Next Steps
Hello praying partners! We are about to endeavor on the next stage of our journey, and we appreciate your prayers now more than ever. A year ago, Tim left his full-time secular job as we began raising support. God was gracious enough to provide for both Tim and Autumn to work at our sending church as the director of ministry development and as the church secretary, respectively. Over the past year, God has taught us so much about ministry and has given us opportunities to serve Him in ways we never expected. Throughout this time, God has also allowed us to consistently travel, visit churches, and present our ministry. We have come to the point now where we must leave these positions at our church and go full time on deputation. Along with that, we are moving from North Carolina to Iowa in order to be closer to meetings in the midwest.
This transition is both exciting and difficult. We are excited to be able to devote all of our time to deputation and to be getting closer to leaving for the field. We are also excited to be closer to family, but it is difficult to leave behind many very dear friends at our sending church. We would appreciate prayer for both us and our home church at this time.
Over the past two months we have had meetings in Michigan and Indiana. We had a great time at Cedar Creek Bible Church in Delton, MI and First Baptist in Otsego, MI. We were encouraged by their hospitality and kindness during our visits. We also had the pleasure of presenting at a missions conference at Grace Baptist Church in Muncie, Indiana. This was a special meeting for us, because we had the opportunity to present at the same conference as Trevor and Amelia Galbraith. During our time in Muncie, we were challenged by the preaching of brother Tony Bulawa from Matthew 16.
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
We gathered up all of our belongings and moved out of our apartment in January. From there, we moved into a missions home where we stayed until mid March. We are especially thankful for the way God provided in this way. The family who own this home were incredibly gracious and were used by God to encourage us in a very special way.
Before leaving North Carolina, our church held its second annual 5K race in support of a local pregnancy center. Tim was in charge of making this all run smoothly, and it took several months of work leading up to it. We are thankful that the gospel was presented clearly to many people who would rarely, if ever, be in a church service. We were able to raise over $2,000 for the local pregnancy support center.
We ask that you would pray for us. Pray that as we present our ministry in Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and North Carolina in the coming months, God will move in the hearts of those we minister to and allow us to encourage and challenge His people. Pray for grace as we travel several thousand miles in the coming weeks and for our financial support to continue to grow.
We thank God that he continues to bless us with new support coming in. We are currently around 44% of our monthly support, with a few churches intending to take us on soon. We would ask that you would join us in praying that 60% of our support would be committed by the end of this summer. Thank you all so much for your constant prayers. We may never know who all is praying for us, but I am convinced it is because of your prayers that God has blessed in the way He has and will continue to bless in the ways I knew He will.
