We have decided to have a garage sale to get rid of the things that we don't want to put in storage for the next year or so. Isn't is amazing how much stuff we can accumulate? Along with going thru things for the sale we have also begun to pack. I just love packing! *sarcasm. We told our landlord that we will be moved out by the end of March, but with our first meeting being the last week of the month that only leaves us about 3 more weeks! With that being said I'm going to end this & go pack! Please continue to pray for us. God bless!
Another busy & productive week has past. The last several days have mostly been filled with scheduling more meetings, working on our video presentation, & beginning the packing process. We have our first meeting scheduled for the last week of March. We will be with Pastor Sterkel & Victory Baptist Church in Wilcox, AZ for their missions conference. We are looking forward to what God has planned for that week & are excited that we get to be a part of it.
We have decided to have a garage sale to get rid of the things that we don't want to put in storage for the next year or so. Isn't is amazing how much stuff we can accumulate? Along with going thru things for the sale we have also begun to pack. I just love packing! *sarcasm. We told our landlord that we will be moved out by the end of March, but with our first meeting being the last week of the month that only leaves us about 3 more weeks! With that being said I'm going to end this & go pack! Please continue to pray for us. God bless!
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We have been busy, busy, busy. Since last week we have received our prayer cards, sent our information booklet to the printers, begun work on our video presentation & scheduled 5 meetings. The list of things to do is still growing & we're starting to divide it up into sections titled: priorities, important things to do, things to do when we have time, things to do when we have an extra minute, etc.
Meetings Justin has been calling churches every chance he gets trying to schedule more meetings. He is still working a full-time job at this point, so his opportunities to make calls are very limited. (His job will be completed about mid-April.) Fortunately, because we are in Mountain time right now he has been able call on the East Coast in the morning before he goes to work. We are hoping to begin the first of our meetings in March out here in the southwest. Moving We have decided that in an effort to minimize our living expenses it would beneficial to not maintain a house. That being said we are looking at moving out of our house at the end of March & putting nearly all our belongings in storage until we can make the move to Texas (hopefully next year sometime). We have family in the Southwest, the Midwest, & closer to the East who have graciously offered for us to base out of their homes while we are in their respective areas. Ideally this will help us in not having to make cross-country trips saving both time & money (and our sanity!) Praises It has been great to see God working in our lives thus far. We are very excited to see how God is going to provide for our needs & work all things together for good. How comforting to know that we are in the hollow of God's hand & that He has built a hedge of protection around us. As the songwriter wrote, "How can I fear? Jesus is near; He ever watches over me. Worries all cease; He give me peace! How can I fear with Jesus?" Well, this is our first official update! First and foremost, we should probably explain the details about this ministry that God is calling us to. God has laid upon our hearts the burden of starting a church in the northern Dallas, TX area. We are looking at a couple bedroom communities in particular, but have not finalized which one specifically we will start the church in. This is a very needy area though, as the population has grown substantially is the last few years and the trend for continued growth is great as more families are moving further north of Dallas. Although there are many "churches" in the Dallas area, as far as we can tell in one of the communities we are looking at there is only 1 Baptist church for a population of 120,000 + people.
The plan is for us to begin deputation at the beginning of March to raise support for this church plant. We have experienced first-hand over the last 2 1/2 years the successful start of a brand new church with a pastor who is able to concentrate full-time on the task of getting a church started. We have been working fervently over the last couple of weeks to get our promotional material together: prayer cards, informational booklets, business cards, etc. We have also begun to start calling pastor's to schedule meetings to present the need in their church. The list of things to do seems to be growing even as we check off a task. We are very excited though about all that is happening. We know that God is leading us in all of this, and we are enthusiastically anticipating what the next few weeks, months, & years hold for our family. We do ask that you pray for our family as we need God's wisdom and blessings in all our efforts. We also ask that you pray for our home church, Freedom Baptist Church, and our pastor, Chad Matheny. We have invested the last 3 years of our lives in this work, and although we know God is leading us from this place, a part of our hearts will always belong to these people. Freedom is steadily growing, both in number and in faith - it is evident that God's hand of blessing in on this place. Please pray that God will raise up or bring people to the church that will be able to fill the areas that we are currently serving in. We apologize for the lengthiness of this first post, but it seemed like we needed to explain some details to get everyone up-to-date. We would love to hear from you and we'll try to keep you informed of our progress on a weekly basis. God bless, Justin & Amber Elwell |
AuthorAs we try to keep you up to date on what's happening in our progress, we ask for your prayers in return. Archives
December 2014
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