God of Wonders!

What an amazing God we serve!

He has been busy with us! He has spent the last few months teaching us how to live together, settling us into the routines of our new life in Buffalo, and giving us endless opportunities for relationships. We have began many relationships, and settled into a few regular routines of blessing. Our Sunday mornings have been a regular visit to a nursing home a block away; it seems to be a real blessing to the residents and staff of the facility. Our Wednesdays consist of a cell group meeting; fellowship and a meal, worship and prayer, and the Bible and discussion. We have had a handful of visitors to our cell meeting, and it seems as though some of them are connecting.

Our friend, Tommy, has been a real source of joy to me personally. He is constantly encouraging us with how blessed He is by our relationship. He continues to come with us to the retirement home and draw portraits, he was even doing portraits of staff members this past Sunday; he is becoming quite a hit! Pray for him, he struggles with demons of which most of us will never have the faintest comprehension...

Frank is a student from Taiwan at Buffalo State University whom we have adopted for the year. He has come over for lunch, and we have met for breakfast. I have had several spiritual conversations with him. He is a Daoist as is his family. Pray that God would bless his studies, and spark his heart with passion for Him.

Tamy and Dre are beginning their training to volunteer at Literacy Volunteers which is an organization that helps ESL children and adults learn the English language. There is a large Spanish-speaking population in Buffalo (Puerto Rican) as well as a surprisingly significant population of refugees from a couple of African nations. (We are excited to begin frequenting a local Somali restaurant when our budget loosens up a bit!) Pray that God sends us the nations right here in our own City!

Mary is now officially a volunteer at a local AIDS clinic. She went to her first event, she helped setup, and tear down, for a banquet in support of the organization. It was quite an experience for her (Dre also went with her), with dancing drag queens, chocolate fountains, tango lessons, wine-tasting, and prizes including an autographed photo of Ru-Paul. Exactly the type of party that the Pharisees wouldn't approve of Jesus going to... We have begun following in the footsteps of our sending church. We gave a tithe of our monthly church budget as an 'outreach offering' to the AIDS clinic, along with a letter explaining to them that we love Jesus and want to serve them as they serve a group of people that He loves. After reading the letter and receiving the money, the volunteer coordinator asked Mary some questions about our church and then opened the door for us to serve their clients.













I have finally begun to see some headway in my desire to get involved at the BSU campus. I had the leader of the InterVarsity group on campus over for lunch. (IV is a Christian student organization that is nationwide) She explained to me that at this time their only real need is for someone to 'disciple the young men!' We are moving forward (much to slowly for me!), and needless to say, I am very excited at the prospect of being involved in the lives of the men God wants to use to change the face of the city of Buffalo and the world! Pray for open doors to reach out to the students who are unconnected to student ministries already in existence.

All this to say that, God is beginning to open doors, and open other doors wider. Our relationships, and service, are starting to show the signs of fruit. However, I saved the best story for last...

We have had several opportunities to serve at the local Mission. We are still in the process of setting up a regular schedule to help out in the kitchen, but we have led worship and spoken at the chapel service a few times already. The pastor who lives across the street from me (his name is Paul, he is from Nigeria), invited us to come with him to the mission this past Sunday evening. He was going to preach, but he was hoping we could lead worship. We had fun preparing, we decided Sam would lead some, I would lead some, we would both play guitar, and Mary would play drums. Paul's worship leader, Edward, plays piano very well, and so he showed up and simply played along with us.

The night began with Carl, a young man (18) who has been coming to our small group and our Sunday outreach for the past two weeks, sharing with me that he had read the beginning of a book I gave him, The Father Heart of God, and it made him cry. Pray for Carl, he is a year into his faith journey and needs all the prayers he can get.

We met up with a couple from another Church in the area, ran through our worship set, and began to pray. We opened with the song 'God of Wonders' and when the chorus began you could hear the voices of many of the men shouting their praise to God. It was awesome... but only the beginning of the night.

The men continued to praise God with loud voices. Paul got up and preached on the many choices we make in our lives and the only choice that matters, surrender to the Lord of Life. We then got up and led the men in a spirited rendition of 'I Surrender All,' at which point Paul asked any who would want to surrender to Jesus to come and pray with us. A man named Tyrone walked up to me...

Tyrone is a large, soft-spoken, southern man. He has been in the chapel service every time I have been there so far, very engaged in what is being said and sung. I assumed he was already given to Christ. He told me, "I've never done this before, I don't know how to pray."

I prayed for him, that God would bless him; my friend Carl also prayed for him. Tyrone took out his cell phone and called his girlfriend, said hello, and then handed the phone to me, introducing me as, "one of God's people." I asked her if she were a spiritual person, she responded, "I believe in God." I asked if she were connected to a Church, she was not; I asked if she would like to be, "Yes," she said. I told her I would give Tyrone my number and we would get together. I then asked Tyrone, "Would you like to pray, is there anything on your heart that God has been doing with you tonight, anything you would want to say to him?"

Tyrone asked me how to pray. "You talk to God just the same way you are talking to me..."

"Hello, this is Tyrone, I'm just here with some of your people..." he began his first conversation with his Creator! How meek, humble, amazing, and earth-shattering!

When Tyrone finished praying I told him, "You can call God Papa, you can call Him Father, you can call Him Daddy, you can call Him whatever you like; He is your Father and He loves you dearly, you are his Son and He loves you tremendously."

This big, soft-spoken man began to weep, "I love you Daddy, I love you Father!"

He grabbed onto me, continuing to proclaim his love for our Father in between sobs; I began to cry...

We prayed together. I asked Tyrone what he was doing for Thanksgiving. He ecstatically agreed to come for dinner.

Pray that Tyrone's new-found faith is a new beginning, not merely an 'event.' Pray that he and his girlfriend take our invitation for Thanksgiving dinner.

Pray for us that God would continue to use us to love the city of Buffalo.

Never cease to praise Him for his glorious wonder!


This is a picture from the night at the mission; Paul is the man in the center, Edward is the worship leader of Paul's church, he is the man on the right. The gray-haired man and the other woman are Curt and Linda from a church outside of Buffalo.