Caribou Newsletter - 2nd Quarter

Bible Studies Abound

This year we have Bible studies going on four out of the five weeknights.
Monday – Ladies study at the Campbell’s home in Washburn
Tuesday – College study off for the Summer
Wednesday – Balancing Our Lives study at the church building
Thursday – Informal Bible study at the Campbell’s home in Washburn is off for the Summer

Balancing Our Lives

For our Wednesday evening study we have switched gears in a small way.  We are still discussing how to walk as Jesus walked but we are currently focusing on how to balance our lives with what we believe.  It is my prayer that these classes help us all in making our faith more evident in our lives, to live the Bible instead of just knowing it.
I am excited as this is giving me a chance to use PowerPoint in a limited fashion.  I am not used to working with PowerPoint, as some of you know.

Bible Classes

Our Sunday mornings are busy here.  We currently have four classes going each Lord’s Day which is up from two just six months ago.
Duane is teaching on James in the adult class; Linda has two in her class ages three and five; Flo has two nine year olds and I have three ranging from eleven to sixteen in my class. 
I can honestly still say, as I have in the past, I am enjoying having this “problem.”  We are praying for more children and adults for our Bible classes and for worship here in Sunday morning.

Summer Meetings

We have a busy Summer planned here in Caribou.  We have the return of one couple and two new couples coming to join us for a variety of meetings to encourage the brethren and prayerfully reach some others with the good news.
We are excited to have Bob & Rosemary Payne coming up again this year.  Bob’s meetings have always been encouraging and challenging at the same time.  This year they will be here July 25th through the 28th.  Bob’s theme this year is “The Kingdom of God is at Hand: Lessons from the Parables”.  Bob preaches for the Henderson TX Church of Christ. 
We are also looking forward to having Ron & Louise Burnett come up August 26th through the 28th.  Ron will be conducting a Spiritual Formation Workshop for us that weekend.  Ron is one of the preachers for the Fall River MA Church of Christ and has assisted in the mentoring of the SIBI NE students. 
September 19th – 22nd we will be hosting Jerry Tallman for an evangelism seminar.  I met Jerry while at Sunset when he came into one class to teach on evangelism.  Jerry is also a fellow SIBI grad and friend of one of our friends and supporters Ken & Jan Erb.  We are also looking forward to this time as we look at more ways to reach people in this area with the gospel.  Jerry and his wife travel the country conducting these seminars.
It will be good to see these families again.  We are working on some other things for the Summer.  Please pray for these events.

Changes Coming

The redesigning of our website and bulletin are still in the works.  I am not sure when these changes will be completed and rolled out but I will let you all know as soon as I can. 

The Homefront

In my last newsletter I forgot to let you know that Flo made the Dean’s List even with the medical issues she had in the Fall.  We are still getting used to eating a whole new way!!!  Just this week we got the letter from UMPI that Flo made the Dean’s list yet again.  This is encouraging to her and prayerfully she will be finishing up her degree over the next year. 
We currently have my sister Kendra and niece Skyla staying with us.  They moved here from PA in April.  Kendra was one of “my teens” when I was a youth minister back home some years ago.  Now I have my niece to teach which adds one more to our pre-teen / teen class.   I am liking it! J  Our class is using The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel as a springboard for discussion.  My goal is to make each teen/pre-teen’s faith their own.  We have had some good discussion and will continue to look at this over the next few months. 
I want to conclude this section with a prayer request.  As most of you know we came here with little support ($850 a month) with the intention to coming to search for support to make our budget of $2,995 or for me to find secular employment to make up the difference.  Much to the glory of God, He provided us with $2,650 a month in support by January 2007.  Since then we have lost $400 a month in support and gained $130 a month back.  While this was short of our original budget God provided by my finding health insurance that we could afford. 
Flo and I have recently gone over our budget and we are still short what we need and we also face the loss of another $500 a month come January 2011.  I understand the loss in January 2011 as we are on a year to year basis with this congregation and with the current economy making the missions budget gets harder and harder.  I understand that this is the same all over the brotherhood. 
My request is that you pray for God to show us what He wants us to do.  You are all aware that I am not opposed to working a secular job to help and Flo has considered stopping school but being so close to her degree I have told her not to.  My working a secular job will severely limit some of the things that I will be able to do here at church.  This is something that I am not real happy with at this time as we have seen growth from when we first got here four years ago.  We have grown from 12 when we got here to over 30 if all of the members and frequent attendees were here at the same time. 
The other issue we are considering is that if I were to take a secular job we would lose another $500 a month in support.  While a position with benefits could help cover some of this it would still be difficult to recover the loss of $1,000 a month. 
I will make one more request of you all.  If you know of any congregations that are interested in supporting or assisting a domestic mission please place me in touch with them or them in touch with me.  A contact person that you know would help greatly.  I am very willing to come and speak to or meet with anyone who is interested.
I know that God has a plan for what He wants me to do here and I am available to do whatever He decides.  I appreciate all of the prayers you  all pray for us and for the church here in Caribou.  

Another Preacher

Chris Francis has been occasionally leading our thoughts on the Lord’s Supper and on May 30th he led our 5th Sunday devotional for the first time.  Chris is a man who wants to preach and is working toward that goal.  He does some good writing already and is starting to be more active in online discussions.  It thrills my soul to have yet another man in our small congregation who wants to serve God by preaching His word.