Awesome new piano book for beginners!

I love good, Godly hymns! I have long had a desire to be able to play some hymns on the piano, but lack the time and money for piano lessons. I heard of Pastor Steven L Anderson's new course and I am giving it a try. Within minutes of receiving the book I was playing "Nothing But The Blood" on the piano. I was also playing "Am I A Soldier of the Cross" in just a short time. By the way, did I mention that I do not know how to read music? If you are interested, here is the link for his blog.

God's Ways...

I am sitting here this beautiful evening thinking about the ways of our God. We serve an amazing God! I have recently watched as God has been stirring our little church and our little community for His glory. We have had powerful services and it is good to see more young people and visitors almost every Sunday service. I have seen God answer prayer after prayer in stunning ways. He is so good. Just today we had a tremendous need met in an unexpected way. Amen! God sure knows what we need and when we need it. This afternoon I heard of the passing of Jeff Sprague. Jeff and his wife Denise are old friends who I met in my Walmart days back in 1998. Over the last couple of years I have become reacquainted with them. Over the last 18 months, Jeff has been fighting cancer with the wonderful care and help of his wife. His battle ended today as he entered the gates of heaven. He leaves behind his wife and five children. My heart hurts for the family, though I have already seen such great resolve and inner strength exhibited by Denise and the children. (she has posted some of the reaction). How wonderful it is to know that all those that are saved will one day see each other again. Oh yeah, I was thinking about God's ways and God's thoughts.... Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Sometimes we just don't understand why certain things happen. We may even be crass enough to think that we know better than God, but the truth is, God has everything under control. Praise the Lord that He knows what is best. We can trust the Lord fully. Please pray for the Sprague family as they adjust adjust to life without Jeff. It is a blessing that they know that they will see him again one day. What a legacy that Jeff has left behind. A saved wife and five saved children. Amen.

Sorry for the long delay....

OK, so it has been quite some time since I have posted anything on my blog. I promise that I will be more faithful in the future. It has been really busy lately. Our big news is that we have recently purchased a bus. This was a move that the Lord had in our heart since I first came to Bryant Pond. Our van ministry would one day become a bus ministry. God has truly blessed us and we are truly grateful to Him! Yesterday was our first Sunday in our new bus and we had a total of 21 on the bus (including workers). God allowed us to exceed our van capacity in the very first week on the bus. What a blessing! In related news, I am getting nearer to having my bus license for myself. I am training to be a substitute bus driver in my local public school district. To have the chance to influence the children during the week (as limited as my time with them would be) is wonderful. (plus, having a couple of extra dollars around is always good....after all we have one that will be going to college in just three years). Church services have been going very well. The Lord is working in hearts and we give Him the glory! We recently hosted a Valentines banquet which the children served the parents. What a wonderful night was had by everybody. The next day we celebrated "Heritage Sunday" and had 50 out in the snow in our morning service. We broke out the old time outfits and had ourselves a time! We were celebrating 185 years of heritage from the founding of the Woodstock and Gore Baptist Church, and the Woodstock and Greenwood Baptist Church (Feb 14 and 15, 1828). These two churches joined together to form the Bryant's Pond Baptist Church on April 26, 1856. What a blessing! Please pray for us as we go forward. We are having to move more chairs and a bigger table in one of the Sunday School rooms to accommodate the extra students. That is a huge blessing. We need more laborers. We need one more Sunday School teacher (a man for the adult males). Please pray with us that God would provide us more laborers for the harvest up here in the foothills of Western Maine.

Busy in the Lord!

It has been a very long time since I have updated my blog. Thank you to everybody who has hung tight with us despite the long layoff between posts. Things have been busy here at Bryant Pond Baptist Church. The Lord has given us good services over the last two months and we are thankful for that. In October we conducted "operation saturation" and were able to distribute door-hangar bags with John/Romans, Bible tracts and invitations for our church. We successfully canvassed all of Bryant Pond. We are trusting the Lord that He will use this in His time. At the end of October we hosted missionary Larry Strout. We have been supporting his ministry in Argentina for decades. Yes, you read that right, decades. He and his wife Melissa have been on the mission field since 1974. Their ministry is preaching the gospel, church planting and training up local pastors for those churches. Brother Strout is often asked when he will be retiring. His answer, "Well, we have another church we need to plant in...." what a great answer! He is not looking at retiring it, he is looking at re-firing it! This month we have been very busy doing some work projects at the church. We are now finished with our foyer and it came out very good. We are now praying about putting everything in order to begin the big work on the church building. Please continue to pray for us about these decisions. This work will literally cost tens of thousands into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for our church. It all starts with a good foundation. (kind of applicable to life...huh?) We are looking forward to hosting the December Plant and Root Maine rally meeting on the 11th at 7pm. We hope to see you there. Well, that is it for now. Remember, if there is ever anything we can do for you, please contact us at www.bryantpondbaptist.org God bless!

Oxford Fair and beyond!

Praise God for the great summer He has given us! Last week we had the opportunity to work the Fishers of Men, International booth at the Oxford county fair. What a great week! We passed out @2,000 to 2,500 tracts during the four days. We had opportunities to witness to dozens and dozens of people with many re-committing and seven precious souls trusting Christ as their Saviour! What a blessing! Special thanks to Brother Steve Elliot who set up the tent, trained the workers and staffed the tent every evening. Thanks also to the following who helped staff the tent: Paul Bragg - Bryant Pond Baptist Church Fred and Ledena Seger - Bryant Pond Baptist Church Marybeth Hoover - Bryant Pond Baptist Church Paula Jones - Bryant Pond Baptist Church Pastor Gary Wilkins - Standish Baptist Church Pastor Witham - Liberty Baptist Church, Poland Pastor Carl and Alice Morrison - New Heights Baptist Church, Bridgton Thank you to all who prayed for us this week. Now...I can't wait till next year!

July Update

Wow! I guess it's been a long time since I have updated this blog. It has been a great couple of months. The Lord has blessed and my family and I have been having a great time. Here are some of the highlights: We had a Sunday afternoon service at the old East Bethel Meetinghouse on June 24. It was a very good meeting and the Lord blessed. It was powerful to meet in that old Baptist meetinghouse. Many "visitors" were there and they heard the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ preached. That following Tuesday night we loaded up the van and travelled to Bridgton for an old fashioned tent meeting with the New Heights Baptist Church. It was a great time and it was exciting to bring a full van load to be there. July 4 we had a morning service followed by a cookout. The Lord blessed the morning as tried something new with this morning service. In the evening we travelled to Church Hill Baptist where I had the opportunity to preach. What a great service that was! Both my church family at Bryant Pond and my church family at Church Hill spoiled my family as it was Paula and mine 17th anniversary. What a blessing to have such great people around us. The generosity is amazing. On July 8 we hosted missionary church planter Phillip Brown and family (minus the children) and he preached and presented for us. What a great work the Lord will do with them in Bozeman, Montana. On July 21 we marched in the parade for the Mollyockett Days festival in Bethel. WE passed out 500 bags of candy with gospel tracts and VBS invites. Next year we will prepare ove 3,000. We ran out early. Not again! The absolute highlight of the last two months is a lady by the name of Thelma. Thelma trusted Christ as her Saviour on Saturday the 21st of July. What a joy it is to see the Lord still in the saving sinners business! (shouting fit here Wooooooooooo Hooooooooooo!) Now we prepare for our annual VBS. "Let's Celebrate" is our theme and we run from August 6-10 from 6-8pm. Please pray that we have a good turnout and most importantly, that the Lord will save souls through this ministry. We thank you all for your prayers. The Lord is stirring here in Bryant Pond, we praise His name!

Powerful 300th Service!

We had a very powerful service marking the 300th anniversary of the First Baptist Church of Cape May Courthouse. God moved and the people were heavily encouraged. Praise God for how He can break through despite the shortcomings of the preacher. Please pray for this church. They have been looking for a pastor for over 3 years.