Prayer partners,
Boston has come alive with the spring weather, which means more activities and opportunities at local playgrounds and throughout the community! This will be our first spring in Boston (since we moved late summer last year) and we are excited for the season ahead.
Update on The God Question event:
Last month, Emily and I coordinated with a local ministry, InterVarsity, on Boston College’s campus to host an event called The God Question. This event answered one question each night concerning God within suffering, pain, evil, and oppression. The God Question was developed to be a place for seekers, skeptics, and Christians to hear more about God, who He is, and what He has done for us through the good news of Jesus Christ.
Many college students, including those at Boston College, feel the overwhelming weight of decisions for the future, academic achievement, and being overly involved in too many activities on top of any personal life difficulties. Because of that, students can often feel isolated, depressed, anxious, and hopeless. However, Jesus Christ has a unique hope to offer all of us through faith in Him alone. The God Question was an opportunity to share that hope on Boston College’s campus and to further build relationships with students.
After passing out 2,000 invitation cards, spending 25+ hours on campus at a promotional table, and having personal conversations with those interested in the event, we can say that The God Question certainly opened doors for us to have conversations about Jesus on campus.
Some students were dealing with anger or confusion towards God and other students were curious and seeking for an answer. Either way, God gave us the privilege of offering His hope through Jesus Christ to dozens of students through personal conversation and the two-night event. Ultimately, our goal was to share the good news of Jesus on campus with students and that’s exactly what The God Question enabled us to do. We look forward to being more and more available on campus as these conversations continue!
Please Pray For:
1. Brighton Clean Up Day
Pray specifically for Brighton Clean Up Day this Saturday, May 19. A local non-profit organization is hosting a day for volunteers to beautify our community by planting flowers, picking up trash, and serving in any way needed for our local homes and businesses. This will be a great day to not only serve our community, but to also build relationships with those that also love this area of Boston. While it may seem like a simple task to pick up trash, this clean up day is a lot bigger than that. We have the privilege of serving our community in small and big ways, develop relationships with other people that will be there, and love with no expectation of anything in return, just like Jesus does for us. It is our honor to serve this part of the city where we can see God actively working!
2. Provision of jobs and homes for those on our launch team
Haley and Bradley Wright, members of our launch team, that are now in Boston!
Several family units from Charlotte, NC are moving to Boston with the express purpose of helping us start, or “launch”, a new church in Brighton. They are moving their families, changing jobs, and searching for jobs and places to live in Boston instead. This group of almost 15 people has agreed to intentionally live out and share the good news of Jesus with their co-workers, neighbors, and many others in Boston and to lay the foundation of the new church. Haley and Bradley Wright from our launch moved just a couple months ago and have already been a great help to us!
Pray specifically for:
-Haley and Bradley: good relationships with neighbors, opportunities for Bradley to share the good news of Jesus at work, and growing relationships with international students at Northeastern for Haley
-Breckon and Stephanie: smooth transition for their move in late June, peace for extended family, and good friends for their kiddos once they move to Boston
-Dan and Kelly: provision for jobs and open doors in their respective fields
-Matt and Jordan: moving transition (application for their apartment has just been approved!) and job openings in Jordan’s field of work
3. Church Plant Meeting Spaces
Last week, Emily and I spent time going through Brighton and finding potential places for the new church to meet in Brighton. We took time to pray over different areas and locations while we walked and had the opportunity to meet many of the owners to discuss potentially meeting there next year. Please pray for us to have favor when speaking to those in charge of the spaces we are interested in and especially for us to have wisdom in choosing a location based on cost, accessibility, and space. We pray that God’s name will be known through these partnerships as we seek to love the Brighton community well!
4. Full-Time Foster Parents
Baby K, 19 month old little girl in our home
We are officially full-time foster parents with our very first child placement. We are very fortunate to be foster parents to a beautiful 19 month-old little girl who is full of life, joy, and lots to say! Pray for us as we transition to full-time parenthood that we would have an abundance of grace, love, patience, and endurance to love this little girl like Jesus loves her. Foster care and adoption are important to Emily and I because we have been adopted into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We believe this is just one way to show God's love for others and we pray that we will always share and show the good news and hope of Jesus Christ to every child within our home.
(Note: For the safety and well-being of the children placed in our home, we will not show their faces in any pictures.)
“‘And you shall love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” -Mark 12:30-31