This week marks the return of our 'live' newsletter. A lot has happened since I last wrote. Last Spring we chose to set aside August 9-10 and invite Rev. Keith McGowan (Pastor of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church near Adair) to serve as our Evangelist and also asked Bro. Don to bring together a few of his very talented friends to lead us in praise and worship. Great!! Apparently, the enemy found out what was going on. First, he hit us with a small gas leak, small enough that it required us to replace every gas line. The cost? Everything we had in our building fund. Next, our insurance dropped coverage of our roofs, citing age and existing conditions. We asked several 'inspectors! to check out our main roof (the Education Building has a metal single pitched roof), and we were advised that the roof the people in the Gospels removed to lower their friend to Jesus was in better shape than our roof. This development encouraged us to investigate the estimated cost of replacing our roof. That's when we discovered that new roofing codes require us to deck our roof also. That adds about $10,000 to the cost of the roof. Early estimates from approximately 7-8 roofing companies range from a low $30,000 to as high of $50,000, plus the Decking. It occurs to me that the enemy has me spending my time and energy worrying about roofs and missing the all-important time praying and preparing for revival. And then God spoke. It seems like in both the Old Testament and the New Testament the Children of Israel and the Disciples of Christ moved from one crisis to the next. They were always under attack, they were always running out of everything, the demands on them always seemed over-whelming, and to the common man--they were. But God was there, and He NEVER failed them. They witnessed miracle after miracle after miracle. And we have, and we serve, THE SAME GOD. Again, THE SAME GOD. As the Israelites were so fond of saying, 'The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' The God of Moses, David, Elijah, and Elisha. The God of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, and Timothy. And the God of Charley, Chris, Jon, Dewayne, Shannon, Mike, Randy, Dean, Don, Tony, Matthew, Clint, Danny, Phil, Robert, Josh, Tom, Sue, Jamiko, Sadie, Mary, Faith, Elisa, Erma, Nancy, Jan, Pat, Jamie, Connie, Marie, Cindy, Tammy, Stacy, Alli, Regina, Barbara, Carrie, Lyric, Maddy, Debbie, Ramona, Ann, Becky, Bailey, Samantha, Sarah, Indy, Addison, Emily, Brien, Silas, Destenie, Kyndall, Alanna, Diana, Kristina, Kyle, Aurora, Bash, Cori, Colton, Kayleigh, Mason, and ALL the youth and ALL the children (my memory is fogging up--forgive me if I missed someone). AND YET, HE'S STILL THE SAME GOD!! (And He hasn't forgotten anyone!) He's got this. More than anything, and everything else--He loves you and He cares for you. I believe that God is focused RIGHT NOW more on Revival the roofs. Let's join Him. Blessings Prayers and Love, Bro Tom and Sister Sue |