Greetings to all of you who pray for us and follow our adventures as we seek to serve the Lord. I have received several emails and texts asking for an update and information about our move to California..... So here it is:
Most of you probably know how, three and a half years ago, when we came back from Peru, the Lord led us very clearly to stay in the USA and work to encourage His people in the areas of evangelism, discipleship, church planting and missions. Although it felt like my heart had been ripped out, the Lord encouraged us and has filled our schedule with countless opportunities to fulfill that mission. Our schedule continues to be very full and we thank God for the many open doors and opportunities He has given us to preach the gospel and encourage saints all over North America. As these few years have passed I still miss being in Peru in a full time capacity but now I feel fully healed of that displacement.
Javen and Cullen have been studying at Emmaus and because of that we have made Dubuque Iowa home base for the last few years. It has been great to be close to our older sons who are doing very well in the Lord and are now finishing college. Cullen just graduated with a major in intercultural studies and is currently doing his internship in Bogota Colombia. Javen is studying Christian counseling and he needs one more year at Emmaus after which he plans to go on to do a Master’s degree elsewhere.
Now that those two young men are transitioning to the next step of life we feel that the Lord is directing us to a new home base. We have been praying about this and we feel that the Lord is moving us to Freedom California. We have now done two spy-out-the-land visits there and we have found that “the fields are white for harvest”. During our times there we have also become better acquainted with the “Freedom Team” who has invited us to work with them. The Freedom team consists of three couples (Scott and Lynne Degroff, Dan and Cyndi Williams and Micah and Christina Williams who are all from assemblies in the midwest).
The team started about three years ago and it gets its name because of the town in which the ministry is located (which is about 90% Spanish speaking). The team’s desire is to do evangelism and discipleship and to start a new assembly in town which would hopefully be instrumental in starting new works across the west coast. They have laid a great foundation of prayer and made many key contacts in the area but they desperately need an evangelist and Spanish speakers to come and help.
On our first spy-out the-land visit when we began to feel that the Lord was leading us to Freedom, Amy and I went for a walk to pray and discuss the possibilities of moving there. After much walking and talking we both felt like Freedom CA is where the Lord would have us go, so we prayed and asked the Lord to make it crystal clear. After praying we noticed the street sign on the corner where we were passing by........ The cross streets were "Tuttle" and "California"! I put the following picture on our last blog post, but I didn't say anything about the street sign in the background.... Please look closely! How's that for a sign :)
California, with its high cost of living and its politics is not a place that I thought I would ever want to live but it really seems that we would be a great fit with this team and with their vision for making Christ’s name great in that part of the country. Many christians are leaving California and it seems to be becoming increasingly dark. What a great place to shine for Jesus! So please pray for us and with us as we begin to make Freedom California our new home base. We hope to continue our itinerant ministry, but to lesser degree and we still plan to make short trips to Peru but our main focus will be on evangelism and discipleship and church planting there in Freedom CA. Please pray!
Our last trip to Freedom was filled with many exciting evangelistic conversations. In the above picture I wasn't really trying to poke this guy in the eyes :) I was actually pleading with him to repent and come to Christ. He was a drug dealer, alcoholic and a womanizer who had abandoned his own children in several different cities. We had an epic hour-long conversation about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come. He had been in and out of prison many times and he thought it rather funny that he's so vile. At the same time he was keenly interested in the Bible passages that I shared with him (1 Cor 6:9-10) (Rev 20:11-15) (Luke 16:19-31) (Matthew 20:1-6) (John 3:36). He was quite alarmed at the Bibles teaching on hell and also very astonished that even he could be forgiven through the grace that Christ offers.... In this picture I was telling him: "Don't you see, there are spiritual chains draped all over you, only Jesus can remove them! Come to Christ while you still can." He replied: "Man, I think I see a halo over your head..... It's like God called you to give me a wake-up call." I said: "I don't know about the halo part but I do think that this was a divine appointment to shake you up. Repent while there's still time." ..... I gave him a fist bump and then he said: "I still think you're probably an angel or something but hey, thanks for caring enough to share this stuff with me."
During the course of the last two weeks we spent in Freedom we had several children's meetings out in the park. We just went around inviting the kids and their parents to come out and play games and listen to message from the Bible.... and they came! Amy translated on several occasions while Bria and Josiah and Mya helped in different ways with the kids that showed up. One day we had more than 100 kids from the neighborhood! A few adults heckled me from the back but I was able to preach my heart out and the Lord really seemed to be working. Afterward there were many small groups and individual gospel conversations going on. It was an epic day of evangelism for the whole Freedom team and we pray that the Holy Spirit continues working to bring real conviction in the lives of many souls!
Another day I struck up a friendly conversation with a guy named Omar. Before long we were talking about spiritual things. He said that he used to consider himself a Christian but little by little he has drifted away from the Lord and he's gotten into some really bad stuff lately. He remarked that he hasn't read his Bible or gone to church in more than three years. Immediately I opened up the word and shared from Hebrews 2:1-4 "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation."..... As we talked he was quite amazed and commented: "I never visit this park but for some reason I just felt like I should come here and ask God to help me return to Him.... and then God sent you!" .... Yet another divine appointment!
One of the Sunday's that we were there we attempted to do "Church without walls". We prepared 100 hotdogs and 100 tacos with chips and drinks to give away in the park. We were hoping to attract a big crowd and then share the gospel... Well, the big crowd part didn't happen but I preached anyway. There were about 15 souls that heard the message, all of whom listened intently and many fantastic one on one conversations happened afterward!
We still have many events on the calendar that we must keep, so for the next six months we will be in and out of California a lot. Please pray for us as we start to focus more and more on ministry there in Freedom!
Missions quote for the day by Peter Taylor Forsyth: "It is not our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not."
Micah for the Tuttle's
