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

Update on The Well happenings

The following is an update received from Karen. Keep praying for she and Doug as they continue to press forward:

Just wanted to write and let you know what is happening thus far. The Well has been registered with the General Secretary. We have obtained a post office box in Philipsburg. Doug and I joined the Y so that we can work out and meet people. A lady was offering a Yoga class so we are taking that-the stretching is good for us - don't worry we're not into the eastern stuff. We are going over to Philipsburg Monday (Jan. 25th)to give Dunkin' Donuts coffee and cookies to each of the schools for a teacher appreciation. The borough manager has asked us to serve on a needs task force. Hopefully we will be able to connect with him on Monday to discuss what this will look like.

Beat the Blues is scheduled for March 7th at the local coffee shop in Philipsburg. This will be a time for people to come and be encouraged. Various people will be sharing in music. There will be a puppet show for kids and a craft. We are hoping to have various people come that do crafts and share a demonstration. Plus the teens of Hyde will be sharing a skit to a Lifehouse song. We are having a Dave Ramsey preview on Feb. 9th at the development authority building. We were able to get the room for nothing. We have begun advertising for this event. If we have interest we will start the class in March - every week for 13 weeks. We are also talking to a coffee shop owner about starting a support group for people that have experienced loss - loss of job, spouse, freedom due to illness and so forth. She had told us that she would open for us to have this group and not charge us anything.

We have shared at Dixonville, Ashland, Hyde and Weedville and are scheduled to share with Mount Union on Feb. 21st and Majestic Mountain on Feb. 28th. Fundraising has been going slow.

I know this is kind of a smattering of what is happening but hopefully it will give you a picture of where we are. One of our main prayer requests is that God would show us who else to ask to be on the launch team. Currently there are 10 of us. Wayne Otto said he felt we needed at least 12 or 15 to launch with. Chris said we should have 20. We have been praying that God would show us who else we should approach concerning this. We have begun launch team meetings and are trying to build team unity and community with our team of people.

Hope this finds you well and things going great.

Karen