The meetings are running in full tilt right now.  We have been in Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, and now California as we preach the Gospel in different churches.  God has been good to us to keep us safe and to have everything going well.

When we took our trailer to Louisiana, we discovered a serious water leak that included the need to replace our water heater.  This was a difficult process that included tearing out a lot of rotten wood from the trailer and replacing it with new 3/4 in. plywood.  This task we completed while in a meeting in our home church in Mississippi.  When we left with trailer in tow, we thought that the water could be fixed at the next church.  After a couple of days of showering in a different building, we got the leak fixed–or so we thought.  It seemed that each time one fitting was repaired another leak showed up in its place.  Then, the leaks would seemingly stop for a while only to return the next day.  It was not until Monday of this week that I got the final fitting, I hope, fixed.  At least, there was not water the next morning when I looked at it.  I will probably take the bay apart and look again soon just to make certain that the hose that didn’t leak when I put everything back together is still water tight.  What a circus this has been!

Sam was standing in line at a local auto parts store here in California when he heard the pastor offer a tract to the clerk behind the counter.  He requested that he might have a tract as well, and the pastor was only too happy to oblige.  In the process of the conversation, the pastor was able to lead Sam to Christ at the auto parts store.  Sam was in church this evening.  Please pray for him as he grows in the Lord.

Please also pray for a woman named Saida (spelling?) who works with a church member here in California.  She is going through a difficult divorce and needs to be saved.  Please pray that God will overcome every obstacle so that she will come, hear the Gospel, and trust Christ.

One of the great burdens I have is to see people under the sound of the Gospel.  In all that has taken place in the name of COVID-19, it is difficult to miss the fact that the scare over the virus has been disruptive for churches.  Especially disrupted has been evangelistic outreach of different kinds.  As hard as it was to get unsaved people to church before, it seems even harder with the fear of disease thrown into the mix.  It almost seems as if Satan concocted this plan to further alienate sinners from the truth that will set them free.  Would you pray that God will give you and me, both of us, utterance to give the Gospel during this time?  As always, thank you for your prayers.

Ever since July, we have been talking about the upcoming availability of our family’s first album.  The original hope was to have it by Christmas, but that did not work out.  Now, I am happy to report that the album is available, both in CD form and digital download.  The CD can be ordered through us, provided you don’t mind shipping through the United States Postal Service.  This service proved to be disastrously incompetent in the waning weeks of 2020, but the hope is that they will get back to more normal delivery now that Christmas is behind us for a while.  That being said, our family still has packages in limbo, lost in the system, having been sent from Dayton, OH, to Memphis, TN, to Atlanta, GA, and so on over the space of two months time.  If the possibility of waiting several months bothers you, you can either pay extra to have the package shipped via a private company (UPS or FedEx) or just purchase the digital download.

Speaking of the digital download, although we have paid to have the music included in many digital platforms, the only one that I know is making the album available right now is Amazon Music.  For those of you reading this online, you can go directly to the download here.  For those reading the e-mail version, you would do best to go to Amazon.com and search for “God Is in Every Tomorrow.”  The individual song will come up first, but there will be a link to the entire album, which is available for purchase.  Feel free to contact me (information below) if you have any questions.

Our meetings are back in full swing again.  As I write this, we are in a meeting in the back woods of Louisiana.  It has been great to see the work that God has done in hearts in this country church.  The church is so far out in the country that I do not get a good cell signal, but there is something a little refreshing about even that.  We close Friday and then go home for a meeting there in which our family will be doing music while Evangelist Richard Harper is preaching.  From there it is coast to coast–Georgia to California.

We are grateful for the doors that are currently open to preach the Gospel in the United States.  What changes this year will bring is beyond the scope of our knowledge.  What we do know is that God is in control and He will meet every need that we have.

If you have a need to contact our ministry, please do so through our website.  After the initial contact, I will answer you through my e-mail address.  I have learned the hard way that giving out my contact information online is not a good idea.

May God bless all of you, and thank you for your prayers.

 This past month has been a great month of ministering in and around the holiday season.  A couple of opportunities stand out.

Many years ago, Charles Surrett, my pastor at the time encouraged me to write a book.  Taking his suggestion to be the will of God, I did so and have been selling the work ever since.  My book has gone to places that I have never been, expanding my ministry in ways I could never envision.  Somewhere along the line, my book found its way into the hands of Pastor Tom Brennan, who was a pastor in Chicago at the time.  Pastor Brennan appreciated my book and reached out to me asking me to come a preach a meeting for him.  The Lord had moved him from Chicago to Dubuque, Iowa, by this time.  Having never met me, he insisted that he knew me having read my book.  The week after Thanksgiving, I traveled to Dubuque and preached a meeting for him.  There was no awkwardness at in any of our time together, and we both look forward to another meeting next year.  While I was still in college, I was told to be concerned about the depth of my ministry and God would take care of the breadth.  This encounter proves that the advice I received was on target.

Pastor Brennan is himself an author of several books, and can be found here.  While I have not read everything he has written, everything that I have read has been very good.

Delays due to COVID-19 and other reasons not disclosed to us have made the release of our physical CD not possible until after the new year.  There is a possibility of purchasing a digital copy from Amazon for those who are so inclined.  As soon as it is ready, I will send a special update with instructions on how to purchase.  For anyone wanting to wait for the actual CD, we will update you via this venue when it is ready for purchase.

As Christmas nears, our family was asked to do some concerts for two different churches.  In one church, Josiah joined us and in the other, a friend named Dale Lieser was part of our team.  Both times were quite enjoyable as we served the Lord together.

After the Christmas season, we move into a special conference designed for laymen.  It is called a Christian Workers Conference.  Others have done similar things in past, but we found it to be a great blessing last year and look forward to seeing what the Lord will do this year.

Make God give you all a Christ-filled Christmas and new year.  Thank you for your prayers.

 The last month has been one full of choices.  Not choices of one car or meal over another, but choices of where we will allow our mind to dwell.  In our ministry, just as in your life, there are choices of where to focus our mind.

We could focus on the results of a landmark election, whatever the result eventually is.  The stories of massive State-sponsored election fraud will forever cloud the minds of American people and particularly American Christians.  As a family, we could focus on the trailer issues that have made this last month particularly difficult.  Our power converter (see last month’s entry) is fixed and everything in the trailer is running well, or was until yesterday.

Looking forward to arriving back home in time to be in our home church’s mid-week prayer service, we headed south and east out of southwest Missouri.  Around 9 that morning, we stopped for fuel and I noticed that the trailer seemed to be sitting funny.  After sticking my head in and looking around, I discovered that the shackles holding the leaf springs were broken and the spring was sitting directly on the frame.  Eight hours later, everything was fixed and we were back on the road, although we missed the evening service at our church.  Not even the live stream would work.

Around 10 that night, we pulled up to the house expecting to simply move Sarah’s car and back the trailer in.  The battery was completely dead and since COVID-19 has caused businesses to shut down earlier than usual, there was no way we could get a new one and move the car.  So, we went to the church and parked there.

We could choose to focus on these kinds of things and you, no doubt, have similar instances that you could relate.  The key to maintaining sanity is to focus on other things.  Things like the salvation of a man who had been the object of prayer for some time.

The man had noticed the daughter of a farmer in the church, and man and daughter had begun dating.  In May, the farmer was killed in an accident.  A couple of months after the accident, the man came to the farmer’s widow and asked permission to marry her daughter.  The grieving widow replied that she liked him, but was bothered by the fact that he was unsaved.  He responded that he did not want to make a decision capriciously just to please someone else, but that he would come to church.  He was saved in one of the last services of the meeting.

We choose to focus on the many Christians helped and encouraged in our meetings, in addition to those who have come to Christ.

After a brief break for Thanksgiving, we are at it again in a couple more meetings.  We are trusting God for great things in the future. 

 This is a great time for us because we are in the busy season.  We are in meeting after meeting in different churches in Montana, and are seeing the Lord work in the churches that we are privileged to serve.  Please pray for the Word of God to take lodging in hearts even after we are no longer in the place where different people heard it.

Please pray particularly for a girl named Evie (I think that is the correct spelling of her name).  She heard the Gospel last Wednesday, but quickly left before anyone from the church could get the opportunity to follow up with her.  She did raise her hand for prayer during the invitation, but did not come forward.

Another faithful man in church yesterday is unsaved.  He heard the Gospel, but has not responded for salvation.  Please pray for him.

School continues for the children, both the ones here in our trailer and Josiah in college.  The addition of college bills calls for more money to keep the bill current.  We were in a tough spot to pay October’s bill due at the beginning of the month, but God miraculously supplied the money.  We are grateful for His provision.

As I type this, I am grateful to God for sunlight.  The power converter in our trailer has gone out, along with our refrigerator and hot water heater.  That means that the AC appliances work–microwave, television, but the DC ones do not.  Direct current runs our thermostat for the heater, all of the lights, and many other parts of the trailer.  The problem we are having appears to be quite complex and we need to get to the bottom of it.

It is possible that once the DC power is restored, the refrigerator will work again.  Why the water heater is not working, I have no idea.  I chalk it up to Satan’s working against us as we try to minister to the Lighthouse Baptist Church of Butte, Montana.  At any rate, we will be making a lot of phone calls today and talking to people about getting the necessary repairs completed.  Please pray that the warranty company will uphold their part of the contract and pay for the needed repairs, whatever they may be.  There are two months left of extended warranty coverage left on the trailer, and the company can be notoriously difficult to deal with.

In reality, all the trailer problems are an opportunity to gain new contacts.  Please pray that we would be good stewards of each contact, giving the Gospel to each one.

 Frequently, as we travel in the Western United States, songs of Gene Autry come to my mind.  This year has been no exception.  As the miles pass by moving us from Mississippi to the West, I can scarcely keep from singing “Back in the Saddle Again.”  After the cancelations of COVID-19, it is great to be in meetings and in the West particularly.

This month will be our southern portion of the West tour as we are in southern Montana and northern Wyoming.  As we move into October, we will be in more places in Montana and Idaho as well.  It is a blessing to see the work that God has done among these men here in a place that, not so long ago, had few churches preaching the Gospel.  We are excited to see what the Lord will do through the meetings that remain in the fall schedule.

Please pray for a Crow Indian man named David.  He came to our meeting in Lodge Grass and seemed to be impacted by the preaching.  As I sat and talked with him, he seemed very shaky on the matter of salvation.  Please pray that the seed sown in his heart will bring forth fruit.

Our children are in the normal round of school, or maybe I should say the grind of school.  There is Geometry, Spanish, History, Chemistry, piano, and the usual work that occupies their day.  In addition to school is their regular trailer chores, plus the evening services.  Still, they find time to spend with others their age and have fun being children.

Whenever we have been in this area in the past, we have gone down to Sheridan, Wyoming, and filled our freezer with deer meat.  Out of state tags are very cheap for that area and up to this year have been unlimited and over-the-counter.  We are endeavoring to do the same this year, although the loss of some private land that we used to hunt has made things much more difficult.  In fact, I hope we can fill the two tags that we purchased so far.  We will see what happens.

Josiah is back in college and continues to do well.  The car that was given to him is a great addition to his college experience.  Seeing the Lord reward his work is great for us as parents to watch, albeit from a distance.  We are excited to see how the Lord will use him.

We are making progress on the post production work on our recording.  That is all the news to relate.  It will be out sometime before Christmas is our hope.

Thank you always for your prayers.  It is great to be able to serve the Lord.

 This month is one that has been dominated by illness for our family.  Many around us have in our county have tested positive for COVID-19 and an epidemic of strep has hit the church family at the same time.  Every member of our family has been ill this month, and the illnesses have been more debilitating than the usual 24-hour stomach bug.  As I write this, I have been ill since Monday of this week.  Not since I had the chickenpox in the 6th grade do I remember being so sick.  The good news is that it seems that we are on the way up after a very trying time with illness.

Josiah had a serious incident after one of our Sunday’s of ministry late last month.  The pastor ordered gluten-free pizza from Domino’s for him as we ate the normal pizza from the same establishment.  They brought the smaller size typical of their gluten-free pizza, but they had not made it with the gluten-free crust.  Josiah had a couple of pieces and the allergic reaction began.  It was not a long drive back to our house from this church, but on the way, he vomited several times.  That brought the allergens into contact with his throat once again, causing his throat to begin to swell shut.  By the time Sarah got him to the local emergency room, he was so swollen that he was unable to speak.

The foolishness of the reaction to COVID-19 nearly made things very bad from the beginning.  As he sat in the emergency room struggling for every breath, he was told to don a mask.  Sarah immediately intervened and protested, “He is in the middle of anaphylactic shock due to an allergic reaction and is here because he can’t get air, and you want him to wear a mask?”  At what point they checked the box for “problem parent,” I don’t know, but the problems were not yet done.

After Josiah was taken back to the emergency room, Sarah went with him.  He was still unable to speak, so swollen was his throat and soft pallet.  Early in the treatment process, Sarah was told that she would have to leave him.  At that point, she flatly refused.  In her mind, only she could inform the doctor of his extensive allergies.  The chances of their giving him something that would harm him are great.  After all, he has nearly died of medical error on more than one occasion in his 19 years of living.

Eventually, the hospital relented and allowed her to remain with Josiah.  After that, Sarah said that their pre-corona virus training kicked in and everyone was far more pleasant and understanding after that.

Josiah spent the night in intensive care and was later moved to the corona virus ward because he declined to take a test.  Having only recently been restored his ability to breathe, he did not relish the idea of someone probing a swab high up in his sinus cavity.  I suppose that he was reported as a COVID hospitalization even though he did not have the virus.  The entire firsthand experience made me question more than ever the numbers reported about this virus.

In all, Josiah lost a week of work due to the reaction that he had.  When he finally returned, he could tell how much the reaction had weakened his body.  Josiah’s job in the construction industry is installing stone countertops.  It is often very hard physical labor: they haven’t made a light stone countertop yet.

Next week, things are supposed to get back to normal again, whatever that is.  Josiah will go back to school in his new car (see last month’s update), and we will be back in meetings again.  Our meetings are to take us to the inter-mountain west this fall.

The recording project is taking longer than we had anticipated.  We will give more information as it becomes available.

Thank you for your prayers.

Because of the virus reaction of governments all over the world, we had to cancel our scheduled trip to the Philippines.  Accordingly, we find ourselves at home in Mississippi, ordering school books, reporting to churches that supported the Victory Gospel Crusade, and working in our home church.

The first week of the Victory Gospel Crusade in Western Ohio is in the books.  To say that things were different from what we anticipated would be an understatement.  We had intended to meet in very public venues in which many lost could be in attendance.  Instead, we found our public place canceled and we spent much time relabeling tracts and doing our best to get them out.  In the end, we simply met in the Celina Baptist Temple with an emphasis on online attendance as well as in person.  The services were full every night, and a couple of nights were packed with extra seating having to be made available.  Anyone wishing to watch the services may do so at victorygospelcrusade.com, the VGC Facebook page, or at the VGC YouTube channel.  You will note the five-member quartet, the choir singing each night, and a special salvation testimony every night.  But most of all, you will notice preaching, with every message focusing on the Gospel.  I would urge everyone reading this to direct lost friends and loved ones to watch.  Each message focuses on the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.  Three people that we know of trusted Christ as Savior last week, with at least 670 devices tuning in to the Facebook page alone.

Next week, beginning Sunday night, we will begin services at the Anchored Hope Baptist Church in Lima, Ohio.  Again, they will be available at the above mentioned websites.  Services are live tonight at 6 p.m. EDT and from Monday through Friday at 7 EDT each night.  Because Lima is a larger town than Celina, we will be involved in soul-winning every day next week as we seek to get the Gospel into the hands of people.  In light of COVID-19, we have had some naysayers berate us for handing out literature door to door.  For the most part, though, we have found people very receptive to our witnessing efforts.  They are eager, it seems, to be able to talk to anyone at their door, even if that person is initiating a religious conversation.

We would love to be able to hold open air services at a place called Robb Park in Lima.  Its location is very conducive to drawing crowds from the surrounding neighborhoods.  In February, we submitted all the necessary paperwork to obtain our permit to hold services in the park, but the local officials misplaced it.  Please pray that the Lord would work in the hearts of officials and in the weather to allow us to meet in the park, even if it is just in the afternoon.  Experience has shown that targeting areas of high foot traffic make for better results in giving the Gospel.

We are enjoying these days of ministering with Josiah.  Due to the nationwide reaction to COVID-19, his schedule with Neighborhood Bible Time was delayed one month, allowing him to be with us.  Not long after we return to Mississippi, he will board a plane and leave for Baltimore to begin the ministry that God has for him.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers.  May God find us faithful to give the Gospel in these days of unprecedented turmoil.