Archive for September, 2008

We celebrated our one-year anniversary here in Bangor on August 18^th. On August 17^th we had a guest evangelist with Evangelism Explosion come, and we saw 5 people come to faith in the LORD! Three of them have been coming for only a couple of months, and they walked right up when the invitation was given; there were a few wet eyes! Two were a lady and her daughter, and another was a teenager whom the LORD has really been working on. She is seeking the truth and has been coming to the Truth Project on Sunday evenings. We look forward now to the discipleship process. Bruce & Audrey Chikalla

On my way to visit a lady, I stopped at a man’s house who was building a garage. He lives across from the local store.  As we were visiting, the lady I was going to visit stopped at the store, so I was able to stay and spend the afternoon working with this man on his garage.I felt God wanted me to stop and help this man. He asked me what I do with my afternoons, and I said, “I help people like you so I can talk about the Bible.” He said that sounded like a good thing to him. As we worked, we saw many people in our community stop at the store to buy alcohol. We talked about how people are destroying their lives, and I shared with him that Jesus had a better way to live a life.

We’ve discussed salvation before, so I didn’t press the matter, but I continue to hope that my small visits will lead people to accept Jesus.  Dan & Caroline Enns

I shared Christ with a gentleman that was in the church, but not in the usual situation – he came during the week to tune the piano. He claimed to be a Unitarian Universalist but said he was looking for a church to attend. I shared with him briefly what we believe about Jesus Christ being our only way of Salvation from sin. He listened intently but did not have much to say in reply. I left him with a devotional to read. I was ready to leave a few minutes before that, but just couldn’t for some reason. After I spoke to him about Christ, it was like I could leave then, because I had done what the Spirit was leading me to do.  What better place to share the message God has given than right there on the platform, with the man sitting at the piano! Aaron & Suzanne McNally

The most exciting thing that’s happened lately was being able to baptize two young men in their twenties.  One of them was baptized before he was saved, so he really wanted to “do it right.”  As we went over my short baptism class, his excitement was just awesome.  He even wanted to get baptized that night!  The other guy is a neat story too.  I baptized his wife last year, and as I met with her, he sat there with arms crossed and a totally uninterested face.  Then, this spring he made some bad decisions, but they resulted in him truly accepting Jesus as his Lord and Savior!  So when he told me recently that he wanted to be baptized, I was thrilled! I baptized them in the river in front of our place, and then we had a big picnic. It was a special day.  Since then, a lady who got saved last summer also requested to be baptized. These are exciting times!  Dean & Rochelle Denlinger

Despite car problems, we had a wonderful time camping in the Redwoods. We were grateful for the family time before we begin a hectic school year. We’re now in preparation for Awana which will start September 10^th.  We will also begin a program once a week for middle school kids called Trek.  We plan to use the school Release Time for this program.  Oregon allows students to leave school grounds for religious training for one class period once a week.  Josh & Xio Gard