March 2012

Dear Ryan,   We are so thankful for your loving friendship and support. As we have been working to establish Apprenticeship to Jesus these past five years we have experienced God's grace through each of you.  We are in an exciting time where we are seeing God bring to fruit the vision of A2J becoming a movement and way of life with Jesus that is being expressed through the planting of intentional discipleship communities.  The Work downtown in the Woodland historic neighborhood has allowed us to create a model that we are now able to share with others.  We have two other 'sister' communities and we have a handful of churches and teams that are asking us to walk with them as they move in this direction.  God is on the move and so are we   With Grateful hearts,   Ryan and Noleen Thurman

We are working towards Neighborhood Transformation and this takes place as those of us  who follow Jesus are transformed inwardly and learn to live out the way of Jesus in the neighborhoods we live in Hope Thru Art Mural expressing the powerful message of the Gospel in our neighborhood Every Tuesday night after we have spent time in University Park together we come back and eat dinner together and sometimes the neighborhood kids come back with us One of the important decisions we made this year was to adopt University Park (which is at 12th Avenue and VanBuren) it is one of the oldest parks in the city.  We work with the park staff to keep the park a safe place for the community and provide sports opportunities as well as developing an art class for the kids program there in partnership with Rag Collection This is the empty plot that the Phoenix Police Association gave us a three-year free lease to start a Community Garden After 9 months of hard work we now have 13 of our 27 garden plots being used by those in the community A2J Prayer House and Community Garden with downtown in the background We need $400 to keep moving the garden forward will you consider partnering with us.  You can give a gift by clicking here  Hope Fest HopeFest Phoenix, an inaugural event led by CityServe Arizona through the collaboration of helping agencies, organizations and individuals, thousands of people in need will receive free personal care products, dental services, medical services, clothing, haircuts, lunch, employment services, spiritual support and many other helping services - all in a festive atmosphere where children play and live music is enjoyed by everyone.   watch this short video to learn more about Hope Fest City Serve has asked A2J to set up a prayer space at Chase Field during Hope Fest where the thousands of hurting people of our city, after gettting there physical needs addressed, can come and have there spiritual needs met through prayer and loving conversation.  If you would like to help us pray during this event or volunterer another way please let me know