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NEWS AND INFORMATION FROM THE ISEMINGER FAMILY SERVING AMERICA'S SMALL AND STRUGGLING CHURCHES SENT BY: Lincoln Ave. Baptist Church, Ionia Michigan, Darren M. Tharp, Pastor SERVING THROUGH: Shepherd's Staff World Baptist Mission, Chillicothe OH, Dr. Jerry Chaney, President
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| October 2004 |
Phone: 800-436-0556 Mailbox 1415805 |
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Dear Praying Friends & Supporters,
This letter was due in September but has been delayed for several weeks for a number of different reasons. Please accept our apologies and be aware that we will just call this an October letter and send the next one in December.
Thanks for your understanding.
Support/Financial Update God continues to do incredible things to meet our needs and help us help others. Since our last letter we have picked up new support from one new family and from Beacon Baptist Church in Millville, DE. Our monthly support goal is getting closer and closer, it is exciting to see what God is doing.
Grace Baptist Church in Warner Robins, GA, one of our monthly supporters recently raised about $600.00 and purchased a new 4500 watt generator which is now mounted on the bed of our truck. This is a huge help to us as we travel from place to place. We have seen campground rates range from $15.00 to $50.00 per night and now when we are in route to our next stop we can pull in at a Wal-Mart, Flying J or truck stop, fire up the generator, and spend the night, saving us what ever a campground would have cost.
We are going ahead with our plans of spending a big chunk of 2005 in longer term church helps. Please pray that God will bring in the remaining needed support so that we can do all that is needed to be done.
News From the Road In July and August we were in 13 churches, 8 of which were churches we had not been in before, in 5 states. This brings our 2004 total to 39 churches, 17 of which are first time stops for us.
We conducted the last of our 5 Vacation Bible Schools all of which went well. We have always issued three challenges to the kids: 1) everyone who comes everyday gets to throw a water balloon at me on the last day 2) For every visitor that the kids bring, they get a whipped cream pie that they can put in my face before the balloons get thrown. 3) If they can double the attendance from the first day to the last I will swallow a live goldfish.
Through the years, I have taken a lot of pies in my face and been soaked with hundreds of water balloons, but I have never had to swallow The Live GoldFish. The kids at Knowlhurst Baptist in Stony Creek, NY have the distinction of being the first group to kill a fish. There is a picture below of the event - please don’t pass it on to PETA.
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Family News Due to the other special things in this letter we don’t have the space to give our usual report on the family. We are all doing well, the kids are back in school as of the beginning July and Carmen is still hanging in there. We will give a more detailed report in the next letter.
New Things Are Coming! As we gear up to begin our 10th year in this ministry we are working on some new things which we will be sharing with you soon.
One of the things that I have been talking a lot about this year is any church that can, helping other churches that are in need. I am convinced this is something that needs to happen and we are seeing some churches that are doing just that.
One of the new things that we would like to get going is maintaining a list of churches with needs (Song books, Sunday School and VBS material, furniture, etc) and a list of churches that have these extra things available with the hope of helping small churches get the things that they need.
With this in mind. If you have any of these things that you could give to a church in need, (even if it is 10 extra song books) (remember we go into some very small churches) or if you have needs please let us know so that we can start working on getting these folks together.
News From Beside the Road For those of you who get our e mail updates or visit our website pretty regularly, this will be old news but we did spend some time along the road since our last letter.
In July we were in Western New York traveling between churches when we were involved in an accident. Everyone was pretty shaken up but none of us were hurt, the truck was still drivable and our trailer was not damaged, praise the Lord! As of this writing the other driver’s insurance company has offered us 50% of the $2400 in damages. We are waiting for the witness statements to come in and will then have to decide what to do. We are certain that we were not at fault and believe that we are entitled to a full settlement, however, if the witness statements don’t change things with the insurance company we will have to count the costs involved in returning to NY to fight for a full settlement, please pray that the Insurance company would pay, and if they don’t please pray that we will make the right decision as to what we should do.
We also had to replace the tie rods and drag link on the front of the truck and later the same day the clutch went out and we were stuck for 2 days while it was being repaired. Right after this was completed we had to have extensive repairs to the rear end, replacing axle seals, wheel cylinders, drums and shoes. Then we had to replace the alternator followed by new pads and rotors up front. All in all we have had to spend a substantial amount of money on the truck since our last writing.
The up side is that through God’s Goodness and your prayers God saw fit to take care of us and the repairs. Another good thing is that the truck is now safer and more mechanically sound, for which we are thankful. |
Our Itinerary Click here to see our current schedule. It is busy as is the norm. As always, if you are coming to see us, please call or E-mail to confirm the information. Please continue to pray for our safe travel and for God’s Power and Grace in the meetings and for the churches and Pastors we are with.
Prayer Requests
As you pray for us and with us, we covet your prayers for the following specific things: God’s Power, Wisdom and Grace in the Meetings
Our family’s health and wellbeing
Safety as we travel
Our 2005 Schedule
God’s wisdom & Provision for an updated truck when needed
The Sale of our Van (financially we need this van to sell quickly)
Wisdom in scheduling church helps
Carmen’s health (especially as fall and the change in weather arrives)
Our monthly Support
Our next scheduled prayer letter is November when we will be in Michigan. We will look forward to updating you then.
Thanks again for your prayers and participation in our ministry, we thank God for you daily.
Because of Calvary, The Iseminger Family David & Carmen Lena , Dylan & Emilee Romans 10:13-15
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