May 2012

Thurman Update  May 2012 Spotlight on God's Mercy   The songwriter/poet Rich Mullins has a song that states,"There's a wideness in God's MERCY I cannot find in my own and he keeps his fire burning to melt this heart of stone keeps me aching with a yearning keeps me glad to have been caught in the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God." Receiving the Mercy and love of God is one of the most painful things in the world, but it is also the only thing that can bring us salvation."      "Keep your arms open and outstretched, ready for the MERCY of our Master, Jesus Christ." -Jude 1:21     A Movement & Way of Life with Jesus:  Calling people to a life of discipleship and mission  The Mission of A2J  is to  Start and support intentional discipleship communities locally and around the world Dear Ryan, We hope this note finds you experiencing the love and mercy of God. It has been a tough six months for our family as we continue to adjust and readjust to the challenges of our growing family and the ministry of Apprenticeship to Jesus. At times the struggle of fatigue, stress, and spiritual battle have taken us to the edge, but each time this happens we experience the sufficiency of Jesus. In the low moments God has lifted our heads and given us hope and reminded us that no labor of love is ever in vain. Apprenticeship to Jesus a MOVEMENT God is on the move and so are we.  In the past six months God has been confirming that He is calling us to help start and support intentional discipleship communities all over Phoenix and around the world.  Last night our colleagues and good friends Danny and Evelynn Malakowsky cast the vision God has given them to start a new A2J Community in their neighborhood, Brentwood Historic.  This gives us several active A2J communities and also several others in the exploratory stages, even in Europe.  Hope Fest was a huge success A2J has been praying with City Serve for the past six months for our city.  We spent a lot of time praying specifically for Hope Fest which took place last month. There were close to 15,000 guests who came for help!  HopeFest was a beautiful expression of Jesus, and we were thankful to be a part of so many from around the city coming together to love and serve those needing a tangible expression of our God, who is near the brokenhearted & hopeless click this photo to see more photos  Click here Here to read about this event in an article in azcentral.com We had the privilege of praying with many hurting people, the stories we heard that day wereoverwhelming; one women cried as she told of losing her five kids to CPS and the helplessness of not being able to care for them.  She asked us to pray and we brought her children to their Heavenly Father who is able to care for them and watch over them Apprenticeship to Jesus-Woodland God is Calling the Woodland Historic A2J expression in downtown Phoenix to become a mission center for the city that will be a place of birthing and supporting new kingdom initiatives and training teams to be sent out to start new A2J communities locally and globally.   A2J Mishkan Prayer House and Community Garden with Downtown Phoenix in the background All A2J communities are called to share the gospel and their very lives with the neighborhood and community they live in.  We are growing in this and seeing the fruit of loving God and our neighbors.   Click here to see our most recent A2J community Newsletter after the park we invite our neighbors to come back to the Mishkan House and eat dinner with us Here are some photos of our ministry at University Park where we are working with the park staff to provide sports and art classes for the inner city youth and our friends who are homeless volleyball at the park (click here to see more photos) Rag Co providing art as a means for youth to communicate their 'stories' (click here to see more photos) How you can partner with us                                                 Here are some special needs we have currently to pray for and consider giving towards: Mishkan Prayer House! We have been using a mix-match collection of chairs at the prayer house and a lot of them are in bad shape. We are hoping to buy 20 of the Costco sturdy plastic chairs at $20 a piece. Would you consider giving towards a chair or two? +A2J Network Retreat-coming up at the end of this month and we are in need of scholarship money to help those in need get there +Community Garden-one of our good friends, Shelly who is homeless, and lives in the back yard of the house next to our Mishkan prayer house is wanting to start a garden plot. This is exactly who we want to be able to grow fresh vegetables. She cannot pay the $7 a month for the water and has no money to buy transplants vegetables to plant. Would you consider helping.   She is a gift to our community and helps us in our outreach and service. We are Thankful!