February Newsletter/Prayer Requests

First, I’ve very recently begun using our prayer blog/website more aggressively to share what is happening in our ministry and for prayer requests.  You are also always invited to call me, email me, or swing by and chat with me anytime.  We’d love to have you share directly in the ministry work with us.

I received a phone call about a month ago from a man—we’ll call him Vin for anonymity—he was homeless in Hays and had been given our ministry’s number by another homeless man who had told him we might be able to help him.  I was a little hesitant off the bat as the person who had given him our number had used us as much as he could before it became obvious that we were happy to help him to a long-term solution at the Salina rescue mission but could no longer provide him places to stay locally.  We had been getting more and more phone calls from homeless individuals or individuals in distress since we were the fifth ministry down on the Ellis County Ministerial Alliance web page and First Call for Help, Salvation Army, and Catholic Charities (the big three that provide assistance in Hays) are not able to help everyone who comes to them.  Due to budget decreases and other restrictions, many people are falling through the cracks. 

When we met Vin, I was struck by how honest he was.  Unlike several of the other individuals we have worked with, he would always tell the truth—if he needed money for cigarettes he wouldn’t lie and say he needed money for food.  When he said he had paperwork from Social Security and a check coming, he really did.  He was going through hard times for several reasons—his wife had died awhile back and his son and him had sold the trailer they shared in Nebraska.  After living off that money for awhile, he was called to Hays to stand trial for failure to appear in court over a bounced check.  Now on probation, he was unable to move to the Salina Rescue Mission because he was ordered to stay in Hays.  Without enough money to pay for first month’s rent AND the security deposit for an apartment, he had been homeless.  As cold as it was, he was primarily surviving by panhandling for money for rooms at the cheapest hotel in town.

Once we had a feel for him and for his honesty, we connected him with a local landlord who had a VERY rough apartment that Vin could move into right away without a full month’s rent (as Vin had no money) provided that Vin could help clean and repair it.  The landlord was very generous as this room would not be ready for a month for general rent due to its condition, but Vin had nowhere else to sleep that night.  I helped Vin get food and clothes from our free store, apply to a few ministries in town for additional assistance, and I bought him a radio from the ARC since he had requested a radio a few different times.  He also snagged a Bible from our Free Store shelf for reading material.  Things seemed to be looking up for Vin that week, then Vin disappeared.

One week later I got a call.  I’m uncertain whether Vin tried to actually kill himself or if it was an attempt to hurt himself to get into Larned State Hospital where his room was paid and he had three solid meals a day.  He obviously thought about it in advance by the way he spread out plastic bags on the floor to catch his blood so he wouldn’t stain the carpet.  He also had a lot of reasons to be legitimately depressed—he had no money, no plan, no local friends, and he was very lonely even though he now had a home.  Regardless, he was in Larned now.  When he was released, we worked with him and the landlord, and he was able to resume living in the apartment while cleaning it up.  Things seemed to be going up for him a second time, but then he disappeared again.

One week and two days later, I was overseeing The Emergency Federal Assistance Program’s government food distribution, a new project that Unite has taken over, in which we line up cars from surrounding counties down at the Armory on Main Street, use a forklift donated by Heartland Building to

unload pallets of government surplus food,  and then manually load cases of food off the pallets into the cars to go to community food banks throughout Northwest Kansas.  In the middle of this logistical challenge, I get a call from Vin.  He’s at a local church and needs help.  His liver had started failing two weeks ago, and he had been rushed from HaysMed ER to Kansas City; on the trip, he nearly died—they pulled 13 pounds of fluid off him in Kansas City’s ICU.  Luckily, he’d lived through the ordeal.  Now, fresh out of the ICU with stitches and a satchel full of confusing medicines, they’d loaded him onto a Greyhound bus and sent him back to Hays, where he lived.  He didn’t have his cellphone, wallet, IDs, or clothes—all had been mistakenly kept at HaysMed.  Instead, he was alone in donated sweats from a charity in Kansas City.  I told him that I’d hurry down and help him as soon as we were done.

Upon meeting him there, we started to work on his immediate needs.  First, he needed his check from Social Security to pay rent.  The landlord wrote the necessary eviction notice proving an urgent need for the check, then I took him and the notice to the Social Security office on 27th.  There, he was able to get his check—it appears that he also had another check on backorder due to confusion about his address; he had been living in the hotel so it had gone there instead of his new apartment.  We figured that out, but we were unable to cash Vin’s check for him to use to pay rent since he had no ID—even though he had enough pertinent personal information to get Social Security to issue him his check on the spot.  As such, we took him to HaysMed to get his wallet, clothes, and birth certificate—all of which had been mistakenly left there.  After he had that, we still couldn’t find a place to cash his check since he owned no photo ID—he only had his birth certificate.  With some convoluted work, we were able to work with my bank to cash his check—but only because I banked there and had the right connections.  With his money in hand, I helped him pay rent and got him back to his place; there I found out that he had only two chairs for furniture and a concrete floor to sleep on—even though he had fresh stitches.

With additional work and God’s providence (and a story longer than I can fit in this newsletter), the next day we were able to get a trailer and help and give him a sleeper sofa from The Gamers Guild that actually had a nice bed inside of it until a real bed could arrive in a few days.  Thank God, he could now sleep on a bed instead of a concrete floor.  He also gained two very nice connections with Christians who would follow up on him and care about him.  With further work, we got him a TV for his entertainment while he was home and some places he could go socially if he needed.

I share this story because first, it was astounding for me to learn how hard it is for someone who is homeless and has legitimate social security to draw upon to access it functionally without Internet, a cell phone, a legal place of residence, and a ton of identification and knowledge of the system.  Many ministries in town STILL can’t help Vin since he doesn’t have proof of local residence for another week when his bills come back with his name and address and PAID marked on them.  If I didn’t work with these ministries for a living, I couldn’t even help him get help.  Second--when we came back with the sofa for Vin, he was sitting alone in his room with the little clock radio I had purchased him playing.  For me it had almost been an afterthought to get him the radio with all of his other pressing needs for food and shelter and my need to hurry back to other urgent things, but to him it had been a constant companion and it was a critical need for his mind to be distracted.  It was obvious in that bare room how important it was to him.  In my desire to help him and hurry to meet his obvious needs, I hadn’t taken enough time to slow down and really listen to him to see how critical some of his other needs were—to really love him.

When you see someone panhandling or meet someone in need, I want to encourage you to stop and take time to really listen to them.  Hear what they have to say in the same way that God, who greatly loves them, hears them.  See how you can come alongside them and help them or connect them with help directly.  It may be that your resources will be needed for them to get through the assistance agencies and get actual help.  Quite possibly the one that Christ sent to answer their prayers is none other than you.

Reflections--Prayer Requests Feb 21 2016

This last week both my wife and I were sick for a few days.  We also had a large event planned this weekend at The Gamers Guild to honor a local who recently died.  The organizers decided to push the event back so that more of his friends could make it.  As such, we suddenly had a free Saturday--which we very seldom, if ever, have.  These extra down days have left me more rested than I've felt in years--and have helped me realize that I push too hard in my weeks.  I strictly leave myself one day per week off--Wednesday--as my Sabbath.  Thank God I got into that practice awhile ago!  Unfortunately, I tend to work very early in the morning until quite late at night every other day (except for some Sundays--we occasionally have Sunday evenings free).  

In an ideal 'typical' week, I get up Monday and do some exercises for my back, do my meditation/prayer/centering/Bible time, and then get to the Dojo to teach Aikido from 9:00AM-11:00AM.  I then run needed errands (picking up packages at UPS, mail, checking bank accounts, responding to emails etc.), eat lunch, and do more ministry administrative work until 2:30PM, when I do my own workout/training/lesson prep at the Dojo.  I get done at 3:30PM in time to spruce the place up for the evening, then I teach kids class from 4:50-5:50PM, adults 6:00-8:30PM, spend 45 minutes at The Gamers Guild register, then have small group from 9:15PM-10:45PM at Common Grounds Coffee House and Free Store (inside The Gamers Guild).  After that, Tella and I start wrapping things up at The Gamers Guild and Free Store and get home around 11:30PM.  I get ready for bed; Tuesday is actually a busier day that involves recurring ministry meetings in the morning, trying to catch up on any and all required paperwork for all 3 entities and then advancing ministry projects (preparing for upcoming outreach projects in the week, helping individuals move, get food, get needs met etc.), teaching Aikido from 4:00-8:30PM, being at The Gamers Guild and Free Store from 8:30PM-10:30 or 11:30PM, and then getting to bed.  Wednesday is a Sabbath, Thursday is about like Tuesday with more recurring meetings and less time for other projects, and Friday involves morning classes from 8:00AM-10:00AM, errands, workout and class from 11:45AM-3:00PM, one hour and a half to catch up on final things, small group at 5:15PM, Game Night from 7:00PM-2:00AM, and then Saturday and Sunday are usually fairly full with other things.  Next weekend is workshop at the Dojo and a fundraiser for student scholarships, while Sunday is Church, teaching Spanish at my place, then tournaments.  It all rolls right back into Monday.

This schedule also has to flex for things like helping Jerry, a homeless man whom we've helped get an apartment, a bed, and other assistance, emergency moves (we have a call to help a woman in a domestic situation move her things this week), and people who urgently need to talk about life's big things.  When I look at it honestly, I work a minimum of 55 hours a week (on a rare week like this week where we had no Saturday events) and a maximum of 80 to 90 hours.  While it is important stuff, and while I do think it serves the Kingdom, I think it's so busy that I don't have enough time to truly gain energy and zeal to do some of the work.  I'm aggressively praying about what I can cut out and how to do it so that I do have more down time with my wife and just with myself.  I feel more rested and invigorated and ready for this upcoming week than I have for any week that I can remember in years--all because I've slept more and had more mentally disengaged time this last week than I have in a long time.  Even my couple of weeks off each year are spent on mission trips or Dojo trips--it's time for me to figure out how to do this better.  To do that, I know that I have to cut some things--maybe even beneficial programs that we've long done; please pray with me as I go through this process and try to figure out what that might be!

Ministerial Alliance Meeting--Thoughts about Sacrifice

February 10th the Ellis County Ministerial Alliance meeting was held at Unite's Common Grounds Coffee House and Free Store.  It was a busy start--my wife, Tella, and I were cleaning the place up and getting it ready early.  The One advisory board met first and chatted about the publication while we prepared.  I was excited, because I had four unique guests at the event.  Pat, who is opening Breathe Coffee House on Main Street, was there.  Much of what he plans to do there will work with much of what we are already doing, and some of his plans will involve a lot of the churches that attend the ECMA, so I was very glad that he could make it.  Dave, the station manager at KPRD was also in attendance.  Since he's looking to network more with local communities and since many of them could take advantage of his public service announcements, I was very glad to see him again.  Also in attendance were two Mormon missionaries who had originally shown up at our doorstep asking to chat about Jesus.  Considering my what my life was about, I couldn't really say no to an opportunity to chat about Jesus.  As I got to know the two of them, I found out that they were interested in Aikido (they now take a morning class at our school), and that they need more community service hours but don't have good connections to local community service opportunities.  Since many of the nonprofits at the ECMA are always hard up for volunteers, I figured that it would be good for them to be in attendance to announce their availability to help out.

The meeting went very well--it was long and would be boring to relay everything involved.  One of the more interesting things, though, was brought up when a task force that the ECMA had created to look at options for First Call for Help asked to have its mission clarified.  They wanted to know if they were looking for ways to help everyone in the community with the resources they had or if they were looking at how to best use the resources they had.  These are two very different questions, of course.  One of the local chaplains began discussing how we could help everyone with the resources we had--including having the pastors present see how many landlords were in their congregations who could live out a Christian walk by offering emergency housing assistance with vacant apartments (since one of the issues discussed was emergency housing and the lack of it here in Ellis County--and our inability to help the situation with such limited finances).  His argument was interesting, because, in truth, the committee attempting to help everyone with their limited financial resources was bound to fail.  However, if the body of Christ as a whole--not just the Christian leaders on that committee with that donated money--were to address this problem seriously, we could possibly come up with legitimate solutions.  The amount of work, time, and effort involved in such an approach would be huge, but it could actually succeed at handling some of the problems.  Unfortunately, the committee was told that its job was just to figure out how best to use the resources they had.  While this makes more administrative sense (answering a finite question with finite options is a tangible goal), it also fails to address the continuing needs in the community.  At first, I had felt some interest in joining the committee--once I realized that was their only goal (figuring out how to allocate resources), I became quickly disinterested.  I also only have a very finite amount of time to invest--and others are quite capable of handling questions of resource allocation.  If the question, however, was how to help people more fully, though it would have taken more time--I wold have been interested in joining to help that group.

The reason I mention this is that it is part of a trend I see in Christian ministries in the U.S.  Often we have highly active ministry leaders who are paid money to help allocate other money to help people.  The money they are given is insufficient to the needs, and the work is more than they can do.  To fix that problem, they seek more money.  Instead of congregants getting motivated to step in and spend their life sacrificially for the cause of Christ by directly helping out, they are encouraged to spend more of their money donating so that ministry workers can better help.  What ultimately happens is that the few trying to do the work of the many get burnt out and cannot help the situation.  The only good solution is for the few to rouse the many to the good works we are called to do--unfortunately, the very way we are set up in our society of being busy and constant engagement means that it is much harder to rouse people to invest their time and not just their money.  However, I feel that we as Christian leaders have to encourage others to invest their time--Christ was fairly clear that we need to surrender our lives to gain true life; we have to give up more than just some money--we have to give it all up to follow Him--including our time.  It's not an easy proposition, but I feel that we need to move towards it if we have any hope of being the actual body of Christ that we are called to be....

Small Group Surprises

Our Monday evening small group at Unite Common Grounds Coffee House and free store is very small--me and two other guys.  Two weeks ago, however, a high school student overheard our discussions about life and faith and decided he wanted to join the discussion.  As the discussion grew more interesting--regarding being honest with others even if it might hurt them--a college guy sat down and threw in his two cents.  Almost two hours later, after a very enjoyable and very real discussion, we broke apart and went our separate ways; the high school guy said he was planning on joining in every week, and the college guy may or may not, but he does want to possibly chat later about some faith things.  Regardless, I was personally very happy--this was one of the first times that someone random had joined a small group out of the blue, and we had even opened up a good dialogue with the college fellow, who had stepped back from organized religion due to some rough experiences (this had been about thirty minutes of our discussion).  Regardless of future meetings, it was a good night--thank those of you who have been praying for our small groups!

Nimz Ministry Newsletter August 2015

August is always an intense change-of-pace for the ministry, and we’d love for you to be praying for us especially this month. We are actively preparing for an interfaith lunch put on by campus Saturday, August 15^th, during which we will provide freezer pops towards the meal and just chat with college students along with any other religious groups in town that wish to come. Saturday is also when Aikido of Northwest Kansas, The Gamers Guild, and Unite Common Grounds Coffee House and our small groups all change to fall semester times, which is a LOT of rescheduling!

August 17^th we’ll be on campus during the Picnic in the Quad. The Unite booth will have information on our small groups, free store and food program, and community outreach opportunities. The Gamers Guild will be doing demonstrations of a large variety of board and card games so that students who may have interest in alternative behaviors to the large house parties and bars on Friday nights know about the Unite Game Night there and other activities other days of the week; also, Aikido of Northwest Kansas will be demonstrating the entire time and will have information about Aikido classes and our early church prayer meditation opportunities. All three groups will be active at the same time, and all three will be giving out small promotional items. We’ll have 30 minutes to set up all three tables and three hours in the sun (hopefully—rain is beautiful but detrimental to outdoor events). Please pray that the right help shows up at the right time and that our volunteers for all 3 entities can bond well in community and Christ.

August 27^th is The Welcoming Event on campus—we invite all churches and college ministries onto campus to serve students. Please pray that it be obvious how this event is different from the other two opportunities that churches have to be on campus and that many will choose to attend this day. The interfaith lunch on the 15^th does not allow us to bring promotional materials or advertise our groups, but instead it puts out its own flyer with all of our information (Christian and other faiths); however, it is a great day for churches to help students who are looking for a faith community. The event on the 17^th is a promotional smorgasbord with sometimes close to 300 groups present. It’s a great way to get out promotional material, but churches and ministries will also primarily just hit students looking for a faith community. The Welcoming Event is designed for the churches and ministries to come to campus to serve ALL students with love, by welcoming them to Hays with tangible gifts and help (such as laundry care kits, food, or other direct blessings). This event is geared towards believers and non-believers; it is to show the love of Christ to any and all students who walk by—and the hope is that it will demonstrate even to non-believers at least a bit of who Christ is and who these communities claim to be.

There are even more upcoming events in August, September, and October—in all honesty, I’ll only be able to keep you lightly apprised of them for prayer as they are very numerous and range from large to small, but all are important. Sometime soon we will be doing some fundraisers for Aikido scholarships. Aikido of Northwest Kansas currently scholarships about nine students by covering part of their cost to attend our school—this has helped several excellent families bond together by practicing a self-defensive martial art and providing moral lessons. These fundraisers will give to the Aikido International Foundation, our scholarship program administrator, so that school will be able to possibly scholarship more students and so that we

will not have such a high financial burden to the program. Please pray that these go well. Also please pray that the moral lessons—especially those in the kids classes—point clearly to Godly living and help the kids truly see who God is behind the actions and attitudes that they are learning.

To help free up more time so I can focus more heavily on ministry projects that have been on the back burner for too long, I have also started a volunteer group for The Gamers Guild and Unite Common Grounds Coffee House and free store. Please pray that these form well—there is a lot of interest, and I do need to free up more time to do more ministry administration work. With scheduled ministry work (including time scheduled to meet one-on-one with students and ministers for various projects or spiritual encouragement/mentoring), I have between 56 and 76 hours locked down each week. This doesn’t include time praying or reading the Word or any ministry administrative work I have to do. In prayer it has become obvious that I critically need to change this equation—I continue to pray for discernment about how to do that, but I know establishing these volunteer groups and giving over time to them is part of it.

I will leave you with a photo showing our food shelves at the free store one day after a donation from North Oak’s food pantry and Saint Michael’s garden and then another photo the very next day. The food program continues to grow both as a free store with food shelves and as a potential site for churches to come serve monthly meals and for people who are hungry. We have some even more interesting potentials coming up—please keep this program in your prayers. It is exciting to see what seems to be God-inspired things grow—please pray for us, and consider contacting me to volunteer directly—we could use your help in the ministry work. Thank God for providence and this time to write you!

February Newsletter and Prayer Requests

Thank you for your prayers and support this last year; they have been very much felt! We've had some interesting transitions in a few parts of the ministry, so I will do my best to update you about all of them in this newsletter so that you know what you can pray for!

First, Unite is working with the Ellis County Ministerial Alliance and a few churches to start up a food reclamation/distribution program. At this time, there are several good programs in Ellis County, but the distributions are not very frequent. The Community Assistance Center gives out food four times per year, and Saint Joseph's gives out food once per month. There are a few different food pantries, but they tend to have specific clients (one at the high school, one at the university, a few in individual churches). Our program would be for anyone in the community and would be grown in a few different phases. Right now, we are meeting with a state health inspector and a few different church members, pastors, and ECMA individuals every few weeks to discuss progress and work on stage one—getting a deep freeze in the Unite Free Store to add frozen goods donated from local merchants (usually that are near expiration date) to be given out in addition to our current offerings off our free food shelf. Phase two involves improving our coffee house kitchen area slightly to allow for churches to come in and serve occasional free meals to the Hays community. Phase three involves getting a fridge and using roasters to serve food from catering companies' excess (they would get a receipt for a non-profit donation) the day that they have extra. The final phase, phase four, would involve us using state-approved cooling procedures to cool the food from the catering companies, put date/time stamps on it, and serve it for its remaining lifespan (max of 7 day after it was prepared). The vision may change as we proceed, but it is exciting to see phase 1 already happening!

Another change is that the free store itself has grown in terms of how much it is used and in terms of what we offer. Here are some updated photos of our new shelves and some of the different things that people have donated.

A variety of individuals in the community have come in to get free food, free clothing, free cooking ware, microwaves, and other necessities.

Our small groups continue to go well—they are small in number, but I believe that they are going well. Please feel free to keep praying for spiritual growth in them. We have also experienced growth in game night—enough so that we almost have spacial difficulties. We may seek to expand our space slightly by having Aikido of Northwest Kansas rent another room for its changing area and storage to free up space for the game nights and the new deep freeze for the free store. Please keep that in your prayers as it would be an extra few hundred a month to do that, and I wish to make a wise decision.

We have also had some changes in Aikido of Northwest Kansas. We were very blessed to have Professor Moser teaching his 3-in-1 martial arts, with a faith focus, in our dojo. He had to head back to New York for family reasons, though; he and we both felt that it was a great blessing to him and us to have him here for the time that he was here, though. God definitely used the situation for the Kingdom in ways that I wouldn't have foreseen or planned for. It appears that He also used this situation as a blessing for another, too. A local tumbling instructor had been in relationship with a gym owner; when they broke up, she was evicted from his gym and their shared home. Her tumbling classes and personal training were the majority of her livelihood, so it was critical that she find space to continue them. Thankfully, God had left us open to allow for her to use the times that Professor Moser had been using, plus a few more slots, to make space for her and her tumbling kids. We feel very blessed to be able to get to know her better and to support her in this difficult time. I feel that it is also a blessing to have her with us, as she is very well liked by the children and parents due to her caliber of instruction. We will hopefully have her and a few parents join us this week in our early morning prayer meditation on Thursday. She and a few of them are interested in giving it a try, which excites me. We may also be joined by a professor at Fort Hays State University who has begun more heavily supporting the Unite free store in its efforts to reach out to the community.

Beyond that, life continues to be surprisingly busy, with many small projects all across the board in the ministries; Tella and I always appreciate prayers that we stay in God's peace as we work and that we keep focused on Him and His Kingdom. I also have been personally trying to 're-surrender' to Him and His will to experience the freest life possible in this busy ministry time. Thanks again for your prayers and support; also, please send us any prayer requests that you have!

Odd near-Christmas request, but we have an individual who needs to borrow some crutches for the Christmas season.  Does anyone have any that they could loan out?  If so, please contact us at UniteEph4.1.16@gmail.com.  Thanks, and Merry Christmas!

Prayer Request

Hello,
   We are working on an initiative to help feed the hungry with quality excess food from inspected/licensed caterers.  Several church leaders, individuals with restaurant experience, and a state food safety inspector are helping us with ideas and options.  Please pray that things come together as they should and that our landlord at The Gamers Guild is ok with us improving the place to allow for some of the safety requirements to be met.  Your prayers in this are appreciated!

October Updates

It is good to be sharing with you again! We have been up to a lot since this is our busy season in the ministry, so I'll update you here as much as I can.

For those who didn't follow our blog about the Mexico Mission Trip—it went extremely well. Those of us on the trip felt that we were very blessed to be a blessing, and it was a great chance to spread word about the Home, Unite, and opportunities with both as much of our trip was covered on the KPRD Christian radio station. For a more fully detailed account of our trip, you can go to this website (http://unite2014mexico.blogspot.com/) to read our posts about it before, during, and after the trip. My closing post was put up to coincide with this newsletter's release, so it applies even today. :)

As always, the start of the university comes quickly after Mexico, and the first week is fairly busy letting people know about Unite and our game nights, small groups, and other opportunities as well as letting them know about Aikido of Northwest Kansas and opportunities that they have there and The Gamers Guild and the services it offers. Each of these elements has been expanding in good ways to serve the Kingdom.

Unite is getting back to networking—I'm slowly getting to know the pastors in town again as several churches that I previously worked with have new lead pastors and have been in times of transition (hence they were unable to meet about outside ministry projects since they were dealing with fairly large internal matters). I've also formally joined the Ellis County Ministerial Alliance and am working with their website and possibly on a couple of committees that may have good tie-ins with Unite and some of what we already do. Our Common Grounds Coffee House and free store inside of The Gamers Guild have expanded quite a bit. The coffee house itself is finally training some new volunteer barristas (though we need more if you are interested), and we have greatly expanded the free store. We now have more shelving and items on the shelves, a revolving food pantry that anyone can use, and a free-to-use laptop with WiFi and Internet access (so that people without can check their emails, facebook, and so on). We are hoping to expand the computer access that we provide (we use a Nex Tech Free Public Wifi Hotspot, so it has filters and is safe) so that people without computers can still do online work once the library closes. That will depend on us slowly getting more old (yet functional) computers that have Internet browsing capability. I would also be willing to consider running a free-to-use printer for job applications and such if we end up with a need for it (which we currently haven't yet).

Aikido of Northwest Kansas has been getting quite a few new students and has introduced seven areas of focus into its adult and youth curriculum. These include 'be compassionate, be respectful, be humble, center, relax completely, give positive energy, and keep weight underside'. Many of these concepts have been very fun to talk with youth about—we've even been able to challenge them to respect their parents or someone that they have difficulty respecting and then followed up on it the next week to see what they were able to do. We have also become a home for Professor Moser to instruct 3 in 1 martial arts when we are not using the dojo. He teaches 3 martial arts in 1, but he is also a Jew who became a believer (hence a Messianic Jew) who named his art 3 in 1 to also reflect the trinity; he uses it to teach and share Godly principles about life. It has been my distinct pleasure to get to know him and his wife more—they are a very Godly, wise couple who are out here to be closer to family and do what they feel God has led them to do. I am glad that the blessings He has given us are able to help them out here, as well.

Finally, The Gamers Guild has undergone several large transitions and continues to be a place for people to hang out at from 6:30pm-11:30pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday night our Unite Game Night happens there until about 2am. We are training several volunteers who do help out, and I have greatly enjoyed watching them come to know and love and care about the community who hangs out there. It's a very unique group that comes in each night—we have junior high students who don't have much of a home to go back to, high school students who want something different and fun to do, college-aged students who hang out and play games, and middle aged and older guys and gals who also come in to hang out and play games. We DO have a fair number of individuals come in to use Unite's Free Store for food or various useful items. We also have some people come in to donate to it. All in all, it's doing well.

Besides the usual small group and game night start up things, we also had our yearly 'Welcoming Event' to welcome students to campus in the name of Christ. A few churches came out and gave out food, care packages, and more. We also had a few college ministries show up and some other ministries. This year, we've done something new and reserved the quad for next year already. It is my sincere hope that with this much forewarning, we can get a better turnout from the churches and ministries and that they may serve the students in an even bigger way next year.

[alt], the alternative to Oktoberfest after-parties and excess, is also coming up Friday, October 10^th. We are excited to run it again this year, and though we think it will be even bigger than last year, it will still likely be smaller than it was years ago. As such, we are presenting next month before the Ellis County Ministerial Alliance about the concept of coming together to do [alt] more heavily in hopes of making it bigger and more impactful next year—possibly even holding a concert like we once did. All of that, though, is up in the air for the future.

It has been a good time for one-on-one ministry with a few events, though I really can't share details on here due to confidentiality. Please keep young people in your prayers, though—especially their love-lives and their desire to know not just about God but to know God.

Over the next period of time I would request prayers that those with broken relationships turn to God and grow stronger together, that those who do not know God get a desire to, and that all of us with doubts and fears ask God for His help and hear His response. May we all walk closer to God in this upcoming fall season. Thank you again for your prayers, for your support, and for being a part of this ministry.

Sincerely,

Brandon

Eyes to See

I have been requested to meet with a young man today who has come to our ministry often seeking help.  His girlfriend is very concerned for him/his health, and some of her concerns seem very valid while others seem to be things that stress her out but that are more of the nature of personal differences between the two that don't really indicate anything directly dangerous about the gentleman in question.  I pray that God legitimately help me be a functional peacemaker and love both people involved.

Prayer Request for 8/17/14 and 8/18/14

Hello everyone!
   It's been far too long since I've been on here to request prayer.  Please pray for tomorrow for me--I'll be preaching in Spanish in a local Hispanic church, and I don't feel very confident in my ability to easily share without the Holy Spirit guiding me well.  I realize that I've interpreted before in Juarez and taught lengthy lessons in Mexico, but there is a difference in the level of language used with an adult verses youth audience.  Some of the higher-level ideas are harder to express in a secondary language.
   Also, Monday is a BIG day for us--it is Picnic in the Quad, and I'll be up there with Unite (we are giving out Ramen with flyers advertising our free store and free food shelf, game night, and small groups), Aikido of Northwest Kansas (we'll be demonstrating with the FHSU Aikido Club and sharing our regular lesson and prayer meditation program), and The Gamers Guild--we'll be advertising our games and alternative fun to the local bars.
   To successfully take all 3 entities up there takes a crazy amount of preparation work, time, and just logistics (I have 600 Ramen packs to put flyers on, games and mats to pack and take, martial arts equipment, and a tent!)
   Please keep my wife and I and the other volunteers who will help out in your prayers, and thank you for reading and praying!
   Brandon

May Newsletter 2014

The last couple of months have been so jam-packed with ministry and with life that I’m not quite sure where to start updating you all for prayer requests and just so that you know what all is going on!  I have noticed a definite rhythm in my life that is tied to the university semester cycle due to everything that I do with college students.  Towards the end of the semester and the beginning of the semester, my schedule becomes beyond overly full.  Mid-semester and mid-summer (not counting right before, during and after the mission trip), things are much calmer.

Right now we are approaching the end of the semester, so we are in transition with our small group Bible studies—picking different times and locations for the summer, figuring out who is going and who is staying, and at times figuring out how to help some of the students with moving, finding jobs, and other dilemmas that come up at this time of year.  It’s also the heavy time to be serving students at Unite Game Night.  This upcoming Friday, we will be offering a Risk tournament for those who wish to de-stress as well as a study hall area in which we will be serving free coffee and free orange soda for those who need caffeine to help keep them going.  We are also expanding Common Grounds coffee house in its location inside of The Gamers Guild.  Besides adding signage, we’ve added a couple of large storage racks for our ‘free store’, a ‘faith opportunities’ space on the wall (where we can post opportunities like our small group Bible studies, other ministries and their meeting times, national day of prayer, festival of faith, etc.), and we are re-organizing the coffee house for easier brewing methods since we have at least one community member who wants trained as a barista to serve those who come to Unite Game Night.

I do want to take a quick moment to update you about our ‘free store’ (part of Common Grounds Coffee House).  This is a new, small ministry initiative that I hope will become something great to serve the community as they become aware of it.  It is modeled after the ‘free store’ next to Joe’s Addiction Coffee House in Valley Brook, Oklahoma.  We have a sign up that says ‘you can’t steal anything in a free store’, and we have shelves loaded with quality items that individuals have given away for free to be used by anyone who has need of them.  It’s kind of like a Goodwill or thrift store EXCEPT that nothing costs any money and we don’t issue receipts to those who donate items.  We also occasionally receive non-perishable food donations, so it operates a bit as a food pantry.  Though this may sound surprising, there are families and individuals in Hays who don’t have enough expendable income to buy some basic things.  We could get into a long discussion about why that is—some of them spend their income on items like cigarettes and don’t end up with enough to eat, some spend money on TV but don’t have dishes, some are illegally in the US and can’t find jobs that pay enough for them to live on (this even includes some university students), and some have just fallen on hard times due to medical bankruptcy, job issues, or other reasons.  Whatever the cause, however, people do exist who have surprisingly basic needs in Hays, and it is my sincere hope that we as a Christian community can help provide for some of them through the free store here.  I know full well that many individuals in our community will not know that our small and almost hidden free store exists, but I am hoping that over time its reputation will grow among those in the community that need it.  I also know that other churches, ministries, and individuals also have programs to help those in need in our community, so my goal is not to be the ‘destination’ for all in need in Hays, anyway.  I only hope that our free store in Common Grounds can be an additional and unique opportunity for some of the needs in Hays that often fall through the cracks, and that we will be a visible part of the body of believers to be used as Christ wishes to reach the hearts of those He loves.

On a somewhat related note, I mentioned Common Grounds when I presented about our Mission Trip and The Welcoming Event to the Ellis County Ministerial Alliance a couple of months ago.  Afterwards, one of the ECMA officers mentioned that I don’t have to be a pastor to be part of the ECMA.  As such, I decided that I’d come to the next meeting and see if it felt right to come more often.  I was very surprised at how good it was to be there.  Several ministry topics were discussed that I found highly useful to know about, and I was also able to pass on some of the details we discussed to some pertinent ministries in Hays.  For instance, I learned that Festival of Faith is pulling in a speaker from Wichita who speaks on living a life with no regrets.  Off and on over the years, I’ve sat with a group of youth pastors who have brought speakers in to the school district and to the university in Hays and who have been looking to bring in another speaker.  Since this fellow is already coming in, I passed the info about it to the head of the youth pastor’s group, and I hope that it may work out that they can convince him to stick around and present in the school district, as well, and that we can promote his presence at the Festival of Faith on campus.

As for prayer requests—I’ve recently had two Aikido students of mine join one of our small group Bible studies.  They are excellent individuals and friends, and I pray that the community there is a good experience for them and for everyone involved.  I also hope that I can work up the energy (and the time) to figure out how to help incorporate Aikido principles that are also Christian principles more clearly into our youth program and, particularly, into our scholarship program at Aikido of Northwest Kansas.  It is an unfortunate truth, but it is a truth—at super-busy times like this month and last month, I barely have time to keep up with what is already running; it is much harder to spend additional planning time into coming up with high quality lessons that incorporate good moral teachings for the youth classes that I teach and to clearly present opportunities to our scholarship students that allow for growth.  I don’t know where the time will/can come from, yet it really should happen.  Please pray that I can better see how to more readily balance work time and rest in my life during these busy cycles, and just in general.  Though the work isn’t always ‘work’ in the strictest sense (I enjoy meeting one-on-one with college students and leading small group Bible studies), there are honestly weeks in my life right now that I will have between 55 and 90 hours per weeks of scheduled time—not including things that pop up in life.  Today I had to request not to meet with one of the individuals in my small group Bible study just to be able to get this newsletter printed, sealed in envelopes and mailed, and emailed out almost a week later than I intended to, and it is at the top of my backlogged priority list because I believe in the power of your prayers and believe that prayer is important to helping us out!  Though these times thankfully don’t last too long, it is very difficult to keep any type of balance at the beginning and end of each semester, and if I will continue to do ministry long-term in this community (which I intend to), then I need prayer for God to help me learn a better balance of it.  Your sincere prayers in this matter are greatly appreciated!

Finally, I would request prayers for those who are graduating and those who have graduated and are still working in an area outside of their degrees.  This has been a frequently recurring topic in our small groups and in my one-on-one meetings.  Many students are at a phase in life where they better want to find where they can fit in/belong.  Others are looking for a career or job that they can find fulfillment in.  Many are looking for both.  At times like these it is very important to pray and ask God to help us discern where to go, but at times like this we are often busy, hard-up for cash, and have trouble making time to ask.  Please pray that they hear His voice and take the time to listen to it.  Thank you!

Hello everyone! This month’s newsletter is a newsletter of opportunities—for prayer and for your direct involvement with some of what we have going on! Please read about the various sections to pray for us as we grow, and feel free to contact us if you have time or energy to devote to something (or feel led to be part of one of our projects or just WANT to help with some of what we have going on!)

First, we are looking for a vehicle for a member of one of our small groups. He needs to have a car or truck to use to go out and find work. He is a fairly large man (over 6 feet and over 400 pounds), so it actually needs to be an older, larger car OR a truck/SUV to accommodate him. If you have such a vehicle or know anyone who does, please let us know!

Next, we are updating the Common Grounds Coffee House that we run during Unite Game nights a few ways. First, we are doing some physical work on the coffee house area to make it more visible and more obvious what it does. The coffee counter is an old metal desk that we use; we plan to build a new counter out of a donated office desktop about waist height with bar stools in front of it so that it looks more like a coffee house. We also plan to add signs and some sign-ups for small group Bible studies and other involvement opportunities. We feel that this will make it more open for individuals to get involved in something more if they wish without scaring those who aren’t away. We could use the help of anyone who has the time and skills in constructing two wooden cabinets to put the office desktop on; we could also use help re-upholstering some chairs that we plan to use for Unite Game Night and/or just putting some fabric over the existing fabric that is fraying.

The other big update for Unite Game Night is that I am working on putting opening and closing instructions into an old computer that I got for Unite Game Night. These instructions will allow anyone who wants to volunteer as a barista to more easily do it since it will have the instructions about how to open up, the spreadsheet for recording any donations for food and/or drinks that we receive, and closing instructions. We will also load in some simple instructions about how to brew the various coffee drinks that we brew. We still plan to pray with anyone considering volunteering to make sure that it’s a good fit and helping them out in person at first, but the presence of simple, backup instructions should help others feel confident in manning the counter even if one of our other more long-term volunteers isn’t present. We have MANY opportunities to open up Common Grounds now for more than just Unite Game Night hours. Since Common Grounds is in The Gamers Guild (the card and board game shop that I opened up), it could run during any Gamers Guild hours, and baristas would have great interaction opportunities with those present in the store (often quite a few people from junior high age to middle-aged). We even have CATT-G (the FHSU Collegiate Association of Tabletop Gamers) meeting in our store Thursday nights—I just don’t have the time to open up and run Common Grounds since I am at the university at that time! All we need to serve and interact with that group and the many individuals who come in are the volunteers and a way to make it easier to volunteer, so I am working on just that.

Finally (as far as Unite Game Night goes), I wanted to let you know that you don’t have to want to serve coffee to come and interact with a ton of junior high, high school, and college-aged individuals! Every Friday night we are there playing a variety of board and card games; if you like board and card games and want to stop in and have some fun while developing relationships, you should feel free to come by! You never know when one of those people whom you get to know may want to have serious conversations or when you could help them out (or when they could help you out!). I hope that you prayerfully consider coming in sometime to play some games and get to know the many people who are part of the Unite Game Night community!!

Finally, it’s that time of year again! We are preparing for our Spring trip to the NOMADS missionary conference and (hopefully this time) our summer mission trip to the Emmanuel Ministries Children’s Home in Juarez, Mexico. Both trips are open to anyone, and we would LOVE to have you pray about joining us (or even just praying for us when we go). Please keep these upcoming adventures/opportunities in mind!

As we close, I do want to address the elephant in the room—the recent lack of monthly updates! I sincerely apologize for not getting the newsletter out the last couple of months! Your prayers and financial support are critical to what we do, and I need to do my part to keep you informed of it so that you CAN pray Please accept my apologies and know that I plan to do better from here on out! Thanks again for being a part of what we are doing!

Newsletter

Though it may sound strange, I would describe the last couple of months since my marriage as cyclones of blessings.  Nothing has been bad—in fact, quite the opposite, everything has been VERY good.  However, we have had so many VERY good things back to back to back, all of which have taken up large quantities of time, that about one week ago when things finally slowed back down, I was left just sitting, catching my breath, wondering what had happened the last couple of months.  To share them with you briefly…

Right before our wedding, things had been exceptionally busy.  The week of our honeymoon was the week before college classes, which is usually one of my busiest planning weekends since the first week of college holds the Picnic in the Quad promotional event at Fort Hays State University (I have a booth there for our ministry, one for the Aikido school, one for The Gamers Guild, and I help there with the college Aikido club), our ministry puts on ‘The Welcoming Event’ (formerly ‘Get Plugged In’) at the university, we have the first Unite Game Night of the year, and the first large promotional card tournament of the year.  As such, I had a lot of make-up work the week or two before the wedding for the planning week that I would soon miss.  On top of that, we closed on our house at 10 am on Tuesday, July 30^th.  Since I had to move out of my existing apartment that very day, it led to a hectic move; I also had been contacted by some international students since the dorms hadn’t opened but their rental agreements ended the next evening.  As such, the day after chucking my belongings into a house very haphazardly, I got some great friends to help me move some international college students’ items up to the Aikido school along a wall.  One of them needed a place to stay, and my house was not yet livable, so we stayed up at the dojo on the couches that night.  The next day, we moved all of their stuff into the dorms.  All during this time and the rest of the time until the wedding, I was finishing the work of closing on a house and fixing it up, moving into the house, helping with final wedding plans, and trying to get makeup work done for the ministry time we’d miss ON TOP OF maintaining our existing ministry projects (we still had game nights, small groups, etc.); you get the picture—though all of the things happening were beyond amazingly good, it was nuts!  Once we got to the big day, I felt that the wedding went very well, as did Tella, and we had a great time afterwards with family and friends and then with our honeymoon.  It was strange slowing down to such a dead stop after so ridiculously much had been happening, but Tella and I enjoyed the time VERY greatly!  The honeymoon, like so many other things right before our wedding, almost fell together perfectly in front of us (thank God for His providence!)  One of my Aikido students in Plainville has a dad who has a cabin near Leadville, Colorado, and they make a habit of letting friends of the family use it for just $15 per night; this is a NICE two-story cabin with an in-door Jacuzzi bath, two fireplaces, and a deck with a pretty view of the mountain evenings.  I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed adventuring with my new wife in the small mountain towns and retiring there to rest.  It was a wonderful week!

We returned to Hays late Saturday night, and then we went from zero to one hundred miles per hour almost instantly!  We finished settling a few things in and then moved all of Tella’s items into our house and got ready for the first day of college.  The Picnic in the Quad event was good for getting the word out (we did get one new small group bible study member and several new interested Aikido students plus a LOT of new attendees at our Unite Game Night).  The Welcoming Event was smaller than usual, but it was still a good chance to interact with college students and welcome them to the community in the name of Christ.  We had a few staple churches come and all of the college ministries turned out, but a few churches that usually come had leadership changes and/or couldn’t make it this year.  Nonetheless, a couple hundred college students received free meals, free coffee, warm smiles, good conversations, and other welcoming gifts from many of the churches in Hays and all of the Christian college ministries, which, to me, is a powerful and important witness to our campus.

By then it was September, and we had several more big events including the FHSU Aikido Club seminar (which is a great time to interact with many college students), and a few very large card tournaments at The Gamers Guild.  The Gamers Guild (the small card and board game shop that I started next to the dojo that has been helping us connect with many more students and community members) hosted a few major card tournaments (a prerelease tournament for a game company and several other competitive tournaments), and Unite Game Night, in turn, has had very large attendance almost every Friday night.  For that first month, I had to focus more on developing The Gamers Guild and preparing for those tournaments, but now it has hit a stride, so I plan to focus more on Unite Game Night and what we can do with all of the huge influx of new gamers into our game night.  (Side note: we are looking for volunteer baristas who are willing to love and serve students and possibly do relational ministry, if you know of any).  We also had our usual [alt] game night (as an alternative to Oktoberfest after-parties in Hays).  It was well attended, and the students there seemed to have quite a bit of fun—all the way until 7am the next day!  During this time, our small group Bible studies have also grown slightly—one college student in the Aikido classes knew about our small groups and asked to join, and one knew about us through the Unite Game Nights.  Each small group is still a strong community, but both could use prayer as the times we meet can be a bit challenging with everyone’s schedules being so full.

We also received a very surprising and direct answer to prayer over this time.  My parents and several others have been praying that God provide financially for me more heavily than He has been.  His existing providence has been more than sufficient for all basic needs.  However, it is true that it has been perpetually tight since I started missionary work, and they wanted to see more money coming in to help out.  Thanks to God for a direct answer to prayers!   A couple received an inheritance and they wanted to send some of it to an in-state missionary instead of just supporting overseas efforts.  They decided to send it to support me and the work here in Hays.  In effect, as long as existing donations continue through December, it has raised my salary in the 2013 year from 1/3 of a starting youth pastor’s salary to a full starting youth pastor’s salary for the year; this is a HUGE difference!  It has completely changed the landscape here for both Tella and me.  It took me from a long slow process of paying off my remaining $4,000 in student loans to having no debt whatsoever except for the house.  It also helped with some surprise medical expenses that came up and allowed Tella and I to set aside some of the money as a ‘blessings fund’, which we have already started using to bless some local individuals when needs arise that can’t be met by some of the existing systems in place in Hays.  It is very exciting to have some money set aside to bless others with and the ability to start saving up ourselves for our own needs as they arise.  Thank God for answered prayers and thanks again to that couple for such a tremendous blessing!  Please keep in prayer that God provide more long-term supporters for us; if my salary were regularly closer to my goal (a starting youth pastor’s salary), it would open up several new ministry windows that we’ve wanted to take advantage of but don’t have the finances for!  Thanks again for your prayers and your patience during this overly-busy time in life; I plan to get back to keeping you all more regularly in the loop (your prayers are VERY important for us!), and I look forward to sharing more soon in next month’s newsletter!