A New Board!

I confess, it's been a while since I've posted anything and that's really, really bad. I'm sorry. The main culprit is the enemy known as Facebook. It's really addicting...do they have support groups for that?

I'm excited to tell you about the development and organization of the new OKC Compassion, Inc. board. At our first meeting with the new candidates we elected officers and things are moving forward quickly. I can't wait to see how God moves over the next few years. It will be an awesome experience...and probably frustrating at times. Have a great week!

Blessings!

Facebook

Well, I've taken the plunge along with my wife into the wonderful world of facebook. I'm going to do my best not to become addicted like most of my friends appear to be! It's been a good week, but not without its challenges. We continue to chip away at things and are so thankful for a supportive OKC First that spurs us on. God has been good to us over the last six months as we've lived on essentially the proceeds of the sale of our home. We will be sending out a letter to many of you explaining more about what we do and asking for your monthly support. This is how most missionaries are funded through the church and we are excited to watch and see how God provides. Have a great weekend!

Joe, Amy and Sam

What a group!

I am amazed and thankful for what I saw this past week. I suppose I'm amazed because its been so long since I've been around a group of teenagers that was so unselfish, had good attitudes and were growing spiritually. A group of 28 folks (20 students and eight sponsors) showed up on Sunday night and we started working on Monday painting the inside of our sanctuary. The painting didn't go all that smoothly but what do you expect with a bunch of high school kids. I quickly decided to change the direction of the trip and I honestly think and believe that God was in all of this. We began on Tuesday with a shift in our philosophy. But I'll get to that in a minute. Each morning we would gather in the sanctuary and go on some kind of a tour to a local ministry. We toured the Jesus House, Love Links, The City Rescue Mission, and Reaching Our City. Each of these functions as some kind of a compassionate ministry. We were intentional in sending a group of our students to these places in the afternoon to serve. This proved to be a great plan as we made in-roads with new ministries in our community and began the process of pulling together the Nazarene CMC's. After these tours, we would come back to the church and I encouraged the students and sponsors to simply spend time hanging out with people and wanted them to get to know our folks. They did a great job of this! After lunch was served and eaten, we broke into three different groups each day and spread out in the community doing some kind of community service. One group painted a recovery house and did some major landscaping for a neighbor and also painted a shed in someone's backyard. A rusty fence was torn down to create a better look. One group spent one afternoon painting the outside of a local convenient store to cover up the graffiti that was all over it. The store owner couldn't believe that we would be doing this for free. "What's the catch," he said. We told him that we just wanted to show him God's love in a practical way. He was amazed! We also spent one afternoon cleaning up the backyard of an elderly woman in our community. She apparently collected refrigerators because we moved pieces from about twenty different ones out to the front yard along with a mountain of limbs and tree trimmings. It was a great day.

Each morning during our devotions the group was able to hear a testimony from one of our folks who had experienced God's power in their lives. This proved to be a highlight of the week as the kids were amazed at what God could do in someone's life. I was privileged to spend one night with the group as they debriefed at SNU (where they were staying). It was awesome to see how this group trusted each other as they shared the ways that they had experienced brokenness in their own lives. It's amazing how God can use the chiefest of sinners to help "good" kids realize that God is calling them to more. We took communion on Friday morning and then took the group to Cattlemen's Steak House to experience an Oklahoma meal! Oh yeah, we almost finished our showers. All we lack is putting the linoleum down, trimming out the room and tying in the final water line.

God is so good. It is humbling to be used a vessel to help others experience the grace of God.