October - December Update
It was great to have the whole family home for Christmas!
Old & New Friends
Old Friends - One thing that has helped us on this journey is that we have been in ministry for 22 years and we have been in the church world for most of our life. This has led to many many contacts and connections. It has been such a joy to not only go to our connections’ churches but also friends' churches. My wife was able to connect with highschool friends that she has only seen once in the last 20 years. We realized how blessed we are to have so many friends in so many parts of the world…including Hawaii, as it was super cool to be able to visit a close friend there and present our ministry as well. Our friends have been so kind to us and it was fun to see how God was using them in their ministries.
New Friends - Many times when I speak I mention Philippians 1:5 where the Scripture says, ”Your fellowship in the gospel.” I am amazed at how we can come into a church and without ever meeting these people or the Pastor in our life and yet we are only there for a service or two or if we are lucky, a 3 day conference, and yet we leave as Friends and have this strong connection. We often say that our favorite part of deputation has been meeting some of the sweetest “salt of the earth” Christians. My mind is particularly thinking of a church in Louisiana that was really a last minute God thing. We shot down there on Monday and left at 3am on Wednesday, and yet in that amount of time God gave our hearts to some of the sweetest people. My wife especially connected with the Pastor's wife and now considers her a close friend. She keeps asking me when we are going back.
Top Left: New Friend Earl / Top Right: Crystal and Pastor Jeff Lutes Bottom Left: Pastor Dave Delaney, staff, and other missionaries Bottom Right: April and Pastor Kirk Beard
God’s Leading
A Divine Appointment
One of the most bitter sweet moments of this year was our Annual Teen Christmas Party. We have done this event for over 20 years and we just had our last one. Not only was it our last Christmas Party but it was also our last youth activity as the youth pastor at FBC. There were some sweet things that happened during this activity that was God smiling down on us. One of those things was to allow our paths to cross with a family at the downtown coffee shop. Here we are with 60 teenagers lined up in this coffee shop and in the corner was this family that apparently was trying to get our attention for a little while. Haha. Long story short…their son just transferred to Offutt Air Force Base and this visiting Mom and Dad could not sleep that morning begging God to lead them to the right church to visit on Sunday, and there we were, all 60 of us. There’s a few more parts to this story that makes it pretty evident that this was the hand of God in this boy's life. It’s been so much fun to watch God work in such Miracles and clear ways lately.
Our Last Youth Activity - The Annual Teen Christmas Party
What’s Next?
Hit the Road and the Air - We just finished up our longest stretch of meetings - 6 weeks. It’s been so nice to not be traveling full time the month of December, even though we were still able to be in a few churches. Come January we start the year with a pretty full schedule. We will be in Florida, Alabama, and North Carolina. It was a blessing that Southwest Airlines ran a promotion in October that qualified us for a companion pass which will allow Mary Ann to fly for free in January and February. We plan to take full advantage of that and already have plans to fly 5 different times.
Off to Portugal, Again - We have really been missing Portugal lately and we are so thankful God is providing for us to take a little over a week trip there in May. This will allow us to get a better vision for our ministry, get to meet more people, and get some business type things settled that will help us with our Visa process.
Thank you so much for your love, support, and friendship.
Love– Billy and Mary Ann