Church Progress Report

When last I reported on things here in Savannah, God was opening several doors where a church building was concerned. A lot has transpired since then and I wanted to catch you up.

First, within a week of that Cloud 9 moment, James was in a pretty severe accident on I-95 just over the state line in South Carolina. Because he was also towing his War Eagle fishing boat, there wasn’t a panel of that truck that was unscathed. Mercifully, he walked away from a near head-on collision with a semi.

And financially, thanks to God, fantastic friends, and insurance policies, we came out better than seemed possible.

He still cringes when we drive into Jasper County, but for the most part that incident in our lives is behind us!

So, we went from that extreme high to an extreme low within seven days!

From there, things returned to normal and we set about to working with the church that had opened up their hearts (and doors) to us.

Back to the Home:

Around the first of this year, things changed and we once again began to meet in our home for services. Just a few short weeks later, we learned that the church building where we had been meeting was no longer used for services.

To shorten a REALLY long story, when our Pastors and several of the church members from Nashville came to town for Josh’s Marine Corp Graduation, we knew there would not be enough room to meet in our home for church services. James approached the men who owned the now vacant church building and they agreed to let us use the building for those two services.

Just prior to Pastors arrival, James met with them again and they offered for us to meet in the building for the month of March as well.

Let me pause right here for an aside. These men – Randy McEwen and Michael Dant – have been such a tremendous blessing to us. They are in charge of Acts III Global Ministries. They operate several successful thrift stores in the South Georgia area as the mainstay of their domestic ministry. The international missions portion of Acts III ministers extensively in Malawi and includes an orphanage that they founded, built, and administer. God blessed them on a recent trip to Malawi and has cleared the way for even more ministry abroad. There truly is no way for us to repay them in the natural for all they have done for us. So, I will ask you to please remember them in your prayers!

Latest Developments:

The story doesn’t end there! When Pastors were here we discussed the building at length with them and are now pursuing a contract on renting the building long-term. The rent alone is $1700 per month and with a fledgling ministry that was going to be a stretch – to say the least. James met with them yet again to discuss terms. As James began to explain our situation, Randy stopped him mid-stream. He told James that his landlord recently renewed his contract on the thrift store and that his rent typically went up each renewal, plus he had common fees to pay. Randy went on to say that God had blessed him because the rent went down instead of up. Come to find out – it went down by $1700 per month!!

Randy then told James for us to let him know what we could pay and that because God had blessed him so, he wanted to pass that along to us. We will be meeting with him soon to sign papers and solidify the lease. We still know that we are dependent on God to grow the church and meet the financial obligations, but Brookstone Community Church now has a place to meet (that isn’t residential).

We praise God for His blessings and the generosity of Acts III. Please be in prayer as we take these next steps toward what God has here for us.