Sunday's Coming

Good Morning,

We had 48 in church Sunday, praise the Lord.  Maybe it will continue to grow. Pray with us that more will show up and hear the Word of God. We also had a memorial service last week for one of the ladies in the park and God has used that to draw people to church. Again, praise the Lord.

We begin a Bible study Thursday so pray we have a good turn out and for me to lead and not preach. We are studying the book of Philippians, the Joy of our life.

“Artist At Work”—on Your Life by Adrian Rogers

“Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” - Philippians 1:6

In Scotland some men were sitting around drinking tea and swapping fishing stories. One man, with a flamboyant gesture of his hand, knocked another man’s hand, splattering his tea on the white plastered wall, creating an ugly brown stain. He was horrified, but the man said, “Never mind.” And he took out his crayons and started to sketch around that stain. Suddenly there emerged a royal stag with his antlers spread.

The artist was Sir Edwin Lancier—England’s foremost painter of animals. He was able to take that old stain and make something beautiful out of it.

Jesus Christ is that kind of an artist. He can take a life that has been stained, and by His transforming power He can make something beautiful out of it.

We want to thank you for your support through your prayers, calls, e-mails and financial. When I am down, we receive one of the above from one of you and God reminds me He is still here and that each of you are here with us. So Thank You.

Have a great day, love you, pass it on.
Don

Sunday's Coming

Good Morning, 

We still have a small congregation but I know God is working here. I want to encourage you to pray for us to do the work God has given us and for us to have a great attitude. 

 

My sermon last week was the Woman at the Well, this week it is The Bread of Life.  Regarding that subject, I like the following story:

A small boy had been consistently late for dinner. One particular day his parents had warned him to be on time, but he arrived later than ever. He found his parents already seated at the table, about to start eating. Quickly he sat at his place, and then noticed what was set before him--a slice of bread and a glass of water. There was silence as he sat staring at his plate, crushed. Suddenly he saw his father’s hand reach over, pick up his plate and set it before himself. Then his dad put his own full plate in front of his son, smiling warmly as he made the exchange. When the boy became a man, he said, "All my life I’ve known what God was like by what my father did that night." - Homemade, May, 1989

John 6:35: Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

We want to thank you for your support through your prayers, calls, e-mails and financial  giving. When I am down we receive one of the above from one of you and God reminds me He is still here and that each of you are here with us. So Thank You.

Have a great day, love you, pass it on.

Don

Sunday's Coming

Good Morning,

We have ended yet another year... how time flies. As we begin this new year, let me express our heart felt thanks for each of you. You have given financially, invested personally with your prayers and phone calls at just the right moment, and when possible visits. All of these have enabled us to do this work God has called us to do.  You are an encouragement to us.

The following scripture came to mind:
 

Phil 4:14 - Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. 15 Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; 16 for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need. 17 Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account. 18 I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. 19 And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. 20 To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

 "The True Steward." - A steward is a manager put in charge to use or invest his or her owner’s resources according to the will of the owner of these resources. Therefore, we are all stewards or managers of God’s resources, to use and invest God’s resources according to God’s will.
Thanks again for listening to the Lord and investing in us.

We pray you have a Blessed New Year and may God be with you.
 
A CHEERFUL LIVER

 Corinthians 9:7- God loves a cheerful giver.

Mary Ann O'Roark: "As a little girl I heard grown ups repeat a bible verse that I was certain said, "God loveth a cheerful liver." I asked my grandma what a liver was. "It's a part inside you," she told me, "like your stomach or your heart." I puzzled over how to get my insides to be more cheerful. One day in Sunday school an older kid set me straight: "It's giver, not liver." But I don't think I got it all that wrong. God does love a cheerful liver."

John 10:10- I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Have a great day, love you, pass it on.

Don

PS... A liver is also someone who lives.  Or by definition:

1: one that lives especially in a specified way <a fast liver> <a cheerful liver>

2: resident

                      But you got that, didn't you?

Sunday's Coming

Good Morning,

We are busy preparing for Christmas, sermon for Sunday, a Christmas Eve Eve service Sunday evening, caroling in the park on Saturday, and Christmas Day Dinner. Wow, I'm tired already.

I pray each of you have a great Christmas and thanks for being there for us during this year.

In my reading this week I read from The Sower:

PLANNING AHEAD
It was the Sunday before Christmas and the teacher of the fifth grade class was reviewing the details of the birth of Jesus. With carefully chosen words she talked about the difficult journey to Bethlehem. Then she said with sadness, “And when they arrived, there was no room for them in the inn.
Wasn’t that terrible?”
George, after thinking for a moment about the vacations his family had taken and the plans they made said without thinking, “Why didn’t Joseph make a reservation?”

There will be many around us during this holiday season who will make no room - no reservation - for Jesus to be with them once again this year. We often remind each other that “He’s the reason for the Season” but do not take time to explain to what that reason is. We are quick to condemn those who want to take “Christ out of Christmas” but do not take time to plant the message of Christ in their minds and hearts. We place the manger scene under the tree, cover it with presents and then wrap it back up and forget about His birth and its significance for another year.

Hanging next to Jesus on a cross was a thief who was dying for crimes he committed. In his final moments he turned to Him and said, “Jesus, remember me.”
And Jesus said, “I will. Today you will be with me in paradise.”


Today is the best day to make your reservation to be with Him if you have not done so.

Scripture for Today: Luke 2:1-7 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

LaVon and I love you and are truly thankful to God for each of you. Thank you for your continual support and interest in our ministry by investing yourself in many ways as partners with us: by prayer, e-mails, phone calls and your financial gifts. Without any of these we could not continue what God has called us to do and that is to share the Living Water with the world through the RV ministry..


Have a great day, love you, pass it on.

Don

PS. Just wanted to share a beautiful gift that we received from God, our Creator, last evening...

Sunday's Coming

Good Morning,

We continue our work here in Apache Junction, Arizona and God continues to be faithful. We had around 50 in church Sunday, praise the Lord. Our thanks to each of you for you prayers and support.

My sermon this week is on Hope.

Christmas Gift Revelation

In his book, Dare to Believe, Dan Baumann illustrates the unique experience of knowing that something is ours, yet longing to enjoy it more fully. He explained that at Christmas time he would always do a lot of snooping, trying to find the gift-wrapped presents and figure out what was in them.
One year he discovered a package with his name on it that was easy to identify. There was no way to disguise the golf clubs inside. Baumann then made this observation: "When Mom wasn't around, I would go and feel the package, shake it, and pretend that I was on the golf course. The point is, I was already enjoying the pleasures of a future event; namely, the unveiling. It had my name on it. I knew what it was."

But only "Christmas would reveal it in its fullness."

The glories that await the Christian defy our comprehension. What we can grasp about them, however, fills us with great anticipation. We look longingly to that day when we shall enjoy heaven in all its fullness.

Colossians 3:1 - 2 (ASV) 

1 If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. 

2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.

LaVon and I love you and are truly thankful to God for each of you. Thank you for your continual support and interest in our ministry by investing yourself in many ways as partners with us: by prayer, e-mails, phone calls and your financial gifts. Without any of these we could not continue what God has called us to do and that is to share the Living Water with the world through the RV ministry.

Have a great day, love you, pass it on.
Don

Sunday's Coming

Good Morning,

We continue our work here in Apache Junction, Arizona and God continues to be faithful. Still experiencing small crowds in worship service on Sunday morning, but we trust that God will give the increase and we trust that those attending are being encouraged and challenged.

My sermon this week is on laughter. I think during the stressful time of the season we need a little laughter.

THE HEALING POWER OF LAUGHTER

Norman Cousins tells of being hospitalized with a rare, crippling disease. When he was diagnosed as incurable, Cousins checked out of the hospital. Aware of the harmful effects that negative emotions can have on the body, Cousins reasoned the reverse was true. So he borrowed a movie projector and prescribed his own treatment, consisting of Marx Brothers films and old "Candid Camera" reruns.
It didn’t take long for him to discover that 10 minutes of laughter provided two hours of pain free sleep. Amazingly, his debilitating disease was eventually reversed. After the account of his victory appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Cousins received more than 3000 letters from appreciative physicians throughout the world.

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed." ~ Kahlil Gibran

 A glad heart maketh a cheerful countenance; But by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken. Proverbs 15:13 (ASV)

LaVon and I love you and are truly thankful to God for each of you. Thank you for your continual support and interest in our ministry by investing yourself in many ways as partners with us: by prayer, e-mails, phone calls and your financial gifts. Without any of these we could not continue what God has called us to do and that is to share the Living Water with the world through the RV ministry.
 
Have a great day, love you, pass it on.
Don

Sunday's Coming

Good Morning,

We had 42 in church Sunday. God continues to be faithful. Our thanks to each of you for your prayers and support.

Our computer has been ailing again so this post is a little late. Forgive me. I pray you all had a great Thanksgiving.

In my reading this week was this:

God's Love

TO WHOEVER FINDS THIS...I LOVE YOU

Several years ago there was a girl in an orphanage. She was unattractive and had mannerisms that were not very attractive either, and so she was disliked and shunned by the other children and was not liked by her teachers. The head of the institution looked for a reason to send her off to some other place.

One afternoon the opportunity came. She was suspected of writing unapproved, illicit notes to someone outside the institution. One of the little girls had just reported, "I saw her write a note and hide it on a tree near the stone wall."

The superintendent hurried to the tree and found the note. He then passed it silently to his assistant. The note read, "To whoever finds this, I love you."

In essence, someone else also wrote a note and put it on a tree outside a city wall at another place a long time ago. Of Him, too, it was written "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men" Isaiah 53:2, 3, NIV.

They sought to get rid of Jesus. They took him out to Calvary’s hill where they crucified him. They nailed him to a tree. But when men get there, they find a note on that tree that reads, "To whoever finds this, I love you."
 
LaVon and I love you and are truly thankful to God for each of you. Thank you for your continual support and interest in our ministry by investing yourself in many ways as partners with us: by prayer, e-mails, phone calls and your financial gifts. Without any of these we could not continue what God has called us to do and that is to share the Living Water with the world through the RV ministry.

Here's a picture of the clubhouse on Thanksgiving Day as we all got together and shared a Thanksgiving meal.  I was asked to bless the meal before we ate.

Here's LaVon and Ann, who sat by LaVon. They are now friends.  Ann loved having her picture made with LaVon and was very impressed that LaVon took this picture.

Have a great day, love you, pass it on.
Don