July 2024

VBS

We had the privilege to be in a VBS with Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lebanon, MO. We had a great time just traveling around with the kids making things fun as well as being a bit of crowd control. It was fun to develop relationships with the kids. The best part of the VBS was that 13 kids made a profession of faith. Many of the kids at the VBS were picked up on busses and we pray that they will be able to continue coming to church and that entire families will be reached as a result.

Family

While in June we all were scattered, in July everyone came together. We all met up in Kentucky where we went to the Ark Encounter and Creation museum. Steele and Makayla came out with Lisa’s parents and all 6 of us were able to go together. We also had the special blessing that Pleasant View Baptist church in Bromley, KY bought the tickets for our family to go both. It was great to see Steele again (next time will be in September) and we got Makayla back with us after her summer adventures.

Lisa was given a gift from a pastor and told not to spend it on anything practical or ministry related. So when Ashlyn (our older daughter) told her that she wanted a break and asked her to take Ella Mae (our granddaughter), it did not take long for her to figure out what to do with the money. Lisa flew back to Texas, picked up Ella Mae, and met me back in Missouri where we were able to spoil our granddaughter for a week!

Deputation

We once again were busy on deputation and were in 12 churches in 5 states and had 2 new churches take us on for support. Summer has been a slow time for us. Not that we have not been in churches, but that many churches do not make decisions about missionaries during the summer months. While we know this to be true, it was still discouraging to be at 33% for a couple of months, but now we feel like we are no longer stuck and have forward progress again.

Stuck really did seem to be the word for deputation in July. We were stuck behind a bad accident on the road in Indiana. Luckily, we had just stopped to fuel-up before hand and so the 3 hours that we were at a stand-still on the highway was not as worrying as it might be. Then when Lisa was flying back with Ella Mae, she was stuck in Dallas because of mechanical issues with the plane. I was already in Kansas City to pick her up for her 11am arrival, and she ended up not getting in until 5pm. Unfortunately, that was on a Wednesday and we missed getting to the church that we were supposed to present in that night. Then on our way to Indiana from Missouri, our fender failed and rubbed the tires on the trailer. We blew out a tire. 5 hours later we were able to get roadside assistance and put on the spare. But our spare blew a mile down the road and ended up damaging the wheel and broke the leaf spring. We had to leave the trailer on the side of the road until Monday. God had provided us with a place to stay that also had a double-wide available for us to use and so we did not need a hotel. We also had a rivet snap on our trailer step, the Starlink antenna get destroyed in a storm, our faucet in the bathroom start leaking, and had a dp sensor on the truck fail. While we were able to take care of everything, it just kept piling on. God has kept us on the road though.

Prayer Requests

* House to sell

* Steele’s medical treatment

* Supporting churches

* Safety/reliability on the road

* Souls saved