As is common for the new year, we felt a restart button had been pressed. We were ready to start again for 2025, and we had several goals in mind. One goal that we are finally conquering is an early morning routine! This last year, I discovered the power of a 5 am routine, but lost my momentum when I had a kidney stone, and never was able to return to my routine. So far, for all of January, we have become 5 am people! Life on a ranch in the middle of summer is hot and busy! It has been amazing to have the time to slowly wake up, read my Bible, take some personal time of reflection, cut grass, and harvest blueberries all before breakfast! We are basically finished with all of our major tasks for the day before lunch! We have been praising God for this secret that we have learned about the morning hours. Are we tired? Surprisingly no! We have our sluggish days, but mostly we feel energized and excited to begin our day. It has been encouraging for us to feel that drive again. And this month has been full of progress.

Our church is doing incredible! We continue to see our people grow spiritually at a rapid rate. They are hungry for God’s Word, and have been very interactive in our church services. It has been incredible as a new pastor to see God’s hand working. We have had a surprising number of visitors this month. We had also another conversation about membership with a young couple who has been coming for a while! God is moving in our people, and we are seeing the fruit of much labor coming in.

We had two celebrations this month. This first, Robson and Sabrina completed the discipleship program! We are very proud of them, and have seen a lot of spiritual growth in the last few months. They are tithing regularly; Robson is preaching on Sunday mornings; they volunteer to pray publicly in our church services more often (big deal in our culture!); they are more faithful to services. God has been touching their hearts, and it is obvious. The second celebration this month was a wedding! Some good friends of ours, Jonas and Nicole, have been coming to our church for some time, and at the end of the month took the steps to get legally  married! John and Neila Yelle have been working on them for some time, and both of them only got saved this last year. And one of the first things that they desired to do was to get married. We rejoice with them and are happy for their new union.

In terms of projects, we have broken ground on three different projects at the same time! Our friend with a tractor came and dug out and layered a hill where we will be building our new horse barn. The current barn OLD, falling apart, and in the way of where we want to build for our camp ministry. Having this hill dug out was the first step. With all the dirt that he dug up, he filled in patches around our new bridge, leveled an area for us to make a fire pit for events, filled in around a drainage pipe we installed, and raised our front yard! What would have taken us hours took him seconds. We are very happy to see all of this progress happening quickly, and many of the projects we have desired to do are now beginning.

Please pray for our health, our allergies, and that God will continue to help us with our early morning routine. It really has elevated our lives! Please pray for our church and members. Our people have a great passion burning in their bones right now. But very commonly, this type of fire can burn out in time. Pray that their desires to serve God and learn with not fade quickly. Pray also about whom we will disciple next. Many of our members have approached us about discipleship, but the fact is that it is a four-month commitment, and it is just Joneia and Myself doing this program right now! We want to be wise about who we will begin discipleship with next.

Thank you so much for your prayers, your support, and your love!