What an Awesome God we Serve!!!

What an awesome God we serve. We have been opening the gym more to the community and it is starting to pay off in a big way. Sunday we had the Benali Indian Family come and worship with us through music and the Word. It was a very powerful service and there were THREE teenagers who showed up for service for the first time. They have been coming to open gym, but this was the first we saw them at church – PRAISE GOD! Two of them were with their brother and sister and the third one was with her mother! It is awesome to see the gym being used to bring people to church and we all know that will eventually lead to them giving their lives to the Lord.

That's not the only joy we've seen lately. Cari is getting set to graduate from high school and Angie recently took her to Flagstaff to shop for a graduation dress. This is the girl I talked about last time whose family had been arrested and she had a falling out with her sister. We are all so very proud of her for overcoming the odds of her life and still graduating.

Carol has called some of her family and has been trying to get them involved because at first Cari expressed how she didn’t want to walk to get her diploma because it would be to depressing without having her family there. Angie and Carol talked to her and told her that this is a big accomplishment for her and she needed to do this for herself. Carol was able to get in touch with some of Cari's family -- one of them being her sister who met Angie and Cari at the mall Saturday!

Cari was so happy to see her and you could tell it meant a lot to her that she was there. They all seemed to have a good time together. Cari’s graduation is May 27 so please be in prayer that the Devil doesn’t try to attack and do something crazy to ruin this special day.

Last Friday (May 14), Me, Lil' Joey, and Bo went to Nadi Canyon to follow up with the local church there and to see how far they are on the room addition. This summer we are sending a work team from New Life Christian Church there to build a room for this church. The folks from New Life will also host VBS for three days with the children in that community. We are so excited to be able to reach out and help this area and be able to witness to those people.

While we were there, a gentleman pulled Bo off to the side and he expressed how he has an addiction to alcohol and he told us how his wife just recently left him with one child to raise. He expressed how he wants to get help. Bo was able to pray for this man and has agreed to do some counseling with him. It's so neat to see Bo interact with his people and make himself available to help try to change their lives. He seems like a rock of strength, but I know he needs prayer too!

A few weeks ago in Bo's Thursday night discipleship class, we started learning about Godly children -- how they act, their attitudes, behaviors, actions, morals, etc…and now we've moved on to ungodly children and it has been a very interesting study. Bo expressed to us during the most recent study how he had been down the past two weeks because of everything that has been going on with his children.

He said that he was so into the Word of God spiritually that he had lost reality with the world and when things started going wrong with his family members it started to bring him down because being in the Word was like a perfect world to him. Please be in prayer for Bo and his whole family!

Another area we need you guys to be praying about is for Rosita's family. We found out that her daughter -- Octavia, Mathew (her boyfriend), and two other guys had stopped to help another motorist out. The three guys were standing in front of the broken down vehicle with their car behind them when another vehicle plowed into their car and pinned the boys between the two cars. They were flown to Phoenix for surgery and they all were in critical condition. Octavia was standing to the side when this happened and she did not get hurt.

This happened early (last) Saturday morning and by Sunday morning God had already began working miracles. Matt’s injuries turned out to be less severe than we originally thought. (No internal bleeding) Then Octavia and Matt wanted to talk to Rosita and Bo. Rositta told Angie that Octavia and Matt had expressed a desire to live a different life and to live more for God because they saw the grace that He provided to Matt during the accident. Bo and Rosita left a devotional book and a bible with them when they went to Phoenix Sunday. Please keep this young couple in your prayers!!

That was really all the major stuff from last week. With Lil' Joey's help, I hung paper towel holders and cleaned the dinning area and laundry room. Angie made cupcakes for open gym and let the little ones from the Children's home decorate them when they got home from school. They also ate dinner with us and went to gym later that night.

Angie had three volunteers from Indian Health Care come in and do some activities with the kids. They all seemed to have a blast playing the different games. They even taught us a few games we had never heard of.
Angie ended with a devotion about God’s Peace and how He is always there for us and will never leave our side. It is funny how these devotions always start out for others but in the end we benefit from it as well.

Please keep NCF covered in prayers. Pray for Cari that the Lord will bless her future and make sure her special day goes off without a hitch. Keep the man with the addiction in your prayers and pray for Bo that God shows him how to minister to him. Also pray for Rosita's daughter and boyfriend. Maybe this accident will be just what they need to ignite a fire in them for the Lord. Also please continue to pray for me Angie and Lil' Joey. It's hard to believe it has almost been a year. Time sure flies when your having fun serving the Lord.

God bless you all, and love much.

Joey & Family