The Financial Peace University class is concluding on May 14. Heading into the final lesson, the group has acheived perfect attendance with no drop-outs.

The class of 5 single mothers and 2 couples have collectively improved their finances by more than $20,000 since the start of the course, by decreasing debt and increasing savings.

Some participants in this course are attending via Habitat for Humanity. Participating in this class earned them 13 credit hours toward their Home Preparation Education Credits.

Led by Curt and Erin Crawford, members of Trinity Church have provided additional support to the FPU participants — supplying dinner, babysitting and homework help for up to 8 children each Monday evening.

George and Martha Moore

Almost three years ago, the Lord used a job loss to bring George and Martha Moore back home to Indiana.

“We believe that purpose was related to family, and I believe it was also related to the Church,” George says of his move from Michigan to Indianapolis.

George Moore was installed as an elder at Trinity Church on April 15, 2012.

Though he’s a new elder at Trinity, George has served as deacon and elder in other congregations.

“I want people to understand that I want to be a good servant; a good elder to them,” George says.

“They should never be reluctant to ask me whatever they want, and if they see something that needs correction, to not hesitate to bring it to my attention.”

George says that just because he’s an elder, it doesn’t mean he’s perfect.

“Sometimes I’m pretty dense, and I don’t read people well at all,” he says. “My wife does. Martha is a tremendous resource for me,” George says of his wife of almost 40 years.

“I wouldn’t even consider being an elder without her by me.”

One of his favorite parts of being an elder is connecting with members of the congregation, getting to know them better and building relationships.

Joining the PCA

George grew up in a Christian home, and came to know Christ at a young age. He thinks he really began growing in his faith during his mid-30s, coinciding around the time he first got involved with at PCA church while living in Muncie in the 1980s.

It was the first time he and Martha, who have Methodist backgrounds, were exposed to Reformed theology. He remembers some parts initially being hard to accept, but he came to understand that the doctrine reflects Scripture.

“We were hooked,” George says. “The pastor was tremendous. It was so different for us, and we just loved it.”

The Moores spent the 1980s in Muncie, and then moved to Michigan where they lived for 20 years. There, they raised two sons, Jason and Brian.

Jason now lives with his wife, Tamara, in St. Paul, Minn., and Brian lives with his wife, Lyndsey, in a Chicago suburb.

Back home again, in Indiana

In 2009, George was laid off from his job in Grand Rapids. He and Martha have extended family in the Indianapolis metro, so they decided to pack up and replant their roots on Hoosier soil.

George now is employed as a facility manager for CBRE, and has responsibilities pertaining to art institute facilities in several states.

Not long after the Moores returned to Indiana, Martha’s sister passed away. It was a devastating loss, but George says since they now live near Martha’s brother-in-law, they are able to minister to him and his daughter.

“We’d never been able to do that if we were in Michigan,” George says, “But the Lord took us out of the situation we were in, and He put us here for a purpose.”

For the Moores, finding Trinity Church was simple.

They already knew of Pastor Jim Furey. They also knew Trinity Church members Ralph and Anne Borgeling, who attended the same church as the Moores for a time while both families were living in Michigan.

All that, plus the close proximity to their home located near Clermont and Speedway, and they have found Trinity Church to be a great place to continue growing in their walk with Christ.

Job losses and blessings

When George reflects on his life, he can identify one time in particular when he saw the Lord at work strengthening their faith.

It was February 1995, and George was laid off from his job. In March, his son Jason was diagnosed with cancer and required chemotherapy.Then, Martha’s father had a stroke.

“All of this came together at one time,” he reflects, “so we were hurting at that point.”

Looking back, George sees how God worked in that situation.

Jason was attending Purdue University at the time of his diagnosis, and his chemo treatments were in Lafayette. But at the time, George and Martha were living in Grand Rapids.

George made the four-hour one-way trip with his son for his cancer treatments, then brought him home to Michigan. And he sees God’s providence — if he hadn’t lost his job, he wouldn’t have been able to care for his son in that way.

“It turned into one of our most memorable summers, and one of the most enjoyable summers of my life,” he recalls. “Obviously, we were dealing with some heavy stuff, but in the end we were amazed at how things worked out.”

Sometimes, the Lord uses job losses, moves, and hardship for the Moores — and He turns it into something positive.

“Every page in our lives, we have seen how God worked things out, and that we were where we needed to be.”

Dear Friends,

We are doing well and are excited about what is happening here in Colombia as you can read in our newsletter.  One additional prayer request that came up after I finished the newsletter is for traveling safety for myself as I head north with another national pastor to encourage the local church in both Bucaramanga and Cucuta.

I leave tonight by bus (a very long bus ride!) and will fly back to Bogota on Tuesday.  Please pray not only for safety but also that we can be an encouragment to the pastors there and their churches and that we can begin getting a picture for the needs in their communities and churches and for ways that we can help!

It is so great to have such an awesome prayer team behind all the work we are doing here!  Shoot us an email and let us know how you are and how we can be praying for you!  Blessings,

Wes Parsons
MTW Colombia

Apr ’12 Newsletter

This update is from Bert and Nancy Williams, who are MTW missionaries serving in South Africa.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Hebrews 1:1-3a

Dear Friends,

It has been too long since we last wrote but please know that you are never out of our thoughts and prayers. We thank God for your kindness and support. He has truly blessed us.

You have heard us say many times that our mission here is to help the South African church “show and tell” the gospel. We never have liked the terms “word” and “deed” to describe our work for two reasons.

First, using the phrase “word and deed” seems to indicate that they are equal in importance and could even be separated. We must be faithful in the gospel proclamation, even as we demonstrate God’s love with our deeds. It is too common that people’s motives for good deeds get misinterpreted. People might think that we do them because we are good. Also, our good works are never enough to show people their need for a Savior or even the way to him. Words are of first importance.

The second reason we like to use the phrase “show and tell the gospel” is because it includes, and even emphasizes, the object of our showing and telling – the good news of God! Show and tell is meaningless without something to show and tell (duh!). Our words and deeds pale in comparison to the glorious good news of God. As you can see from the verses above, God’s words and his deeds are linked in such a way that they can never be separated.

We ask that you continue to pray for us as we work with the farm workers in Roggeveld and Moordenaars Karoo. Our desire is that they see the works of God and hear his words in such a way that God may be glorified. We are really just beginning our work here, even though it has nearly been six months. Our plan here is in four steps: discover, dream, design, and deliver. We are in the discover stage right now.

In our discovery step, we are learning more about the workers on each farm: their families; education; strengths; and their relationship with Jesus. This is a slow process as the farms are rather distant from each other and the workers are usually busy until after 6 pm each day. We rejoice that our Afrikaans is improving although more slowly than we’d like.

After we get to know everyone better, we’ll meet with them to see what their dreams are for their community. You may often hear of all the needs in such a poor community but emphasizing needs sometimes means that strengths are ignored. Instead, we will focus on strengths and see what ways we might build on these strengths so that the work can be done by the workers. From dreaming, we move to design and then delivery of our first small project. We start small so we might have a greater chance of success. From this point, we begin at discovery again: what skills and talents have been developed in the first cycle. Where can we go from there?

We will keep you posted these developments and give you more detail as time goes on. It is hard to get everything in one email. We do want to include some other prayer requests in this email. We suspect that you can pick out a few from what has come so far.

We’d also like you to lift the following up to God:

1. Please pray for the budding church that meets at Saai Plaas on the second Sunday of each month. As part of our long term strategy, we long to see this church be a central part of the life of the Roggeveld. Currently, all churches are in either Sutherland or Laingsburg, at least an hour away. There is no real effort at disciple-making by these churches. Pray that through our work developing community that followers of Christ would grow.

2. Please pray for our living situation. We have never lived in such a rural area. In the past month, we have had several “crises” which have shown us how inadequate we are for life here. We do have access to help. Pray that we know how to ask and receive this help.

3. Please also pray for our transportation. It appears that our car will not be good enough for traveling between the farms in the winter rains. We cross two streams to get from our house to the “main” road. In the summer when it doesn’t really rain, the streams are dry and no problem. Now that the rains have begun, we will have more troubles. Pray for our safety and wisdom.

4. Praise God that the Bible studies and training sessions we’ve had so far have been very well received.

5. Praise God that the farmers have warmly welcomed us into the community. The workers all live on the farms where they work. Our access to them depends on the good will of the farmers who own the farms. We thank God that they have been very enthusiastic and supportive of our work. Please pray that they continue to do so.

6. We will be spending the first half of May in Gauteng (another province of South Africa) attending the synod of the Christelike Gereformeerde Kerk (CGK, the denomination we work with here in South Africa) and several other conferences. Please pray that God’s kingdom business would be taken care of at the synod and that the conferences might renew and refresh us.

Again, and in closing, we thank God for you and all your support. It has been a while since our last email. Things have been a little hard for us here. Please keep praying.

Blessings,

Bert and Nancy Williams

MTW Support Account Number: 18179

Here are audio files of the Ten Commandments sermon series from Fall 2011. Click the link to listen from your computer, or right-click and “save-as” to download it to your computer and later upload to your mp3 device if you choose.

• No Other Gods – Exodus 20:1-3; Matthew 22:36-39
• The Worship of Idols – Exodus 20:4-6; Exodus 32:1-5; Exodus 32:15-20
• The Name Above All Names – Exodus 20:7; Revelation 19:11-16
• The Sabbath Day: Keep it Holy – Exodus 20:8-11; Isaiah 58:13-14
• A Life Pleasing to God – 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12
• Honor Your Father and Your Mother – Deuteronomy 5:16; Romans 1:20-23; Romans 1:28-30
• You Shall Not Murder – Exodus 20:13; Matthew 5:21-22
• Glorify God in Your Body – Matthew 5:27-32; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
• Thou Shall Not Steal –Matthew 6:19-21; Ephesians 4:28
• The Relationship of the Law and the Gospel –Romans 3:19-25

Visit this page for other sermons.

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The convention is schedule Tuesday, June 19th through Thursday, June 21st. Volunteers are needed for each of the following areas:

• Nursery (1 – 23 Months)
• Toddlers (2 – 3 Years)
• Pre-K (4 – 5 Years)
• Elementary (K – 6th Grade)
• Youth (7th – 12th Grade)

Interested? Please email Children’s & Family Activities Chair Michael Craddock at michael@northcincy.org for more information or sign-up at: http://www.pcaac.org/2012GeneralAssembly/Volunteers.htm

For this year’s event there’s no need to arrive many hours early for a prime spot: we have 24 seats at reserved tables on the main aisle, close enough to keep an eye on our young or old ones who like to dance in the open.

Before the show take a hot air balloon ride or visit the cannons that powerfully sound in the 1812 Overture.

The event date is Tuesday, July 3rd. But reserve your deeply-discounted $5 tickets as soon as possible by contacting Jack Rotzien. Carpooling can be arranged.

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The evidence for Christ’s resurrection is so great that anyone approaching the evidence with a sincere desire, seeking the truth from Almighty God, will find it like the old Irishman’s wall. The wall surrounding his property was built out of stone, four feet tall and five feet wide. When asked why he built his wall with such strange dimensions, he replied, “If anyone attempts to knock it over, it will stand even taller than it did before.”

Two thousand years have come and gone and even under the strongest attacks from the skeptics, the evidence for Christ’s resurrection has grown taller, more compelling and more formidable than before. The biblical account of the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead leaves no doubt about its authenticity. His resurrection was witnessed by men and women, by both His disciples and enemies, by people indoors and outdoors, and even by more than five hundred people at one time. Every other competing theory in its attempt to refute Jesus’ resurrection has found itself shipwrecked upon rocky ground, and the Irishman’s wall continues to grow taller… Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950’s, her father, British pastor, W.E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. He was diagnosed with an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, and his throat would soon become unable to swallow.

Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and would have even more time for prayer. “Let me stay in the struggle, Lord,” he pleaded, “I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead.” He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England.Gradually, his symptoms worsened to the point that he could barely hold a pen. His voice was lost completely. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote in a letter to his daughter, “It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout, ‘He is risen!’ but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.”

I hope that this Easter, you will want to shout, “He is risen!” because you, yourself, are a recipient of God’s greatest gift. “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

– Pastor Jim Furey