Football Outreach

Posted on Tuesday, March 5th, 2019 by Jonathan
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There is so much to tell about what is going on right now that it would be like drinking out of a fire hose.

Right now I only have one request and it is urgent for this afternoon.
My brother in law Daniel just sent out the same request so I am copying almost verbatim what he said.

“Dear friends, just a quick reminder, please pray for the football camp today (Tuesday, March 5). The camp will begin at noon EST, and I am scheduled to briefly share the Gospel at 2:30 PM EST.

Please pray for clarity of mind and speech, and that God would open the eyes of the participants as they hear the Gospel. There should be about 75 players and coaches from Central Italy.

After the camp, the Perugia football team will be coming to our church building for pizza with the players. Please pray for the conversations that will take place during this time, as most of these players will set foot in an evangelical church building for the first time in their life.

Thank you for praying for us!”

We look forward to seeing all that God will do!

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Praying for Mercy

Posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2019 by Jonathan
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Ephesians 2:4-7 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

This is my text for the message I am preparing for Sunday.

We need some mercy for our daily tasks too! Last night I had to leave Noah (8 yrs old) in charge while I went to lead prayer meeting at church because Melodee is sick in bed. I found this note when I got back. Please pray for us!

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Please pray for Sunday!

Posted on Friday, October 26th, 2018 by Jonathan

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Please pray!La Riforma e la Bibbia 2018

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God is at work in Foligno! An update

Posted on Friday, October 26th, 2018 by Jonathan

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Several people wrote me asking me: “How did it go?”

Vocal Artists of GRThe amazing thing is that I have not been back in the office since the day of the concert.  I think we set a new record of busyness!
Thursday night we got back around midnight from the concert.
Friday and Saturday I went to translate for a pastor’s enrichment conference in Assisi and was gone until supper time.
Sunday I was in charge of baptizing three people.
Yesterday I tried to stay away from technology and spend time with my family, who was starting to forget what I looked like!

We feel like the concert was a great success. 

Certainly there are things we could have hoped to go better, but overall we feel very confident that it was a good investment of time and money.

Paolo and JonPaolo put it best in his prayer: “Thank you Lord that there were not so many people to make us proud and so few people that we didn’t feel like we made a difference”.

Here are a few things to celebrate:

  • The musicians did an outstanding job.
  • My presentation during halftime went well.  I presented the reason for the concert and invited the audience to come to our next meeting on October 28th.
  • The church planting team from CEB did an amazing job.  Teamwork was incredible.  We even had some members who were able to share Christ with some of the people present!
  • We had a good attendance of about 150 people.  Several people asked for Bible calendars and pick up materials, and at least half of those present were unbelievers, many in contact with us for the first time!
  • Were starting to recover from the challenges.  Daniel is out of the hospital from his appendectomy, and a few of us (including Melodee and I) are getting over our influenza without missing a beat.  I’m also starting to get over the fact that I backed into Donatella’s car on our way to the concert Thursday night!

Meetings

You may be asking: How can you pray now?

  1. Pray for Sunday. We have our next meeting on the theme of the reformation in a beautiful setting that can guest as many as 50 people.
  2. Pray for preparations for the Bible study.
  3. Pray for me as I finish filling out royalty paperwork for the concert.
  4. Pray for the team as the recuperate and get ready for this next event!
  5. Pray for a good crowd and that everything will go smoothly!

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Foligno: Make it or break it!

Posted on Friday, October 26th, 2018 by Jonathan

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When we returned to Italy on September 5th we didn’t have the slightest idea how rapidly God would be moving the work in Foligno.

Now we have an urgent prayer request for you.

This year Perugia celebrates 25 years of its sister city relationship with Grand Rapids, MI (where are sending church is located and where we went to college).

They asked us to invite a choral group from Grand Rapids as we had done in the past and they organized two concerts for them: one in Perugia and one in Todi.

We realized that this would be a great opportunity to also have them sing in Foligno, where we feel God would have us invest in a future church plant.

We were able to rent  the most beautiful and large concert hall in Foligno for next Thursday, October 18th at 9 PM (3 pm EST) for a concert of classical music and artists that I work with and also vocalists from Grand Rapids, MI.  If we fill the hall we will have 540 people in attendance!

– We have decided to use this event as a way to get our name out with unbelievers in the city and announce that on the Sundays of October 28th, November 18th and December 16th we will have three meetings in a beautiful medieval hall just outside the town. We could fit up to 50 people in this hall.

Meetings

Advertising the meetings

After these initial meetings on the theme of the reformation we hope to have some contacts to start a Bible study in the new year. 
We have a core of people from our church and especially a young couple who we have previously mentioned who are busy with the legwork.

Please pray:

  1. – Pray for the concert hall to be full.
  2. – Pray that the right people will attend.
  3. – Pray for the concert to go well.
  4. – Pray for the presentation of the project during intermission.
  5. – Pray for our monthly meetings to be full, and to have the right content for those meetings.
  6. – Pray that we will be able to start Bible studies next year.
  7. – Pray for out protection and guidance.

I am asking you to pray with us and gather prayer warriors for this project.
We are in it way above our heads, so we need so much prayer.
I’m asking you boldly because God has already done above and beyond our expectations.

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