Pray for Pittsburgh!

We believe God's Spirit is on the move and that we will see Him do incredible things through The Well and The Bridge. We also know that one of the most important things we can do for our communities is to pray--aligning our hearts & passion with those of God and seeking Him to do what only He can do.

That's why on Saturday, March 20th, The Bridge will be hosting a prayer walk for the city of Pittsburgh...and you're invited to join us! This is a great way to seek God's face for what he desires to do in the city and through The Bridge, as well as to help us fund our summer ministries. For more information, contact Rick (RickAndEunice[at]gmail[dot]com) or Jeremiah (Jermiah[at]jxgomez[dot]com). The festivities begin at 10:00AM at a central location (to be determined shortly) with lunch to follow at the Cox residence.

Check out the image files of our brochure (below) to learn a little more about what the prayer walk is all about.

Can't make it on the 20th? Maybe you can consider hosting a Pittsburgh prayer walk right in your own community.

We believe great things are coming to Pittsburgh, and we're thrilled to be your missionaries here!

Rick, Eunice, & Trevor Cox and Jeremiah & Sarah Gomez

Update from "The Bridge"

Dear Pastors,

We are excited to share with you the name of the new Wesleyan Church in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is known as the city of bridges. There are a total of 446 bridges in the city, it holds the world record for the most bridges in one city. There is one bridge that is most important and that's the bridge from God to man through His Son Jesus. We want to point the people of Pittsburgh to the most important bridge they will ever cross; thus, the name "The Bridge."

Our family has moved and are settling in. Already we are seeing how God is opening doors for us. We believe that God is on the move.

God is bringing together a launch team to work with us. We can see God at work in this and we give Him praise.

A big answer to prayer is that we have someone to act as our treasure for the district until we can get our church established. Tammy Leonard who along with her husband Brian served a year with us in Africa. Tammy has agreed to be the treasure for our new church. We are excited to have the Leonards be a part of our church in this way. This has been a God thing as He has brought this about. From now on checks for our support can be made out to The Bridge and sent to:

The Bridge
c/o Tammy Leonard
264 Shawville Hwy.

Woodland, PA 16881

Prayer request:
1. Pray for the Gomze's and ourselves as we travel on weekends to churches sharing our vision for The Bridge and raising support. Support is coming in slowly but we know that God is in control. If your church is planning on sending support it would be a great help to us by letting us know how you intend to be a partner with us.

2. Pray for the Gomze's as they make plans to move. Sarah needs to find a job and they need to find a renter or buyer for their house.

3. Pray for the people that God wants us to reach out to. Pray that when we look around us we'll see what Jesus sees and we'll hear what Jesus hears. May our hearts be broken for the things that break the heart of God.

We covet your prayers and partnership with us in this ministry. If we aren't scheduled to be at your church and you would like us to come and share please contact me. We can't do this alone. We need the help of the district churches. Together we believe we can see a new Wesleyan Church in Pittsburgh.

--
Rick and Eunice and Trevor

6842 Alcoma Dr.
Pittsburgh, PA 15235

Home 724 427 4454
Cell 814 761 8323

Prayer opportunity

Here is a great opportunity to pray for "The Well."

Greeting to All!

We hope this e-mail finds you all doing well. We appreciate each of you so much. We are in a battle for souls and it means so much to know that we have prayer warriors with us!!

Saturday we will be canvassing the Philipsburg area to invite people to a fun outreach we are having on March 7th at the local coffee house(1 North Front St. Cafe.Books.Events. The event is called Beat the Blues. We will be having local musicians perform, caricatures, finger printing by the local State Police, puppets, craft for the kids and some other activities. This Sat. Feb. 27th, we hope to give 700 to 1000 cards out to people to invite them to this event. Pray that God would give us connections with people. Pray for open doors where He would have us to walk through. Pray that He would raise others up to be part of our launch team. We need about 15 - 20 people on the team to be able to launch. We only have 8 of us.

God bless you all and thank you for your faithfulness!

Karen and Doug

Drumroll, Please!

This has been a big week in the life of the Pittsburgh plant:

The Coxes have moved, the Gomezes have determined where they will be living in Pittsburgh, our Launch Team is growing, and new contacts are being made in the community.

But we are even more excited to announce the name of the Pittsburgh church plant:

We are THE BRIDGE, a new Wesleyan church preparing for launch in a community known as the City of Bridges. Our passion is to see people connect to God and overcome the boundaries of culture, ethnicity, and geography.

We are hoping to announce our new online home soon, and wanted to remind you of our mailing address:

THE BRIDGE

c/o 6842 Alcoma Dr.

Pittsburgh, PA 15235

Thanks so much for your continued prayers.

--

image courtesy of nikkispick at flickr

News from Rick, Eunice & Trevor

Dear Friends and Family,

You prayed and God answered. We had asked you to pray that we would find the right place to live in Pittsburgh. We have found a house that will work great for small groups in our home. It is located in a strategic place to reach many neighborhoods. It's also located in a multi ethnic neighborhood which was important to us as we endeavor to plant a multi ethnic church. God has worked out so many details for this move and we want to give Him the glory. We are planning on moving tomorrow in spite of the fact that there is about 3 feet of snow on the ground there. Our new address is 6842 Alcoma Drive Pittsburgh, PA 15235.

We have watched God work and do many miracles in our lives while we were in Africa; however, the other day the Lord reminded us we are on a new journey. We can't rest in the faith from our past. We must trust God today for what He is now calling us to. What we can rest on from the past is that God was faithful then and He will be faithful again.

Your prayers mean so much to us. Please help us pray...

1. That we will be able to sell or rent our house in Clearfield.

2. That God will continue to open doors to build relationships.

3. For the Gomez's who are joining us. Pray that they will find a place to live in Pittsburgh, in the right neighborhood and also that He will provide renters for their house in Carlisle.

4. Pray that God will continue to speak to people that He wants to be on our launch team.

5. Pray for us as we travel to churches in our Western PA district to raise support. We still have a lot to raise but we know the same God who sent us to Africa is sending us to Pittsburgh and He will provide.

If your church would like for us to come and share, please let us know.

We pray that you have a blessed Valentine weekend and that you feel the LOVE of Jesus more real in your life than ever before.

Rick, Eunice and Trevor

Missionaries to Pittsburgh

Prayer request from Doug & Karen

Good Evening!

Hope this finds you all doing well and enjoying the beautiful landscape God has painted. I come to you with a prayer request tonight. Kate Roberts and Kristen Henderlong (two of our launch team members) are working at Philipsburg's chocolate festival tomorrow(Sat.). Would you pray for them as they have this wonderful opportunity to meet and connect with people of the Philipsburg area?

Pray that God would give them open doors. Thank you for your continued prayer for this ministry!

Karen and Doug

Pittsburgh Plant: Prayer/Journey Notes

Before long, Sarah and I hope to be living in Pittsburgh. But before we can actually move, there are a number of things which need to happen: our current home needs to be put in order, cleaned, and rented out; a new home needs to be procured (we’ve spent hours and hours and hours researching, touring, and searching for apartments in the city); and moving days need to be set.

Just like moving takes a lot of preparation before anything is ‘seen,’ church planting takes a lot of passionate labor before things begin to spring up. One of the most important aspects of preparing for the work of planting, doing the work of planting, launching, and sustaining the ministry of a new church is prayer.

A few weeks ago, we sent out a JourneyNote detailing some of the ways we need our friends and family members (that’s you!) to be involved and at the top of the list was ‘prayer.’ Already, we have a committed core of people who have promised to dedicate themselves to regular, focused intercession on behalf of the people of Pittsburgh, the Coxes, and Sarah & me as we work the soil in Pittsburgh.

We know that the commitment of these people to pray is no small thing, but is a commitment to labor and battle. We have already expressed our thanks to those faithful warriors who will be keeping us in prayer, but wanted to make sure you had the chance to be part of this team, too.

If you are not already on our PrayerNotes list, but would like to be a member of this incredibly important team, respond to this note or give me a call (717.609.7504).

What follows is the first PrayerNote we sent out last week (if you already got that Note, maybe this can serve as a reminder to keep praying for what's outlined below):

First, allow us to express our deep gratitude to you: you’ve agreed to ‘go to the mat’ for the people of Pittsburgh, the people of the future church which will be there, as well as the Coxes and the two of us. As has been stated earlier, we recognize the value and violence of prayer--prayer is our posture of worship, communion with the Spirit, and our place of battle. We understand that you are, by praying for us and the work God has called us to in Pittsburgh, putting yourself on the line. It is no small thing you are doing... so, again, thank you. We know that our victory through Christ is assured, that He has already won and our enemy has already been dealt a death-blow as the result of Christ’s great work on the cross.

That said, we invite you to gear up.

Prepare your mind, ready your heart, and discipline your spirit--we are certain this is part of a great adventure and you’re taking part in a very special, very real way. We will be sending updates on the first Wednesday of each month (with urgent needs/requests communicated as they come our way) on those specific areas in which we are asking for focused prayer; we'll also be including reports on what God has done in response to your faithful intercession.

This week, we ask that you begin by joining us in prayer for the following needs:

The Spirit’s Working...

...in the hearts of those who don’t know Christ: we are engaging in relationship building and trying to discern ‘good soil’ in the active faith that we will see twenty people come to know Jesus through the ministry of the Pittsburgh Church Plant by the end of August.

...in the hearts of our launch team: we believe God is already working in the hearts of those who he desires to serve in the missionary opportunity as part of our boots-on-the-ground team preparing to get the new church off the ground!

Wisdom...

...for us (the Coxes and Gomezes) as we prayerfully consider potential names for this new church.

...for Sarah and me in finding a strategic place to live and make our new home in Pittsburgh--this is a very important step in making sure everything comes together.

Provision...

...in terms of renting out our current home in Carlisle: we need the right person/people at the right time.

...in terms of fundraising: in order for us to be full-time in Pittsburgh, we need commitments of over $3700/mo. We are believing for God to move in the hearts of 75 churches, organizations, groups, and individuals to each pledge $50/month.

Thanks again; it means the world to us to have you in our corner!

Jeremiah (& Sarah, too!)

God is moving in Philipsburg

I received this e-mail from Karen today. Keep praying! God is on the move.

Hi Everyone!

Thank you for your prayer support. It is so important and is really making an impact. I just had to begin the morning with this praise report. We've been praying God would open doors for us to build relationships. Last evening Doug and I went to Philipsburg just to spend time and hang out.

We went to the Y to work out and there were some people that had a soccer table in the lobby. They were registering kids for spring soccer. Doug began talking with them and it looks like we may have the opportunity to coach a U-8 team. One guy gave us his business card and two of the ladies gave us their e-mail addresses. We were excited. When we went out of the building there was a man and his little boy waiting for us. He wanted to know more about the church plant and gave us his contact information. It was definitely a God moment. Only He can orchestrate such contacts.

Keep praying! God is moving!

God bless!

Karen