I guess we have to post this a little early it will be hard to do while we spend the next 6 days on the road. Wrapping up January, we have been blessed to do three ministry updates and begin creating relationships with two new churches. We have built up more faithful prayer warriors and seen our financial support increase more than 10% in the last month. As of now, Kathleen is busy packing bags for our journey to the Mid-West!
Canceling meetings is always difficult. The call had to be made due to sever snow and road closures but when one door closes another one opened. We were excited to go do a ministry update to one of our first supporting churches, First Baptist Church of Burbank, WA. That meant that all the kids could join us for a morning of worship followed by a great afternoon of fellowship. We are very thankful for trips we can all make together. We also pray that we will be able to rebook our meeting up north for later this spring.
The following week we were able to report back to Grace Baptist Church of Pendelton, Or and then to our sending church Grace Baptist Church of Kennewick, WA. Two weeks of familiar faces and blessed fellowship! We could not ask for a better kickoff to 2022.
We were also blessed to share our ministry at Notus First Baptist Church and Meridian First Baptist Church. Both of these churches were a great encouragement to our family.
It is always a joy to meet faithful servants of the Lord who have a heartbeat for their communities and also for communities around the World. Notus has a special ministry to the people of the Congo and Pastor Sparky is able to minister there 2 months out of the year training and raising up nationals. Meridian has a special interest in Togo and for sending families and teams for ministry among the nationals there. Pastor Randy Cook was raised on the mission field in South America, and we look forward to picking his brain just a little more.
In the middle of December we began to pray to raise up $500 more in monthly support by the middle of January. This would help us as we make the adjustment into fulltime ministry, especially over the next several weeks as we travel full-time. God blessed and brought in $800 more in monthly support in just a few short weeks. Between faithful individuals that support our ministry and churches who have come alongside our ministry we are now funded at 65% in monthly support! Will you praise the Lord with us today for how He has continued to provide for our ministry?
An early birthday celebration for LuVerna as we prepare to hit the road. Please pray for us as we begin a seven-to-eight-week trip to the Midwest. Our prayer has been to create a network of churches in the Wisconsin area as that would allow us several weeks each furlough to be near Kathleen’s family. While the original plan was to make a couple short trips to Wisconsin, God opened up the opportunity to be in several churches in the area over a two-month window.
So yes, we are driving out January 28th and plan to return the end of March unless the Lord continues to open more opportunities. We would appreciate your prayers for safety traveling, good health, and productive ministry. May we go and be faithful.
I have been spending some time reading through the book of Jonah. I find the picture of events in chapter 1 fascinating. Jonah has been called to go to a wicked people. Rather than crying out to God verbally, Jonah’s reaction was to run! God knew what Jonah’s heart was saying before his action of running, even before his crying out. This highlighted two things for me as I have studied, the first is that God knows the plans He has for us (Jerimiah 29:11) and the good work He has designed for us to complete. The second, is that our actions of obedience speak as to who we believe God to be.
Thank you for our continued faithful prayers. As we follow God we are thankful to have such a faithful crowd at our sides!
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The Loucks Family
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