should be able to come home Monday. Thanks for all who have said a prayer for her.

John is also improving everyday. Only one side of his face is still swollen.

Thanks again to everyone who lifted our family up in prayer. God bless.

Cheryl

CaringBridge

• http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/larkindorris

Annie Armstrong Easter Offering

The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering^® is much more than an offering envelope and an annual missions-giving emphasis. When people give to the offering, 100 percent of their gift will be transformed into missionary salaries and ministry supplies. Those missionaries and supplies will help others hear the message of Christ and respond in faith to His offer of salvation. Time and again our missionaries relate how the offering is their lifeblood. They know that behind each penny given, there is a Southern Baptist who believes in what they do and are affirming the need to equip them to share the gospel with those who need a Savior.

Join us at the cabin Thursday night at 6:30 for food, fellowship, and a devotional.

Have a great day!

Anna Lee

22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart

in full assurance of faith, h

aving our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us

from a guilty conscience

and having our bodies washed with pure water.

23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess,

for he who promised is faithful.

Hebrews 10: 22-23 (NIV)

CaringBridge

• http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/adriannacavanagh/journal (You can read Hebrews 10: 22-23 at the top of The Prayer Link today.)
• http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/calliecole/journal

Micah Tolleson’s family has learned a lesson the past two weeks.  They are now more careful to tell each other how much they love and appreciate each other.  through all the problems and unanswered questions, God has been so faithful to all of the family!

Annie Armstron Easter Offering

Winning souls in Arizona Missionary Louis Spears did not let the tragic, sudden death in 2008 of his wife, Shelley, sidetrack his ministry to multihousing residents and “gypsies” in the greater Phoenix, Arizona, area. By Mickey Noah As a Southern Baptist pastor for the last 30 years – and as a North American Mission Board missionary for the past six – Louis Spears has conducted many a funeral. But none of them prepared him for the long, lonely walk behind his wife’s casket almost two years ago. A native of Guthrie, Okla., Spears and his wife, Shelley, had been married for 32 years – ever since they were both 20-year-old church planters in Oklahoma. But in May 2008, she succumbed to a pancreas-related illness only 11 days after its sudden onset. “Shelley was an incredible person, a woman of many talents,” says Spears. “The main thing I miss about Shelley – other than just being together as not only my spouse but also my best friend – is the amount of prayer-time she spent on my ministry. She was really my partner in ministry. It’s a huge loss and huge gap in my life.” Spears’ strong, tried-and-true personal faith prevented him from caving in to the temptation of chucking his whole ministry and blaming God in the process. “I never thought about blaming God. I was not mad at God. The worst thing was being totally cut off from Shelley, missing her encouragement and positive reinforcement.” Still after almost two years, the 54-year-old missionary said the grief is still “like big ocean waves that just swell up over you and you can’t fight them, but you know the Lord is the Lord, that He is supreme, and that in His design, He had a purpose for it. “I can’t see it and I don’t understand it but I really don’t argue with Him about it. I really tried during Shelley’s 11-day crisis and through the last year to live my life without regrets. I didn’t leave anything undone or unsaid,” said Spears, who has a 24-year-old daughter, Amy, one grandchild and another on the way. Spears is one of some 5,300 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions. He is among the North American Mission Board missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 7-14, 2010. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Share God’s Transforming Power.” The 2010 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $70 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Spears. While no one or nothing can ever replace the vacuum in his life caused by Shelley’s death, Spears depends on his challenging missionary work in Arizona to take up some of the slack, ease the pain and bring new victories. With an estimated 71 percent of Arizona residents as unbelievers, Spears, a church planting strategist with the Valley Rim Baptist Association, faces a huge challenge. In addition to Mesa, the association serves 50 churches and missions in the Tempe, Scottsdale, Chandler and Gilbert areas of metro Phoenix. Because land and buildings are so expensive in the greater Phoenix area, Spears focuses on planting “tactical” churches instead of brick-and-mortar churches, which can financially strap a congregation with huge indebtedness in its infancy and make survival more difficult. “Tactical churches are collections of people who have not been reached before,” Spears explains. “We try to target an area where the Kingdom of God hasn’t been before. Some may be apartment complexes, mobile home parks, house churches or just a gathering of people at a Starbuck’s.” According to Spears, the Phoenix area is the 12th largest metro area in the United States. “We’re in a vast multicultural setting. We have a lot of unchurched, unsaved individuals. “We’re way behind on the number of churches we need in order to impact these individuals’ lives. We have only one church for every 23,000 people in Arizona. Since we don’t have many churches that run 23,000 every week, it’s vital for us to have funds to do evangelistic outreach, buy Bibles and other resources to help posture the churches we do have.” Evangelical Christians – of which Southern Baptists represent the largest group – only represent two percent of the state’s population, trailing Catholics and Mormons. “We have some churches that are in senior adult communities. We have multi-ethnic churches like Native American, Filipino and African-American churches. We have a large Spanish-speaking population. Over 35 percent of the people in Arizona speak Spanish.” On top of the diversity, the uncertainty in the Phoenix area housing market is driving people to multihousing developments – whether apartments, townhouses, condominium communities or mobile home parks. “Statistics show that only a small percentage of those people will ever come out and go to anyone’s church, so we believe it’s important to take church to them,” says Spears. Spears begins by meeting a multihousing development’s property managers — to get in from the ground up and establish good working relationships. “We begin by asking the managers what their needs are,” he said. “We try not to assume that we know the industry better than the people who work in it. Most apartment communities know how to evict people, know how to charge the rent, know how to handle air conditioning problems and pest control. But what they don’t understand is the human element. “They lose money every time somebody moves so by building a ministry and a partnership with them, it helps to build a sense of community. The people are more likely to stay,” Spears said. To assist both the property managers and the tenants themselves, Spears and his team do things like forming kid’s clubs in the afternoon to give them a place to go and something meaningful to do. They often provide lunch to latch-key children, who are on a break from school and whose parents work. Afternoon soccer games are offered. Summer sports camps via mobile trailers can be deployed to various multihousing communities. An offshoot of Spears work with multihousing communities was his introduction to the Travelers, the substantial “gypsy” culture and population of Arizona. Spears says outsiders like him are usually not successful at trying to approach and penetrate the closed gypsy culture. “American gypsies actually discovered me and began to attend our church in Mesa,” he explains. “Eventually, I was accepted into their fascinating culture.” The gypsy mission field is a natural extension of Spears’ missions work in multihousing since so many gypsies travel in RVs and live in mobile home parks throughout southern Arizona because of the area’s warmer winters. “People who give through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering help supply a base of church planters and allow them to have a living while they’re beginning to build new congregations,” said Spears. “Without the Annie Armstrong offering, I would be able to devote only a fraction of the time to tactical church plants, and even less to reaching the Travelers (gypsies) population. But because of the offering, in addition to my salary, I receive training, materials for evaluation and training, demographics for new and existing church areas, and am able to network with other church planters across the country.” Mickey Noah is a writer for the North American Mission Board.

Have a great Lord’s Day!

Anna Lee

I forgot to mention that Eddie Keith Schwartz is progressing well following his eye surgery.  He will have weekly appointment for a while to check his progress.  Please continue to pray for him.

All of you together are Christ’s body,

and each of you is a part of it.

~1 Corinthians 12:27 (NLT)~

Kathy Wales

Kathy would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support. The doctor has released to her start wearing shoes again. She will return to the doctor for another check-up in 6 weeks to ensure that everything is as it should be.

Larkin Dorris

Update from Kelly…
They only had to push one syringe of stem cells today because her “product” was so good. They started at 10:57 and were finished at 11:03. She is doing fine so far. She still smells like a strong dose of V8. We should go back to the apartment by this afternoon.

We are half way finished with chemo.!!!!

Thanks,
Kelly Dorris

From Cheryl Hughes Greene

Sister, Linda, will have gall bladder surgery at 3:30 today.

Son, John, still has much swelling in face from his surgery.

Julie, my youngest sister, as for prayer for her grandson, Jameson Parrino, who will have his tonsils removed Monday.  I think he is two years old.

Annie Armstrong Easter Offering

Reaching out in word and deed in Uptown Chicago
Michael Allen serves in Chicago’s Uptown area where diversity, poverty, intellect and wealth converge to form a mosaic of ministry opportunities for Michael’s congregation at Uptown Baptist Church.
By Adam Miller

Two blocks east of the “El” Train Red Line in Uptown Chicago, a lady named Susan limps over from under a covered bus stop.

“That’s my spot. I was here. I just had to sit down.”

She marks her spot by hanging two canvas bags on the fence where a dozen men and women are lined up outside Uptown Baptist Church.

“I was here. This weather is killing my arthritis.”

Her voice is husky but kind. She limps toward the bus stop, sits and takes a sip from something tightly wrapped in brown paper, looks over her shoulder again, then settles back against the glass enclosure.

As the line builds, she comes back.

Next Monday, she says, they’re giving out shoes.

“Could you help me with this?” asks Susan, holding up a kids’ Revenge of the Sith wristwatch six hours fast. “It’s a cheap watch. I don’t know how to fix it. It’s not a very nice watch.”

Every Monday around 4:30 p.m. the iron gate separating Uptown Baptist from the sidewalk creaks open and some 350 homeless men and women file into pews for a word from scripture then to the basement for a hot meal.

Shouldering computer bags and backpacks, a flock of Chicagoans scatter from the train and the buses toward home or an evening job in one of the city’s most diverse communities.

This is North American Mission Board missionary Michael Allen’s mission field.

“Uptown is one of the most diverse places in the Chicago area,” said Allen. “It’s diverse in almost every way you can imagine — ethnically, socio-economically, in gender and in age. It’s home to retirees, young couples, newborns, the brilliant and the mentally ill.”

Nearly 80 languages are represented in Uptown’s public schools.  The neighborhood’s population includes government officials, college professors, business professionals and a sub-culture of “down-and-outs.”

Allen is one of more than 5,300 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering®. He is among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 7-14, 2010. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Share God’s Transforming Power.” The 2010 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $70 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Allen.

Allen has worked with social ministries for years, beginning with his tenure at Moody Bible Church and continuing with leadership at homeless and recovery ministries throughout the city. His ability to interact across a broad spectrum has given the Jamaican-born pastor a voice among Chicago businessmen and politicians.

“One day I could be at a press conference with the mayor of Chicago and all the movers and shakers and be in a suit and tie, then later that day on the street talking to somebody who’s drunk and just gave his girlfriend AIDS,” said Allen. “It’s a powerful thing. It’s an amazing thing. It’s God at work changing people’s lives and I get to be used by Him to accomplish it.”

Tonight, Allen is hosting an hour-long Q & A session with a top Chicago attorney who’ll help attendees understand and navigate the legal system. Then those who’ve come here will hear the Gospel and gather for a meal of hot chicken and pasta. Later on in the evening, 50 homeless women will make a pallet for the night in one of the church’s rooms.

Outside the walls of the church, Uptown Baptist also is impacting local schools with a launch of Child Evangelism Fellowship, a door opened when the church provided backpacks and school supplies at the request of Chicago’s mayor. Allen joined other church leaders, challenging them to show up at schools nearby to welcome children, interact with teachers and administration, and provide students with backpacks full of paper, pencils and notebooks.

“One of the principals said, ‘I didn’t know what we were going to do. I didn’t know how we were going to provide for all these kids who were unprepared on the first day of school,’” Allen recounted. “And here we were –at the mayor’s invitation — showing up during the time of need.

“The deepest need of humankind is always to know God and to reconnect with God,” Michael added. “Whatever surface problems are going on around us, if we stop long enough and look carefully enough, we would see that it’s a spiritual problem. It’s a heart problem. We need to seize that opportunity before us and to continue to be real with people.”

If you were to ask Allen his priorities in order of importance, loving his family and discipling his children would come first. His resume credentials mount up, from education to inner-city experience, but his job as father is of primary importance to him.

“In a survey of hundreds of homeless people, the recurring theme we saw was an inability to respect authority and a lack of strong male leadership in the home,” Allen said. “I’m passionate about seeing the church change some bleak statistics.

“Whether times are good or bad, Allen added, “the opportunities are there to be a light, to be a witness and to share the good news of the Gospel in word and deed. The time has come for us to be a living example and to speak the truth in love and I think if we do this, we will be more like Jesus.”

Adam Miller is a writer for the North American Mission Board.

Thanks for allowing the rest of us to pray with you!

Anna Lee

I forgot to mention Dr. Faller.  I was told yesterday that he will be having back surgery soon.  Please add Dr. Faller to your prayer list.

Remember to pray for Betty Simpson as she has knee surgery today.

One more reminder – Pray for Mrs. Anne Hurst as she travels to Haiti today as part of a mission team.