Isemingerfamily@juno.com

Phone:  814-777-4231

Dear Praying Friends,

Hard to believe it is April.  I am sorry the prayer letter is late.  I usually try to have it to the Potters (who print it and stuff it and mail it) by the first of the month so that they can get it out early in the month.  Today is April 11th and I am just now getting started on it, so it is hard to say what day you are actually reading this on.  As you read though, you will see that the plate has been fuller than normal, so I hope you will forgive our tardiness.

News From The Road

I have two meetings away from Macon to report on, both of which went well.

In February the whole family headed north to Ambassador Baptist in           Frederick, MD to be with them for a 2 day prayer school.  We actually got to town on Thursday night (the meeting was Saturday & Sunday).  We stayed with our dear friends Bob and Darla Buckley and had a wonderful but short visit with them.  On Friday they had planned a surprise 13th birthday for David II which was a lot of fun and very thoughtful.  On Saturday I started off with three hours of instruction on Prayer, which went well.  Then when we were done my sister and her husband had driven several hours from Northern VA to see us, we had dinner with them and spent some time catching up (it had been way to long since we had seen them).  Then Sunday we finished the teaching part of the sessions in Sunday School and focused the day’s services on Prayer.  We heard from many of the folks that it was helpful and the pastor seemed happy.  Bright and early Monday morning we were on the road again.

Just last week (April 2-7) David II and I headed west to be at Victory Baptist in Longview, TX for their spring revival.  It was a good meeting with lots of preaching and lots of door knocking.  We  found many prospects that the church will stay on top of.  On Wednesday my son got to preach again and did a fine job.   On Tuesday the Cothrin and Stone Families from Royce City and Quinlan, TX came over and we were able to spend some time with them after the service.  These are some of the first people we met on our first trip to Texas back in 1997 and have kept up with them ever since.  It had been a couple years since we had seen them so it was good to catch up.

Then on Friday Pastor Duane Crane (who is a first class tarantula hunter and popsicle stick bomber) from Bethel Baptist in Rockwall, TX came over so we got to have a bit of fellowship with him before we hit the road.  All in all it was a good meeting and we made it home safe.

It all boils down to the Men's Week out went well , but we are enjoying being reunited with the ladies of the family.

News From Macon

The last several months here have been interesting.  We seem to have moved from one difficulty to another and at the present we are still standing and working at what God has given us to do. 

A little while back we were without transportation for almost two weeks when our van was down and out with transmission problems.  We survived  and the van is now fixed and doing well. 

While that was going on the line to the city sewer backed up into the church and we discovered some major plumbing issues, all of which go back to never having been done right in the first place.  That seems to be the norm here as well as many other places.  But we are learning the lesson that if you half do it, someone will have to undo what you did and do it right eventually.  What made the sewer problem worse is that for 2 days we couldn’t flush a toilet (thankfully there are 7) or take a shower, our van was in the shop so we couldn’t go anywhere to avoid the mess.

But God put a great plumber in our midst and he was able to have us back on track in 3 days without the city getting involved.

We also had part in a funeral when the father of two of our members went home to be with the Lord. 

All in all it has been a stressful and difficult two months. But we are all still here and praising the Lord for His mercy and guidance.

April 23-26 our Pastor will be here for a spring revival.  We are looking     forward to the fellowship, the preaching and for his insight on the status and future progress of the church here.  Please be in prayer for this meeting and for his safe travel to and from Georgia.

Family Prayer Requests and Health Update

Through the years, regardless of what else is going on the one thing I can count on is that whenever our family is separated for whatever reason something is going to go wrong and often times more than one thing. 

On the Texas trip that I have already mentioned, We left GA right at 4:00 AM and after a quick pit stop in Crystal Springs, MS to check on Carmen’s Grandmother we were back on the road and arrived in Longview about 4:00 PM.  Shortly after I arrived Carmen called and said I think Lena just had a seizure.  A few phone calls later and she was on the way to a local urgent care center.  One of the problems with this whole thing was that I loaded Carmen and the girls up with groceries and left them without a vehicle.  Someone from the church loaned her a car and she was at 2 different doctor appointments during the week.  At this point, all we know is that what she had was a

seizure but no one is sure why.  All of the tests at this point have been normal and we are waiting on an appointment with a neurologist for more testing.

We are all pretty concerned, Lena has been pretty scared.  For about a week after it happened she felt pretty normal but now today she has not been feeling very well at all.  With comments like “I feel like I did when I had the       seizure.”

About the time this was going on we also got a call that Carmen needed some follow up on a test that she had recently had done.  As of now she has gone for one follow up test and it is still not good, so they have set up a consultation and another test. We should have the results from that test on April 25th and we are praying that we will get good news.

Family Update

Carmen goes to see her fibromyalgia doctor again on April 17.  He has her on a number of different medications none of which seem to be working.  We are trying to get some of her records and x-rays from the chiropractor that she saw regularly when we were in Indiana, in hopes that they may be a good point of reference for this present doctor and give him some ideas on how to proceed.  My assessment of the present situation is that she has got to have some relief and is not all that concerned on how it comes.

All 3 of the kids have been helping us with knocking on doors and placing  door hangers.

School is going well for all three of them.  Lena has finished her first semester of 9th grade and received her report card from the school (they keep the records in grades 9-12 for graduation) and other than a C+ in Algebra she has all A’s and B’s and very excited to keep the good grades going. 

David II is growing extremely fast, he thought he was going to be short forever, and he is already several inches above Lena.  He is also enjoying the opportunities he is getting to preach.
 

Emilee is well, she is trying to recover from Lena’s seizure it scared her to death (for good reason) and she quickly pitched in without even being asked to pick up the slack of Lena’s duties.  Even after a week and a half, if Emilee is out of the room to long, when she comes back she asks Lena if she is ok!

New Things

The discipleship book is done, and is on the website in PDF format.  We have heard some good comments on it and it seems like it is going to be a help to some churches, which is what we are all about. I also was contacted by a missionary working in Mexico who was interested in getting a copy so that he could translate it into Spanish and use it in the churches he is working with down there which is pretty exciting to us.

I think we worked out a pretty fair deal.  I sent him a copy of the book and he sent me two liters of Mexican vanilla (which is wonderful and we were almost out of).

On the website there are a few new firefighter stories and the article series on church discipline will be done the first of May.

Prayer Requests

As you pray please remember the following needs in several areas:

Ayers Road Baptist Church

Please continue to pray for stability, finances, growth, workers, work on the building and especially for these packages as we are getting them out and following them up. 

The Iseminger Family

Please keep each of us in your prayers, especially Carmen and Lena’s present health problems, the kids schooling and development and all of our general well being.

The Needs of the Ministry

Please just continue to pray that God will continue to see fit to use us, and that he will meet our needs and bless our efforts.  There are a few things I could mention but we are still in the praying mode on them so please just pray for the ministry.

Support

There is nothing new to report in this category.  We are down from the end of last year but we are trusting the Lord to take care of us and take care of it.

I would love to take some time and try to get into some new churches and try to get the rest of our support raised but there is just no time and if there was time to get out and do some of that, with gas knocking on the door of $2.60 a gallon I fear it may be counter productive.

I guess we will just continue to trust the Lord and continue to claim II Timothy 1:12 “nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

Since this letter will likely get to you at the end of April.  We will likely not write again until July which would put the remaining 2006 prayer letters in July, September and November.

Again, Thank you to each of you for all that you do and the prayers that you pray on our behalf. We couldn’t do it without you.

Because of Calvary,

The Iseminger Family

David & Carmen

Lena, David II & Emilee

Romans 10:13-15