Archive for December, 2007

What an encouraging time this has been for the church family!  We rejoice in the ways that God used our church family in a contagious way: we were able to put together 82 shoe boxes to send to children overseas through “Operation Christmas Child”; we put together and delivered 6 generous Thanksgiving Food Baskets to needy families in our community; we collected $1150.00 at our Thanksgiving Offering to go to the Lane Pregnancy Support Center; we “adopted” 4 children to purchase Christmas gifts for through Prison Fellowship’s “Angel Tree” program. I share these items not to boast about “our church,” but to tell of how God has worked in the hearts and lives of the people here at Camp Creek and placed within them a genuine desire to spread His love with more than simply words! Craig & Shelley Curtis

What a joy and privilege to be involved in the Franklin Graham Festival; 134 of our people took the Christian Life & Witnessing classes. We were able to host these four classes in our new worship center. Fifteen other churches on this side of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge joined with us, and 29 of our people signed up to do counseling at the Festival. The Festival Team office told us that of the 200+ churches in the Puget Sound area, Burley Bible Church had the 3^rd largest number of participants in the Christian Life & Witnessing classes. Because of our strong involvement, they asked me to lead the closing prayer on the first night. My heart was filled with joy as I looked down from the platform at the hundreds of people that came forward to make a commitment to Jesus Christ, and to see so many of our congregation standing beside them ready to help them confirm their decisions. A total of 1,416 people came forward to make commitments to Christ during the 4 Festival events. We were given 31 names to follow up on, many of whom were family members or friends that had been invited to the Festival by people from our congregation. We now have 13 small group Bible studies (Neighborhood Discovery Groups) going on throughout our community that we are endeavoring to get these new believers involved in. The discipleship material we are using, “Thirty Discipleship Exercises,” is from the BGEA and is excellent for new and older believers alike. Paul & Glenda Burns

After a huge missing person search in this area in September, there was a letter to the editor printed in a local newspaper. Here is an excerpt from that letter, “…The generosity of the Cotopaxi Community Church was amazing. They fed searchers for two entire weeks. You are a great group of people with amazingly big hearts to let us come in your church dirty, grimy and hungry.” This was signed by a team representative for the Fremont Search and Rescue. We also received a wonderful letter of thanks from a lady who has attended here and who had received help and love from this church body – parts of the letter are as follows, “…First…I want to thank the congregation who welcomed me in with love – no questions asked. This in itself is a HUGE thing. Sadly, many times church congregations can be cold and uncaring to make an effort to include new people. But Cotopaxi Church has always shown the love of God….Secondly, the women in this church have been very kind to me….They looked beyond the exterior and loved me in spite of all my faults…I have watched Cotopaxi Church reach out to help not only those who are part of the congregation, but anyone in the community in serious need. This is the heart of Jesus…THANK YOU!” We feel very blessed by these letters.  Bill & Mary Korf