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| February 2006 |
Phone: 814-777-4231 |
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Dear Praying Friends,
Greetings from Georgia in the Name of the Lord. We hope that each of you are well and laying the groundwork for a faith filled and prosperous 2006. As is the norm, we have a fair amount to update you on. God has been and continues to be so good to us and we are looking forward to an exciting year.
Absent Minded Deletion Nothing like starting the letter with a woops, but when you make one you surely want to make it right. At the end of our last prayer letter I listed and thanked a number of folks that were a help to us and our ministry, as I just read over that letter I can’t believe the one person that I missed. Since 2002 Barbara Sinclair has taken care of our mail. We have a Snow Shoe, PA address because that is where the Sinclair’s live. She takes in our mail and then periodically passes it on to us in US Postal Service Priority Mail envelopes. She does a great job, and as you can imagine, with no other fixed address, this is a crucial part of keeping this ministry moving. We are grateful for her willingness to do this for us and apologize for forgetting her in the last letter.
Hitting the Ground Running As far as things here in Macon, they seem to be looking up. We are in the process of putting up a new church sign which is long overdue, getting carpet in the nursery, and putting together some door hanger packages containing a pen, a letter, a church brochure, and a tract. Our plan is to do 1000 hangers, target several neighborhoods and pass them out 100 at a time and then follow them up with personal visits. We have had success in other places with a similar approach and there are several advantages to this method:
First, we can get more people from the church involved in this process: ¨ ¨ Folks that can’t get out and walk can fold letters and brochures, stamp tracts and stuff packages. ¨ ¨ The whole church can gather to pray over the brochures before they are passed out. ¨ ¨ Others who are shy about talking to people can go out when we just hang the packages on the doors.
¨ Hopefully when we follow up with personal visits we can get those who are comfortable talking paired with someone who will be a good silent partner. In turn the uncomfortable ones will learn the process and become more confident and will some day be able to lead someone to the Lord with a boldness and power from the Lord. ¨ ¨ Second, when we visit people they have a point of reference as to whom we are. People constantly ask me “you’re from where?” but at least in theory, if we hang a package one week and knock on their door the next week we won’t have that obstacle to overcome.
The biggest downfall to this approach is the cost involved, these packages will wind up being about forty cents each, but we are claiming II Corinthians 9:6 “But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” And trusting that God will truly bless our efforts.
So far this year has gotten off to a good start. Please pray that it continues.
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Missions Trip to Macon Perhaps you have been thinking of taking a missions trip but lack the resources to leave the country, or have asked yourself the question, what could I do for missions other than my Faith Promise? There are many missions trips you could take and never leave the US. There are lots of things to be done in the South West with the Native Americans and the North East is a very needy area for servants. But if you are at all interested in seeing and being involved in the rebuilding of one of God’s works, boy do we have the place for you!! We have a lot to do and could use the help. Since we have been here several folks have expressed interest in coming, I would personally invite you to come see first hand what is happening and pitch in and help for a few days.
Family Update At the present time Carmen and the girls are recovering from sinus infections and upper respiratory infections. It was a rough couple of weeks but they are all doing better. Carmen is still seeing the doctor in Macon and he is playing with different things to help her with her pain levels but as of this time he isn’t having much success. Please pray about all of this with us.
David II preached again the Sunday before Christmas and did a great job, he will be 13 in February and growing into a wonderful young man.
Lena and Emilee are still taking piano lessons from the piano player here at the church and are doing very well and enjoying it.
All the kids are doing well with their schooling and having another good year with their grades. We were a bit worried with Lena entering High School and the bigger load of studies she would have, but she has taken right to it and hasn’t even missed a beat.
I am doing fine and trying to find a balance between everything being done and needing done at the church and the family, I think every man in the ministry can relate to that statement. Thanks to a very thoughtful Christmas present from my wife I have discovered the joys of roasting my own coffee.
Any of you who know me well know that I am a bit of a coffee nut, so I have been enjoying this new aspect to the world of coffee. Who would have ever thought there was something better than Starbucks?
New Things The Discipleship Book I have been working on is almost done. At the present I have 3 more chapters to go and it will be finished. Not only is this a help for the work here, it will be a new tool for our ministry and the other churches God has lined up for us to be a help to down the road. In addition to that we would like to make it available to any church that could use it. I can send it to you on a CD (Microsoft Publisher is required to read it) or I can send you a printed version ready for you to photocopy. There is no cost involved we just want to get it where it can be used for teaching the folks in the pews how to be their best for Christ. Please let me know if you would like to use it.
There are a number of new things on the website, most notably my Baptist Firefighter stories which are basically humorous things that have happened to us through the years. After a long pause in the articles section there is one up on discipleship and soon to go up is a series on church discipline that I hope everyone will read.
Truck Status I have been mentioning for some time that our truck was down and out, but had no specifics. I finally have some news but unfortunately it is not good. I pulled the plug on the oil pan and found it (as I expected) full of antifreeze. We are consulting with a few folks who know about these things as to their opinion on how we should proceed. Unless we hear of some new miracle something or other I have a feeling we will be sending it on to the Big Diesel Truck Cemetery
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Prayer Requests As you pray please remember the following needs in several areas:
Ayers Road Baptist Church Please continue to pray for stability, growth, workers, work needing to be done on the building and especially for these packages we are preparing to take out to the neighborhoods.
The Iseminger Family Please keep each of us in your prayers, especially Carmen’s health, the kids schooling and development and all of our general well being.
The Needs of the Ministry February, March and April have us on the road a little bit February will find us conducting a two day school of prayer in Maryland, in March we will be presenting our ministry in a pastors conference in Mississippi and in April we have a Revival in Texas. Please pray for safe travel and God’s blessings on these meetings, also please pray about our truck situation with us.
Surely it will be Soon? The Bible tells us in II Timothy 3:1 “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” I believe Biblically we have been in the last days for some time. And it continues to get more and more perilous with each passing day.
Every time I turn around, I hear of another church falling by the wayside or sliding into some form of compromise with music being the most popular at the present. Recently I was shocked to see that a church with a good sized Bible College whose pastor has a national ministry, was hosting a meeting where the speaker was a Non-Baptist, who Baptizes babies and is a 5 point Calvinist. In an interview about this meeting the fist thing the speaker said was “It's good for those of like, precious faith to come across denominational barriers and stand together in the things they agree on," I was shocked to say the least and I poked around a bit looking for some outcry, I was more shocked when I found none. I made attempts to contact the church in question but none of my attempts were ever responded to. I then traded some correspondence with the editor of the largest fundamental Christian publication in America, who has a history of pointing out this type of compromise. He told me it was really nothing to worry about.
I remain shocked and appalled but I seem to be in the minority. Again I say Surely it will be soon.
New support Last but not least another lesson in God’s goodness and his willingness and ability to supply our needs as we serve Him. Just about the same time we received word that one of our supporters was going to go a different direction with their missions money in 2006 (it happens, there are no hard feelings and we wish them well) we received our first support checks from Ambassador Baptist Church in Frederick, MD so in the words of Job “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Lord willing you will hear from us again in April with another good report on what God is doing. Until then thanks to each of you for your prayers and participation in this ministry, we couldn’t do it without you.
Because of Calvary, The Iseminger Family David & Carmen Lena, David II & Emilee Romans 10:13-15
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