Saturday, December 27, 2014

Testimony

Dear Don,

I attended an ISI Conference in Syracuse approx. 3 years ago. You were a guest presenter in a breakout session. Although I too have been involved in ministry for many decades, I was deeply impacted by your presentation. In particular, I have never forgotten the "three types of believers" in any church. I mention you, by name, and your analysis in some of the ministry events we conduct (as volunteers). On December 6th, I even had the opportunity to share the three types of believers at Wyoming Correctional Facility (NY) at our Protestant Family Festival. The chaplain and inmates/church leaders were also impacted by your characterization and would like to use it to reach others. Thank you for the work you do for our Lord Jesus!

Amazing Divine Appointment

As usual, we planned on going down to Daytona Bike Week to share our faith with the people at the event. However, I made a huge mistake and we were there a week early. No crowds, just vendors setting up. Ron and I met with vendors and offered to help them set up their displays. I spoke with Pete and Jim, vendors who sell the Butt Buffer gel seat implants. We spoke for about 45 minutes as there were no customers to be had. Jim is a non-practicing Catholic and Pete is an atheist. I gave Jim a Gospel of John with the plan of salvation in it to read, and shared a “One Second After You Die” with Pete. It turned out that Pete is from Ephrata, PA, about 30 minutes from where I live. He agreed to read the booklet and we departed ways.

In April, I traded my H-D in on a new Indian with ABS. I wanted a butt buffer installed in this bike like I had on the H-D. I called Pete and made an appointment for yesterday and drove down to meet him. As he was working on the seat I revisited our previous spiritual conversation and asked if he had read the booklet. He had read it but wasn’t convinced. We ended up in a 65 minute conversation and I told him about my best friend Chuck, who had been killed in a motorcycle accident in 2006 on a motorcycle that I had helped arrange for Chuck to buy. I shared Chuck’s spiritual conversion with Pete and told him how much I still missed my best friend, mentioning that Chuck used to come down and hunt and always brought Maine lobsters for us to share. Pete then asked if I had ever seen an 18 pound lobster. Indeed I had at the lobster company on the wharf in Newport, RI. Pete told me that he caught one some time ago. This gave me a clue that Pete was a wreck diver, because that’s about the only place you’ll find a 100 year old lobster. I asked Pete if he was a wreck diver, and sure enough, he had been one. I mentioned that I used to wreck dive every summer out of Point Pleasant, NJ. He got a stunned look on his face and asked if I dove on the Sea Lion. Yep! That was the ship we chartered to wreck dive from! Pete said he was the first mate on the ship! We compared timelines and sure enough, we had met over 30 years ago on the boat! I continued my spiritual conversation with him and he was very open. I asked if he would listen to a set of 6 CDs by Chip Ingram called, “Why I Believe”. He said he would, so I ordered a set yesterday and will deliver them to him when they arrive.

Can you see the hand of a sovereign God in all of this? What are the chances that all of these circumstances would happen to bring us together at this point in our lives? I added Pete to my daily prayer list and I am trusting that all of this happened for a reason – so Pete would surrender his life to Christ in repentance and faith and be saved. I’ll let you know what God does with Pete down the road.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

December, 2014 Ministry Report

“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end.” Isaiah 9:6-7 Merry Christmas!

We pray that the Lord grants you a blessed Christmas with family and friends, and we wish His blessings on you for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

We held our annual ministry board meeting at the beginning of December. I gave my Executive Director’s report and what a blessing it was to review the year and see how the Lord used us in 2014 to impact lives and eternities. Here’s a summary of what God did through the ministry in 2014:

• MAD Live Events - 47 (we have completed 409 overall)

• Attendance - 3,174 (overall attendance is 22,186)

• Decisions for Christ - 182 (overall decisions for Christ - 1,192)

• Walk thru the Bible Old Testament Seminars - 2

• Men’s Conferences - 2

• Camp Speaker - 2

• Other speaking engagements - 6

• Smoky Mountains Motorcycle Adventure - 1

• Ultimate Adventure to Utah - 1

• Total Pocket Testament League Members recruited - 5,707 (not just from this year)

• Gospels ordered by these members - 98,621

Some exciting opportunities for ministry exposure happened this month. To make a couple of long stories short, the Editor of Decision Magazine (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) has asked me to write an article for the magazine. This has the potential to be HUGE for us. I have already submitted the article, so pray it gets published. Secondly, Tyndale House is meeting with Focus on the Family on January 15th, and our Tyndale rep is going to present our MAD Live Event ministry to the folks from Focus. Again, this is another HUGE opportunity for exposure for us. Pray that the meeting goes well and that Focus will be agreeable to doing something with us!

Here are some testimonies I received this month. What an encouragement to see what God is doing!

“We are so excited to have you come to Malvern hill to do the MAD training. It was a year ago when I took a small group in Lexington to take the MAD training. Our lives had not been the same on sharing the gospel the boldness and looking at lost souls has rewired us to have an open mouth. I look forward to brushing up.”

“Don wanted to share a story with you since you have been here. One man in our church who is as stoic and quiet as any man I know put what he learned from you into practice. Bill is teacher at Penn College. He teaches in the automotive department. One of his colleagues who has no faith shared with Bill that his daughter was very sick. Bill asked if he could pray for her. The man agreed and as Bill prayed and prayed for the man and daughter by name the man began to cry and thanked Bill for his prayer. It was a great testimony to our church especially considering who reached out. Thanks again for your ministry, we are hearing little tidbits of how people are starting to reach out. Merry Christmas, Pastor Bob

P.S. My wife and I have been leaving bigger tips and asking our waitress how we can pray for them. It is interesting to see their responses.”

“My husband "opened" the door to Jesus on 12/8/2014 while reading one of these gospels. When he read Jesus say, "It is finished," the work became complete in his heart. He is on fire to share this with others. God bless your ministry!”

Important Reminder! - We now have the first hour of the MAD Live Event on our website. Anyone can watch it to get a feel for who we are and how we teach. The entire MAD Live Event is available for pastors to view if they need to check it out before inviting us to come and teach. It is available on Vimeo and requires a password. Please let church leaders know about this as it could open doors for some more MAD Live Events in your area. The full training is NOT for group viewing.

JANUARY SCHEDULE

• Jan 10 - MAD Live Event - St. Andrews Evangelical Church, Columbia, SC

• Jan 11, 12, 13 - MAD Live Event (in 3 parts) - Malvern Hill Baptist Church, Camden, SC

• Jan 14 - Speak at 2 Chapel Services - Northside Christian Academy, Lexington, SC

• Jan 17 - Gilbert United Methodist Church, Gilbert, SC

• Jan 18 - MAD Live Event - Trinity Baptist Church, Cayce, SC

• Jan 24 - MAD Live Event - Laurelton Park Baptist Church, Brick, NJ

PRAYER REQUESTS

• Continued prayers are requested for our schedule in 2015

• For my article to be published in an upcoming issue of Decision Magazine

• For the Tyndale House meeting with Focus on the Family. That God would use this meeting to connect us in some way with Focus to get the word out as to what we do.

Love in Christ,

Cathy and Don