June Newsletter...

life in Durham

It has been 2 months since we moved to Durham and we are still trying to get settled.  We love living in Durham, and working and attending The Summit Church.  Our housing situation has been challenging with lots of repairs that needed to be addressed shortly after we moved in.  Our landlords have been great, but it has made it difficult to feel settled.  We love living in our house on 1610 University Drive and still believe that God has led us here, but perhaps for reasons that deal with some heart issues.  The unsettledness of moving reveals how easily I am discontent and discouraged and attach my joy to my circumstances.  So, I am learning to rejoice in all things and to be content in all circumstances and to attach my joy to Jesus and what he has done.  This has been a wrestling match for me – and as you can imagine, I’m not much of a wrestler!  But I am grateful that God is taking us through these things because I really do want to be more like him and less like KJ.

Since The City Project started I have also found renewed energy as I’ve begun developing relationships with the 23 students and all the staff and volunteers.  We have already traveled to New York City and are now back in Durham interning with community organizations and Summit pastors as well as taking a seminary philosophy class through South Eastern.  The 23 students are experiencing ways of leveraging their lives for the advancement of the gospel in Durham, New York and around the world.  They are getting to share in the lives of people who are pouring themselves out in response to the gospel through the local service organizations, The Summit Church, church planting in NYC and missionaries in Kenya and Malaysia - where they will go at the end of the summer.  It is wonderful to be a part of all of this and I’m excited to see what God does with the lives of these students. 

Please pray for us.  We really need to find some additional supporters, so please pray and consider or perhaps reconsider supporting us.  I would love to talk with you about why we are doing what we’re doing and why God might want you to be a part of our support team.  Thank you so much to the 45 families and 2 businesses that are supporting us.  We are so grateful for your support and allowing us to have this ministry!

The City Project...

Well The City Project began May 31 and is going great.  We have 23 students participating and it has been so much fun getting to know them.  The first three days we spent getting to know Durham and each other and we also spent a lot of time preparing for the summer.  On June 5th we flew to New York City and met up with a guy that is planting churches in Queens in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods.  It was a great trip.  I think we were able to make many connections for the church planter.  It was also a great time for our team - getting to know one another better, exploring the city and seeing what God is doing all over the world through NYC and also learning how to explain the hope that we have in Jesus.  It was also great for me personally to be back in the northeast and to develop some deep friendships with Dave Turner the college pastor and Jeremy Dager a college intern at the Summit and a future church planter.  We're now back in Durham where the students are interning with local organizations serving Durham and also interning with a Summit pastor.  If that is not enough they are also taking a seminary course through South Eastern Baptist Theological School.  I am really excited to see how God uses this summer to impact these students, our neighbors and the world!

April Newsletter

a series of providential events… 

So much has happened since our last newsletter.  Thanks for praying for us.  We believe that all the amazing things that we’ve experienced are a result of people praying for us and God working through prayer.  I’m just gonna jump in – We moved to Durham March 31!  This is a remarkable story of God’s goodness.  About three weeks before we moved Liz and I were praying late one night feeling discouraged that our house was not selling and therefore delaying our move to Durham.  We asked God that in his kindness he would make a way for us to get to Durham soon.  The next morning at 9am we got a phone call from someone from The Summit offering us a housing stipend to cover the cost of renting in Durham until we were able to sell or rent our house  in Buies Creek.  This was so exciting and we immediately began looking for a house in Durham.  After a week of not finding anything that fit what we were looking for one day while driving I stopped the car in a neighborhood that seemed perfect and prayed again asking God that in his kindness he would provide a house for us in this neighborhood.  I continued driving around but I didn’t see a for rent sign.  When I got home Liz and I checked online to see what new housing was available – there was a house for rent about 500 feet from where I had been praying.  The house was available immediately and they were asking just what we could afford.  Everything happened quickly – we’re now in Durham trying to get settled into our house.  There have been many more answers to our prayers, including some financial support that came at just the right time providing for our needs and rescuing us from discouragement.  We’re currently at 70% of our support goal and asking God to continue to bring people to our support team who are excited about what we’re doing.  The last providential act I’ll mention here is that we have renters for our home in Buies Creek starting May 1.  It took us less than 2 weeks to find renters for our house.  We are really excited about how God has worked everything out.  There are many other ways God has been kind towards us – most notably that the girls love our new home and have been great about this transition.  Please keep praying for us.