Two months ago, we quit our jobs, and endeavored on our deputation journey. We had no idea how much God was going to bless us! Naturally, our leap of faith was met with great opposition from the devil. First, I was tempted with a pay raise from my job! Then I was tempted by a loss in pay when Covid made me unable to go back to work for my final week! But God saw us through it, and He has blessed us far greater than any pay raise could have offered! Although I had to miss work, God knew that I needed that extra week off to get all of our media and display ready for our first meeting. God worked through the entire thing!
Our first meeting was at Harvest Hills Baptist Church in Duncan, Oklahoma with Pastor Jerry Moore. It was our first deputation meeting, so I was naturally very nervous! It was our first time traveling with our 5th Wheel RV, our first meeting, and my first time presenting everything. I felt quite anxious, but God was so gracious in making this our first meeting! We were blessed with such wonderful love and reception from the people of Harvest Hills Baptist Church, and we had a quick connection with Pastor Moore. He had a personal relationship with Joneia's grandfather Joe Hawkins who was a missionary in Northern Brazil for over 53 years. We enjoyed hearing stories about Joneia's grandfather, and our presentation went very well. We learned from our mistakes (whether they were obvious or not), and we were very well received. I even attempted to play the piano for our special, and only stumbled through a couple of different parts of the song. I was so blessed to have my wife with me to help me and encourage me through the entire thing.
While in Oklahoma, we travelled up to Oklahoma City to visit our church from college, Southwest Baptist Church. Though it wasn't a formal meeting, we were so happy to see our teachers and friends that still remained at Heartland Baptist Bible College. We finished our last few days in Oklahoma there, and the church was so gracious to let us use their RV hookups in the church parking lot. It was a blessing and an encouragement to see everyone there, and we are so excited to return for their missions conference!
After our time in Oklahoma, it was time to go to our next meeting in Gatesville, Texas. This was our first three-day missions conference at Calvary Baptist Church! We were invited to this missions conference by Evangelist Monty Martin, who has been running their missions conference for years. He has been a wonderful resource for us in getting meetings around Texas! It was interesting when we found out that he too had a connection with Joneia's grandfather Joe Hawkins. He used to travel around Texas with a pair of Joe Hawkins' boots preaching for young people to "fill the shoes" of missionaries. It felt like we ourselves were walking in the footsteps of Joe Hawkins within our first meetings! The Lord kept using seemingly small things like these to encourage us throughout our deputation.
Calvary Baptist Church was very loving, welcoming, and dynamic with a great passion for missionaries! We presented along side of another missionary family, the Martins: missionaries to Portugal. My wife and they spoke Portuguese back and forth the whole time. We had such a blast with the missions conference. We felt so blessed for this being our second meeting. At the end of the conference, the church voted, and became our first official supporting church! We are so overwhelmed by how God has been blessing us so greatly in the first two weeks!
We went to park our RV back in Fort Worth since the rest of our meetings through October were scheduled in or near Fort Worth, but when we went to look for an RV park, there were none available within 30 miles of Fort Worth! We were so grateful that Heritage Baptist Church in Haslet had RV Hookups. They graciously allowed us to park there for all of October. When we visited their Wednesday evening service, they voted that evening and took us on for support without us even presenting our ministry! We are now scheduled for their next missions conference.
We then had a meeting at Calvary Baptist Church in Mineola, Texas. It was a wonderful meeting with a great congregation and a passionate Pastor. We loved our meeting there and enjoyed getting to present to their church. The following week, we had the IBFI Fall Fellowship meeting. It was really a blessing to see several pastors fellowshiping together after the distancing of this last year. We felt encouraged and recharged with the preaching, and I even had the opportunity to preach during the Wedneday Evening portion! From that meeting, we managed to schedule three more meetings! The Lord has been so good to us to put us exactly where we need to be.
We then started preparing to travel to Washington state. We decided to fly instead of drive to save money since my parents have offered for us to use their car and they have a place for us to stay while we are here. We took the opportunity to give them the surprise of their life! We didn't tell them when we were coming, and we successfully surprised them! They were so excited to see us.
Please pray for us in Washington as we present our ministry here. We are thrilled and blessed with the meetings we have scheduled. I was so happy when I managed to get 5 more meetings scheduled on Wednesday before we came here! Our calendar is filling up, and we can't wait to see how God is going to use us and encourage churches through us in this chapter of our deputation in the Pacific North West.