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Newsletter November 2008
November 27, 2008
Dear friends,
All I need to say is this, in spite of how things might look, “God is still in control” and He is not worried about damaged buildings or the conditions we read about in our newspapers. Financial instability doesn’t shake Him in the least. In fact, He is going to use the world’s financial instability to get people’s attention. First Peter 1 tells us that He will use trials and tribulations to build people’s faith. Verse 7 says, “These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. I am seeing people whose lives are in turmoil on many fronts. They are stressed out and when people get stressed they will either self-medicate or turn to the living God for their strength. I have had several counseling sessions in the past few weeks from the ones who have chosen to self-medicate rather than turning to God for the strength to walk through their trials. Please pray for me as I continue to expound on the truth and power of the gospel, and that God would use their trials to draw them to the foot of the cross.
Just over a month ago I had the pleasure of attending Alice Thistle’s funeral service. Alice died after battling lung cancer for many months. Alice has been a counselor at Hope Ministries for longer than me. Her faith never wavered. She glorified God and trusted Him for all her needs till the day He took her home. Alice never had an abundance of financial support but her needs got met every day. She might have died broke but she is cashing in on her heavenly retirement now. It was awesome to hear the testimonies of the many people she impacted as she counseled ladies at Hope Ministries and by the way she lived and died. The day she died she told the hospice worker attending her that she was tired and wanted to go home. She died that very evening. Alice will be sorely missed at Hope Ministries, but her example of how to trust God to meet her financial needs will live on.
God is giving me an opportunity to test the kind of faith that Alice had with my own finances. When the economy gets shaken up usually the first to notice are churches, missionaries and others who rely on donations for their needs. I am experiencing a shortfall of over 1,200 dollars a month at this time. Like Alice, I am trusting that God will do one of two things, either raise up some new supporters or teach me to creatively stretch the money I presently have to last to the end of every month. I am confident that He will show me a way to do this. Let me share a little testimony of how God stretched us in 1996. We moved to Florida in 1994 and at that time my support was cut in half. Many of our supporting churches figured that I no longer qualified as a missionary seeing that I was living in the continental United States. We did, however survive those first few years because Barb’s teaching job in a local Christian School kept us afloat. In May of 1996 Barb was told that she would not be given a contract for the fall so our limited income was about to be cut down by another 2/3rds and we were already scraping just to get by. Barb decided she would home school the kids for the next year. I became upset with God for putting us in this difficult financial situation. I seriously considered leaving ministry work to take on a job working construction to pay the bills while Barb homeschooled our kids. When I went in to tell Dick Phelps who was running Hope Ministries that I was going to leave the ministry to do construction he challenged me to trust God to take care of my needs. He reminded me that God would never allow me to go hungry so I decided to stay in the ministry and trust God to either replace Barb’s lost income or stretch what we had. Since we moved to Florida in 1994 I had been in the habit of balancing our checkbook almost weekly to make sure we had enough money to go grocery shopping. Well, here is the testimony. That entire year that Barb was out of work we had sufficient money in our checkbook that I didn’t have to balance it once before going grocery shopping. God stretched what money we had so that it lasted to the very end of every month without running out. When I tried to crunch the numbers to see how we made it through that year the numbers just didn’t add up. By the end of that year we should have been way behind in our bills but we were all caught up and with money in the bank, Praise God!
I am looking ahead at 2009 and I see that the coming year will be a trying time for us due to the support we have lost recently. I believe that God will do a similar miracle like the one He did for us in 1996 and 1997. I just ask that you join me in praying that God would be glorified in our lives and in our finances.
When I look back on the difficulties we suffered at Hope Ministries with the flood damage I can now say that tropical storm Fay was a blessing in disguise. As a result of the flood damage we were able to get out of our contract and relocate to a building that is far superior in every way and also much cheaper than our old location. God knew it would take some persuasion to convince us to move location so He sent us Fay to wash us out of the building. In our new location we are in a better place to grow and expand. I look with excitement to what He has in store for Hope Ministries in 2009.
God has been blessing me with opportunities to teach and train. I recently had the opportunity as an addictions counselor to share my personal testimony to an inter-faith group of people who gather monthly. There were people there from every conceivable religion represented there. Plans are being made to give me another opportunity to do a teaching on addictions for this group in the near future. I am excited about that open door.
The men’s group that I am doing at Hope has been growing to the place where I need to consider splitting it into two separate groups. I guess that is a good problem to have. Please continue to pray for the men in this group who struggle with sexual issues. I have seen families ravished and destroyed by sexual sin. Please remember to pray for the men in this group that they would continue to tap into God’s power as they learn to walk with Christ.
The net classes I am teaching are going well. There are about a dozen people being trained to counsel with alcoholics and drug addicts. I feel that I am making a difference in the future of this city by training the next generation of counselors and mentors. I am so thankful for the ministry God has given me especially when I think how close I came to giving it all up in 1996. I am truly thankful on this Thanksgiving season for the opportunities to minister and for the many friendships I have developed over the years. Without your involvement I could not type this letter. I thank God for each and every one of you.
Lew
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