Ministry Report – Help Build Hope

CrossRoads Missions is partnering with Southeast Christian Church – here in Louisville – to frame up 30 homes that will be taken to our field in the New Orleans area. This month, August, on a clear and sunny Saturday, CrossRoads staff met in the church parking lot, along with about 300 church members, for a one-house Help Build Hope training event. The 300 church members will be the team leaders for the 30 home event to be held on September 30th — thus this Saturday was set aside to train them as team leaders and hbh team captains. It was also Phyllis’ first exposure to a Help Build Hope Weekend and Jim’s second. We started around 8 a.m. and by 12 noon we were all done. We are anticipating 4,000 volunteers from the church to be in the parking lot on September 30th to do the 30 house build. You can read more about Help Build Hope by visiting CrossRoads Missions web site at www.helpbuildhope.com.

These 30 framed homes will be shipped to our field in New Orleans where they will each be eventually finished and made available for purchase at below market prices. It is our desire that this effort will help enable our brothers and sisters in the Lord to return to the area. By the way – the last report we received indicated that in New Orleans alone (this does not include the Gulf area along with Mississippi) has nearly 225,000 houses that still need to be gutted or torn down! The need for housing is tremendous. Our work there will help enable those who follow Christ to return and be influential in the community for the Gospel!

Ministry Report – Web Site Activity

Jim is in the process of completing work on a web site for the “Collaboration for Transformational Ministry”. You can visit the web site by going to: http://www.healthwholeness.net/. He’ll soon be starting work on the “Missions to Unreached Peoples” web site (currently at www.mup.org).

Ministry Report – Embroidery

CrossRoads has acquired a six-thread professional embroidery machine. We often receive requests for items embroidered with our logo, or the logo for a church or other ministry partner. Embroidered shirts alone can cost as much as $30. With this new machine we can save ministries, and CrossRoads, significant operating funds by reducing this cost to as low as $8.00! We’ll be heading up to Chicago in mid-September for hands on training so that we can become more versed at using this new resource.

Personal Update: Moving – One More Time

houseBy the time you receive this eNewsletter we’ll be on the back side of moving – one more time – unpacking. Actually, moving is much easier than packing or unpacking! With this move we realized that we have packed and unpacked five times in the last four years (1. moving from our house in Cincinnati to temporary living with Judy Kirkpatrick in Cincinnati, 2. from there to the cottage at Missionary TECH Team in Longview, Tx, 3. from the cottage to a house in Longview, TX, 4. from Longview, TX to an apartment here in Louisville, and now 5. from the apartment to our house in Louisville). We’re sure glad that we haven’t had to “wander in the wilderness” for forty years!

The Lord has provided a house for us that we closed on in August. We have been slowly moving our things from storage and our packed apartment over to the house for the last couple of weeks. Our plans are to be completely moved in by Labor Day! This house is a three bedroom, one bath, single level home. We’re excited to have the extra bedroom (so come and visit us anytime!), and to have a backyard to enjoy.

We’ve had a couple nights, when sitting exhausted from the days activity of unpacking, where one of us has asked “Now tell me why we moved to Louisville?” and the other answers “Because we are following God’s leading for our lives.” as a reminder that even moving and unpacking is not accomplished in our own strength but in the purposes of the Father.

Our new address is: 7205 Gorham Way, Louisville, KY, 40291. Our phone numbers and email addresses have not changed. We’ve updated our Photo Gallery with a few new pictures of “Moving to Louisville”.

Personal Update: Grandparenting

Isaac Hamm, our grandson, started walking (or perhaps running), for the first time on August 22 – so we just have to share with you these two great videos. You’ll see his daddy, Steve in the videos as he, and mom (who took the videos), Emily, coax him along. Amazing how quickly he is moving for just getting started. Video 1 | Video 2

Personal Update: Other Items

  • Erika has been transitioning through her new seizure control medication with the only side affects being fatigue!
  • In our search for a church home, we’ve visited quite a few churches of various sizes and locations in the area. One church we visited has nearly 20,000 members! One Saturday afternoon we read an article about a new church startup near us – JTown Bible Church. We’ve been worshipping with this fellowship for the past several weeks. We met, we think, all the church on the first Sunday — about six families. The church started at the end of June of this year, it being the first Bible Church in the area.
  • This summer has been the summer of medical expenses: Erika has nearly $2500.00 in expenses, and we’ve incurred just about $3300.00. We’re delighted that the Lord has provided nearly $2600.00 towards these costs to date! Thank you for your help! Pray with us as we seek solutions, not only for the costs we have, but perhaps towards some kind of insurance coverage that may help. Our situation, like many, is that the cost of health insurance is beyond that which we ourselves can afford at this time and thus we do not have coverage.
  • Thank you for your prayers as they are much needed daily as the power behind us serving in missions!
  • Thank you for your finanicial help as it enables us to focus on serving in missions!
  • Thank you for the phone calls, emails, notes and letters of encouragement!

Love — Jim and Phyllis