New Partnerships

Its really easy to doubt God. Many lost people doubt that God is real. Christians sometime doubt God is concerned and cares about us. Others might not even think that there is a God running things up there. That he just kind of put things in motion and let it all work out for the common good or bad. Which ever way you look at it.

This week I have been working on building new partnerships for the ministry. Yesterday I met with Inman Houston the pastor of Lawrenceville FBC. Inman is thirty-two, smart as a whip and has a tremendous pasiion for reaching the lost.

We are constantly looking for new avenues to share the Gospel with the lost. Inman is interested in what we do because he sees a need for community development in Lawrenceville. FBC currently has an ESL class on-going at their church, that is doing quite well. Nevertheless Inman sees the value in taking the church to the people. He has been pasturing in the community long enough to understand that many immigrants are not going to come to traditional church. but he will have to go to where they live.

Very soon we will meet with Pastor Houston again hoping to establish a new work in Lawrnceville.

I have been working to make contact with the Gwinnett Community Improvement District. today I received an email from Chuck Warbington (Chairman). We are in the process planning an introductory get together so that we can mesh our two organization together and make the "Village"a safer place. Please pray that God will open the door of progress between us.

New Partner

We are always praying for Godly people to be placed in our lives. We need people like this to guide us and to keep us held accountable to our calling and ministry goals. Recently I told you about my partner, David Crews, and how God placed him in my life. Saturday Cornelia and I was blessed to have a new partner come on board. His name is David McCleskey. David is the Chairman of the deacons of FBC Lawrenceville and is Christian leader with a big picture approach. David also works for the Gwinnett County Board of Education reporting directly to Alvin Willbanks. He will be helping us work on our fund raising.

Today I will be working on a submitted report as part of the requirements for a grant. Also I will also be working to get our August news letter out to our supporters

We Love You All.

Introductions

Cornelia and I had lunch with Mike Griffin the Missions Travel Coordinator for First Baptist Church Lilburn. Mike is in charge of missions as well as various other structures. He has extensive experience in his field and has a great passion for the middle east. We are looking forward to working with Mike and forming a partnership to provide opportunities and information as he continues to evangelize the Muslim community.

Our goal is to get to know as many front line people as we possibly can so we can share information about our mission field and partner to share the gospel in a strategic approach.

Last night I worked with the youth program at Mountain Park First Baptist by request of Richard King youth pastor. Richard and I have a burden to see youth aged kids rediscover God's Word. Most youth these days read their bible very little and rarely even bring a bible to church.

Richard is going through a study with his group called UnChristian which basically brings out into the open immoral acts that youth take as acceptable in today culture in their language, the way they view sex, drinking, and specifically the way they relate to each other as Christians.

I believe this will make a big impact within their culture if they decide to buy into it. I hope so for their sake.

Please pray for Cornelia and I as we are wading through some rather big issues with our family at this time.

Love You All!!!

Mountain Park FBC Youth

Thanks to the Mountain Park FBC youth group for coming this past Saturday to Villas Nueva. They did an outstanding job cleaning the playground and ministering to the children. They also helped distribute school supplies.

The kids here really need the help when it comes to getting their supplies. It's even more important than ever before because of the economy. A school teacher friend of ours was telling us that people paying school dues is way off this year. I guess people just can not afford it.

Mountain Park also brought the kids coloring books which was a big hit. And as usual face painting was also very popular.

I received a You Tube video via email last night that was railing on immigrants. Like I said before if we are followers of Christ, then we need to have compassion for the lost no matter what the popular census says. Jesus did not worry about the political status of a person. He was concerned about their eternal status. Like Jesus we are the same. We only worry about the place in eternity the people we minister too will be when Jesus returns.

We Love You All

School Supplies Distribution

We collect school supplies from churches each year to give out the first week or two of school. We give them to kids that live in impoverished conditions. This year we ran short on these supplies because of the increased demand and the decrease in donations. It's extremely hard for us to turn kids away because we ran out. So one of our partners made the decision to buy almost a $1000.00 dollars of school supplies out of his own pocket and divide them between two of our missions. Me in my on shallowness said to him are you sure you want to do that? He said its got to be done. Man what faith!!! For the first time God revealed to me the reason he has placed us here on earth.

School supplies for one of our missions.

Many people are experiencing "hard economic conditions" for the first time in their lives. Those of us who grew up in the Jimmy Carter era know what its like to feel the pinch. Young adults and students have never experienced a recession. Most are used to having most everything they desire given to them by their parents (personal opinion). So many people are worried that they are going to have to give up hard earned personal possessions or maybe even loose their homes.


My dad used to say that we go through times such as these as a wake-up-call so that we don't get to proud of ourselves. Even though he was not a Christian when he made this statement, the bottom line is that we have for gotten that everything we have belongs to God.


God tells us specifically not to store up treasures on earth. He tells us that we should be about the business of giving our money and possessions away. When we get this concept down then we begin to understand why Jesus told us not to store up treasures on earth. It all belongs to God!!! We are supposed to pay it forward not store it in Barnes. So first and foremost if we are not giving our 10 percent to the church then we are not in fellowship with God and we out-right disobey his instructions.

If we hold back form giving to missionaries, ministers, and others who do God's work to benefit mankind, then we are disobeying God. This is not meant to guilt any of you who may read this, but intended to make you see God's priorities for our life is not how we sometimes interpreter it .

I would like to challenge you to pray about something you might sell or give outright to fill the need of a fellow human being. I guarantee you there is no feeling that will liberate you than giving to fill others needs.

Yesterday was a great day.

Peace!

We Love You All

New Partner Prospect

One of the main objectives of this job is to reproduce one's self. So we are always on the look out for other people that feel God's call to help us or to take on their own mission site . Yesterday I met with Jason Sebren, the Senior Youth Pastor at Chestnut Grove Baptist Church in Grayson. Jason is the director of a summer program called

Revolution. Revolution basically challenges students to step outside of the four walls, and take Jesus to people who may never attend church. Jason has also been involved in ministry to the "homeless." And a 5step program for homeless women. He and his partners recently converted an old church, that was being use as a warehouse, to shelter for women. The shelter is designed to provide women a safe haven from life on the street.

I had a great conversation with Jason about the possibility of using our mission locations as an outlet for ministry in conjunction with his program. Another way of putting boots on the field.

Please pray that God will use Jason and his program to partner with us in our work. Thanks Jason for a great time of sharing.

Love You All!!!

Olympic Fever

We took today off to take care of various personal items. For we missionaries working on Saturday is a very common thing, so sometimes we have to very our days off to accommodate the people who live at the complexes and the people who thankfully come and place extra boots on the ground on Saturdays.

We had a great family time tonight and then watched the opening ceremony of the olypics.Wow...how impressive it was. I can't wait for the athletic events to begin.

Starting next week I will be surveying many of the 20 some odd apartments and managers to find our which ones are friendly and open to what we do. You just can't never tell how any given manger may react.

We praise God all he does for us giving us such a wonderful provision of love and assurance measured by patience.

We will update you again in a couple of days

Mission Fair Fun!

This evening we were at a mission fair sponsored by FBC Lilburn with Tim Cummis and his daughter Ashley. It is always a lot of fun to work with them. We were manning our booth and telling people about our work.

We seen several old friends and met a lot of new people too. Among the people we saw were old friends Jim and Peggy Freeman. Jim heads up the Task Force Patriot organization and Peggy was once the moderator for the Gwinnett Metro Baptist Association. She was the one and only female moderator in the history of the association.

Tim took our photo for our prayer cards. We really need to get the cards done so we will have something to hand out when we attend events like this.

Earlier today we worked on a long range plan for the ministry which will include a new web site. If you would like to help us offset the cost of the website, email us at keithandcorneliaharrell@gmail.com and we can tell you how to donate. Please pray for us as we continue to strive to be in Gods will with our work.

Be Blessed!!!

Villas Neuva News

I went to meet with Mechelle today at Villas Nueva. We talked about the possibility of implementing ESL classes so she can use it as a selling tool renting apartments.

We also talked about the possibility of getting a door key to the leasing office so we can do home work help with the children. I think she is going to trust me to be a good steward and let me have one. she still will have to run it buy the regional manager first. Pray we can get that key otherwise we want be able to help the kids because they typically close at 5:15 pm. Most of the kids don't get home before 4:30. Our program would need to start around 5:00 or 5:30.

She seemed very happy that we were able to carry a very strong summer program this year. Every week was covered by groups working with VN kids. A special thanks to WhirlWind missions for making it happen.

This Saturday we have a group of GA's coming to do a service project from FBC Lilburn. We have two playground at our mission. They will be cleaning the small playground, and on August 16 Mountain Park FBC will be tackling the big playground. The kids call it the "park."

This morning I continued to work on fund raising. As Tim Cummings says,"we live on faith, but ministry runs on money." I made several calls and have several appointments pending. Please pray that we will successfully get our ministry fully funded in the next few weeks. We believe that God has called us to do mission work full time and we are trying to be obedient to His call. If you would like to be a part of our support team, let us know.

I ordered a book today called "The Treasure Principle: Unlocking the Secret of Joyful Giving (Life Change Books)" It was recommended by a friend and partner of mine Brett Barnes. It's all about the biblical principles regarding fund raising and stewardship. Cornelia and I are very serious about good stewardship and management, and we continue educating ourself to follow biblical principals of ministry.

May God Bless You All

A Very Good Day!

This morning Cornelia and I went to our home church. Cornelia is in charge of the attendance records for the middle school Sunday School. After we finished records we decided to leave and visit First Baptist Atlanta. We have wanted to hear Dr. Stanley live for a long time. It's really mysterious how the Lord works. When we left home we had now intention to go there.

After we arrived we selected our seat which was about 100 feet from the platform. As the service started we had no idea what the sermon topic was going to be. We were taken in by the perfection accomplished by everything they did. The service started directly on time and progressed beautifully with no mistakes. We did have to learn to deal with the distraction of the motorized TV cameras. We sang some beautifully arranged songs and hymns and was taken directly to the throne.

Then Dr Stanley took to the platform. As he began to deliver his message I quickly began to realize that he was speaking directly to a matter that I had been lifting up in prayer this week. As a matter of fact it was a direct answer to my prayer. Who could have guessed that we would show up at a church we never attend and have the Lord answer our prayers within Dr Stanley's sermon. Hey he didn't know we were coming!!!

We are dealing with matters in our lives that continue to consume us Please pray for us as we continue to follow God's will.

We serve a great and awesome God.

Love you all.

Mountain Park Mission Project

This morning I went to help my home church Mountain Park First Baptist Church, led by Jerry Counselman hand out school supplies at Willow Branch. My partners Bennett and Idong Ekandem are the directors there and I was very excited to see them!

Even though Willow Creek is not in my area, from time to time we try to help each other on projects. Its a good way to share ideas and to keep us unified in our work.

The MPFBC group did an outstanding job handing out school supplies that were collected during VBS this year. You could tell that the parents were grateful to receive them. Many of these people are immigrants from Africa and need help starting new lives. This is a way that we can help them with their expenses, while at the same time work to build relationships that may lead to sharing the Gospel.

They also provided and cooked a hot dog lunch for the kids.

It's always fun to see that people are people no matter where you go, and that everyone understands the message of love. Thanks Mountain Park for a job well done.