Miracles in Jennings
Jennings, MI was once a thriving community in the early 1900′s with several plants and mills related to the lumber industry. When the lumber ran out all the plants closed and the lumber company moved over 75 homes to nearby Cadillac. Jennings began to morph into a forgotten community known for poverty, crimes, and drugs. A small church tried to shine the light of Jesus Christ, but when their pastor retired, the church was ready to close. Jennings was sinking into further despair and darkness but God had different plans!
After the church asked Village Missions to provide leadership, we sent Larry and Kathy Shetenhelm to Jennings in January 2006. Jennings was the first church served under our Sliding Scale program, where we not only provide salary support but also cover the health plan. The church moves forward first in contributing toward the health plan and then the salary according to a scale that adjusts for various ministry costs.
The turnaround in Jennings in two short years is nothing but a miracle. Sunday morning, April 20, I spoke to a church full of people excited about Jesus Christ and what He was doing in their midst. I met John, who Larry led to Christ and baptized last summer along with his wife Dorothy. Neither John nor Dorothy had any spiritual background whatsoever. Neither he, nor his parents, nor his grandparents ever attended a church but now John is a new creature in Christ and hungry to study the Bible. You can see pictures of my visit to Jennings and some of the people I write about in this blog by following this link.
Larry led Jeff to Christ through his jail ministry. When Larry first met Jeff in jail, he was arrogant, proud, and disruptive. Coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, Jeff trusted Christ and became humble and hungry for the Word of God. Pray for Jeff and his family as he serves his sentence in a federal jail in Chicago.
I’ve never been in a church where so many had recently come to Christ. The entire back row was filled with teens who have a reputation for being part of the wild crowd but were hungry for love and something different in their lives. Bob wore a neck collar because of a botched operation on his neck. He had battled with workmen’s compensation for years, which left him extremely angry and bitter. Larry and new Christian John cut, split, and hauled wood for Bob. Bob started attending church after they did that. Larry visited him in the home and Bob trusted Christ. He now is also a changed man-in just a short time he has read the Bible through three times and Larry is going through the Pal Plan with he and his wife. He bought 200 copies of the Daily Bread, put a label on them with Jennings Church information, and distributed them throughout the area.
Jennings is one of our pilot churches for the Awana club program. This winter they averaged 22-25 children every meeting. We will have to work with Awana to make some modifications-none of the kids knew the slightest thing about the Bible. Teenagers especially, who wanted somewhere to go, came to Awana, but had no background knowledge.
God has led Larry and Kathy to help the community in other ways. Interested parties contributed to a project to haul away trash and tires from Jennings. They rented the largest dumpster they could rent and men volunteered to go around the community picking up trash from homes. This is how they met and befriended John, who has very bad knees and couldn’t clean up his property. They cleaned up his property on Saturday and Sunday he and his wife were in church. Very few other people in the town wanted any help but within two nights, townspeople filled the dumpster to overflowing. They borrowed a front-end loader to pack down the garbage and shortly they filled it again. They also took away 110 tires!
Already the congregation is covering the Benefit Plan and sometimes contributes to salary. The mission statement of what is now the Jennings Community Church is “Proclaiming and demonstrating hope in Jesus Christ.” Hope has come to Jennings through a dedicated Village Missionary couple and the ministry of Village Missions.
We are facing extremely difficult financial and recruiting challenges in our sixtieth year as a mission. We have invested over $51,000 in Jennings since January 2006. What has happened in Jennings as well as in many other places we serve reminds me that God is still very much at work in and through us. Together, as we look to God in prayer and jointly seek ways to move forward, may He enable us to continue to serve places like Jennings!
