We were blessed with a strong testimony again, on the final Friday of June; one of our leaders said that it was one of our best ever! God gave this lady the gift of salvation approximately 8 years ago, and immediately took away the urge to drink; since that time, God also saved her husband, and several in her family, and has given them many ministry opportunities, PTL! We had a couple of new men lead us in song that night, and they did it with excellence, it was a special evening and one of rejoicing.
Speaking of rejoicing, one of our leader’s daughter, got 3rd place at a national gymnastics competition in June! Another one of our leader’s son was baptized in June, and gave a good testimony prior to it! One of our students got her LPN, another celebrated 1 year sober, and another now has 9 months clean! Another man who has been coming to our meetings for a year or so, just celebrated 23 years sober, so we rejoice and are thankful for all of these accomplishments!
We had our kickoff meeting for our upcoming Recovery Walk in June, and communicated to a group of over 20 people, the progress that has already been made. We have acquired permission to use the Justice Center’s facility as our starting point again this year, and we were granted a permit for our new route at Harrisonville’s June Alderman meeting, so the groundwork has been laid. We also have our new trifolds and cover letters, and will soon have our pledge forms, so we will soon be asking for pledges / donations. We have had a couple of donations already, and nearly 10 businesses have already contributed coupons and gift cards of some kind for raffling or door prizes; please consider how you might help with this effort; I’m sure that I’ll have more to share about the Recovery Walk in next month’s update!
On July 29th (Final Friday of July), Life Issues will be hosting an “Invite A Friend Night”, that we’re hoping to break our previous attendance record of 62 with. Our goal is to have 100 (or more) souls present, to hear recording artists Tommy and Mandy Yates singing, and to hear author and speaker, Bill Corum’s testimony. This will be a big evening for us, please pray that God’s good hand be upon it.
On July 31st, I’ll be preaching at HBF’s morning services, but before I do, Life Issues will be presenting our drama “The Monkey on our Back” to the congregation. Our drama team has been practicing hard every week, and our Life Issues group will be wearing their T-shirts and sitting together that morning, I hope all of you can come and be edified?!
Life Issues was able to connect Heartland Baptist Fellowship’s Facility Pastor with the Drug Court team in June, and was able to give some of their clients some community service hours, by helping with some work at HBF. This is a win win relationship with the Drug Court, that helps both parties; HBF also gets weekly community service assistance from the Juvenile Detention Center, so we are thankful for that relationship too!
To date, Life Issues has had 3 India Mission trip meetings, and we have 7-9 people committed to going to India around December 29th of this year, to work with area pastors there, to address the problem of addiction. We are finalizing who is going, and working on Passports and Visas, and are beginning to look on the field and train together.
I try to make these updates positive and encouraging, always growing and going forward, but the truth is that this is a difficult ministry. Right now we are plagued with problems it seems, partly because of good reasons, like students getting a job that causes them to work evenings. But we have many heartaches in our midst too, not just relapses, but illnesses related to addiction, relationship problems, financial problems, legal problems, etc. I am reminded that this is spiritual warfare, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12), Sometimes I feel like the wheels are about to come off of the proverbial wagon, and that we’re all going to fall off the wagon, if not for the grace of God.
Sincerely, Steve Fleshman – Life Issues pastor and founder, Proverbs 4:23…
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