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This is a request for six more people to join the Adopt-A-Block teams. With that number we could again cover all the buildings and do it well. We ask for a six-month commitment of your first and third Saturdays, for a couple of hours beginning at 10:30. This is not only an opportunity to meet some new people and grow in witnessing to the community, but it would be a great encouragement to the current team members, some of whom have stuck at it for over a year and a half and can often feel rather alone.
Also: there is a possibility that we may have the chance to help a woman who doesn’t have any furniture in her living room. If you have some furniture in good condition that you would be willing to donate, or if you are interested in being on a team, contact Janessa Chupp at j.ness08@gmail.com or reply to this post.
-Janessa
It’s been some time since I’ve updated this blog, due in part to the fact that we haven’t had a normal Adopt-A-Block in a while. We were finally back on Saturday and I was nearly ready with an eloquent post about it, but my computer ate it, so you will have to be satisfied with these pictures of the Christmas party for now.
-Janessa
SOVEREIGN GOD,
Thy cause, not my own, engages my heart,
and I appeal to thee with greatest freedom
to set up thy kingdom in every place where Satan reigns;
Glorify thyself and I shall rejoice,
for to bring honour to thy name in my sole desire.
I adore thee that thou art God,
and long that others should know it, feel it, and rejoice in it.
O that all men might love and praise thee,
that thou mightest have all glory from the intelligent world!
Let sinners be brought to thee for thy dear name!
To the eye of reason everything respecting
the conversion of others is as dark as midnight,
But thou canst accomplish great things;
the cause is thine,
and it is to thy glory that men should be saved.
Lord, use me as thou wilt,
do with me what thou wilt;
but, O, promote thy cause,
let thy kingdom come,
let thy blessed interest be advanced in this world!
O do thou bring in great numbers to Jesus!
let me see that glorious day,
and give me to grasp for multitudes of souls;
let me be willing to die to that end;
and while I live let me labour for thee
to the utmost of my strength,
spending time profitably in this work,
both in health and in weakness.
It is thy cause and kingdom I long for, not my own.
O, answer thou my request!
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with exactly who I mean by “the Adopt-A-Block teams”. So here is a list of the people from Harvest who usually show up on Saturdays.
- Tony LaCount
- Emma LaCount
- Jennie Dood
- Francis VanDelden
- Elizabeth Veurink
- David Van Dyke
- Holly Veurink
- Andrew Van Dyke
- Sally Opolski
- Seth Sandbulte
- Paul Sandbulte
- Janessa Chupp
- Jillian Chupp
- Nathan DeRuischer
If you’re praying for us, tell us. We need to know. Also, we want more people to join us- especially adults. If you want to join us, even for just a short time, please ask us about it! Talk to Mr. LaCount or I and we’ll be glad to answer your questions and put you with a team.
Anyone who has been to a foreign country has probably had a similar experience to the one I had when I returned from a mission trip to Haiti last winter. Although my team had apparently entered seamlessly into our week in an unfamiliar country, we found to our surprise that coming back home wasn’t as easy. We experienced greater culture shock in reentering the States. An intense feeling of disconnect appeared because we had seen and done things we never had before, but they really hadn’t been as strange as we imagined them to be. They were just normal life. But none of the people around us who had never been to Haiti before could understand this. We felt mute.
This phenomenon is not only a reality on the foreign mission field. The simple everydayness of ministry always makes it a difficult thing to communicate, because it can look either like a drab report of facts or like a fairy tale. Both of these present a false idea of what ministry is and seem to distance it from “normal church people.” Those who have been in ministry for years, however, know the secret. It’s neither always a bore nor consistently an incredible adventure. It’s just normal life. That is its humble glory.
Sharing the gospel, filling needs, and inviting kids to Bible clubs aren’t terribly innovative things. Nor is the calling to do them limited to a certain kind of Christian. They are the kind of things God calls us to do everywhere we are as His people. Doing these things at Foxcroft increases our realm of influence to reach to Harvest’s neighbors, and it makes us think about how we should be living in our own neighborhoods, too.
The freedom to live like that wherever we are, using our resources to further God’s kingdom, is an incredible thing. But it can also be an obstacle. I have found that I prefer to be always on a mountain, but lacking that, would rather be in the depths than plodding slowly on in something usual. Faithfulness is the hardest to stomach when it’s in the simple, unimpressive struggle of the day-to-day. Maybe that’s why God makes so much of life just normal things. Surprisingly, I have found that this is where my trust and perseverance are most put to the test.
The chasm that sometimes seems to exist between missions or ministry and normal life needs to be erased. Once it is, there will be days of discouragement. There are lots of those in normal life. But there will also be a stronger, deeper knowledge of the goodness of God and growth of a real, operative faith in Him. That’s how ministry and life complement each other. They can, and must, go hand in hand.
-Janessa
If you are praying for Adopt-A-Block, pray that the power of God would not become commonplace to us. On Saturday our group was small again- about ten people, I think. But God proved again that even in our smallness, he will be glorified. The team I went with that day met a young man on the doorstep of my building who said he was a Catholic, and Mr. LaCount asked him some very pointed questions about Jesus and explained to him the gospel. When we went inside, we were invited in by a woman we had just met who turned out to be the mother of one of this young man’s friends. Three other friends were also visiting that day, some of whom hadn’t heard of the gospel.
Mr. LaCount told the young man on the doorstep, “Our meeting here today was for a reason, and I believe that reason was so you can hear what I have to say to you.” How true that is- God has great purposes. What concerns me is the way our hearts become dull to them. A year ago, I would have leaped about in the hallway once we left the woman’s apartment and told everyone else from the teams about it right away. But now, we hear of little kids from the Bible clubs asking questions about the resurrection, and of friendships formed at the cookout, and people who ask for Bibles, and we barely stop to rejoice. Instead, we look at the other nine people standing in a circle in the yard praying with us and think, Aw, man, what a tiny group this is.
Be encouraged! With weak things God still does great work! We have seen that over and over- may it not deaden us to His glory! How quickly we forget God’s purposes and substitute our own. God is not distressed by our limitations, and on Saturday six people heard about Him. Pray that we, not only as a group but as the church, would keep our eyes on the goal and never give up.
-Janessa
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