News Letter!

People think it's gold at the end of a rainbow! Follow us on Facebook and send the link to all your friends. Join our twitter account - fastest way to keep up with what's going on. Check out our new blog Help support what God has called us to do here in Ireland. Without your help we can't do this. Consider supporting us with a one time gift or monthly, click on the above donate button to help. Our Church is on it's way! These last few weeks have been incredible! Things are moving much faster than we expected, which is a great thing. We had our first open night on the 18th of July in Flannery's Bar and we got many people involved and interested in what God is and will be doing here in Limerick. I sent out several hundred surveys to people who don’t go to church and got their feedback on their reasons for not going, from those results, on the 25th of this month, we started a series called “Mythbusters” – dealing with all the misconceptions people have about God, Christ and the Church. Our first meeting was on the topic of “Isn’t the Bible a Myth?” We had a great turn out for the night and we had an hour long chat about the Bible and how it can be trusted; we had several of the people ask Marie and I for Bibles. What was more amazing is, our meeting was from 8pm to 9pm – we ended up leaving at 12:30am, people were just soaking up the topic which brought us to several other things, for fours and a half hours we got to share and talk with people – that’s church! What are the next steps for Elevate? Right now we are meeting with literally dozens of people who don’t go to church and talking with them about what a “church” is and what it means to follow Christ. People here are hurting and are very cautious of anything to do with “God” because of the past hurts from “Church”. Our aim is to take it slow and just offer people a chance to “come and see.”  We’re not asking anything from them or any commitments, just to come and see. Our prayer is that they will encounter Jesus Christ and make the decision to live their live for him. We would love to be at a place soon where we will need to rent somewhere because our numbers will grow and peoples' lives will be changed. By this time next year we hope to have full weekly services with a church that is impacting this City for Jesus Christ. Prayer for this coming week. People who have been coming are really asking questions about Christ; even more, they are questioning their own doubts and realizing that maybe there is a God. Pray for these people, if you email me I’ll send you their names so you can pray for them by name. Pray that the people who asked us for Bibles will read them and God will pierce their heart and they will come to know Him, pray that they will understand what they are reading and that Satan won’t deceive them. Pray God will give Marie and I the words when we speak to people, that there will be such power in them that people will know it’s not of us but God and they can’t ignore it. Pray that there won't be any blocks in our way as we set up the coming series and that we will be dealing with and answering questions that people are asking. Pray that our "stuff" arrives from the US soon. We shipped most of the contents of our house along with Bibles and ministry equipment, pray it get's here soon so we can start distributing the Bibles. Pray that financial support we need starts coming in.  The exchange rate here is damaging the speed at which we can do things and we are in need of financial support for the cost of living here. It really is the most expensive place to live in Europe and the fourth most expensive place to live in the world (international price comparison survey). If you have the ability to support us, once off, or monthly – just click the link here  and you can donate online or mail it to us. Personal Notes Tara and I have been enjoying all the farm animals that live around our house. She is so funny when she see an animal for the first time, she acts like her mind is just blow away and says “what’s that?” Continue to pray for me, for energy and wisdom and to meet the right people to get the mission done that God has us here to do. Pray for both Marie and I, that we stay strong and that we grow together as a family. Marie and Tara have been having a ball, going for walks and Marie showing Tara all the exciting things in the countryside. Tara had her first encounter with rain, and decided she didn't like it so much! And Marie is starting to get to know some women with kids who live down the street.   We really miss you all and do hope that you will come and visit us. As much as we love it here we really do wish you could be here with us.

Hello from Ireland

Our Church Website Please make sure you are keeping up to date with what we are doing at Elevate. We need all your prayers and support. What we are doing here hasn't been done before and the more we talk to church leaders and others, the more we find that they can't imagine it, which is great, because when God makes this happen, it will rock this city. So, sign up for our Facebook and Twitter, it's the fastest way for me to get you our prayer updates.

Where are you starting? Well, after getting settled in, I have met with more people than I can count. I've been connecting with old friends and making new friends. We will be meeting at a bar called Flannery's in the city on Monday nights. Almost all the people we will be meeting with are not Christians, which is the whole point of this. Please keep us and them in your prayers. We are really looking forward to seeing how God is going to use this to ripple across the city, our hope is to out grow this bar within a few months and have to move to the nightclub.  We are starting like a Neighborhood Group and talking with people about life and how we can make Christ more a part of it. People have a lot of questions and we pray for the wisdom to answer them.

What's on this week? This week I am going to get a group of about 20 non-Christians from the city, who don't go to church and ask them for reasons why they don't go and what's holding them back. I'm going to do an "interview" style meeting with them and see if I can get them to join us on Monday nights to look deeper into God's word. I also have a dad/son golf tournament that I am helping with, getting Christians to hang out with people who don't know Christ and we are putting together a mini tournament for about 20 guys. This has been great to do because it is helping me get to know a lot of people in the golf world in Ireland who don't know Christ. We are going to help with putting together a trip for about 50 teenagers to a camp for a week in August. This is the same camp that I myself got saved at so it's an honor for me to be a part of this and to help put together something fresh and new to reach these teenagers. I have been asked to lead a group of people from several churches to do an outreach in the City this coming September. I'm still praying about whether I should because I'm trying to find out what they mean by "Lead" - I was planning on doing something in September anyway where we would serve the city in some way, so we might be able to kill two birds with one stone doing this. Pray that God brings the right people at the right time.

Things to Pray for this week! Keep the people of Limerick in your prayers, pray that God will just burn something up inside of them that they will want to ask questions about Him and want to know Him more. Limerick is a beautiful place, you can see it in the pictures below, but it is a very dark and lonely place. There is so much work that needs to be done. Please pray for Limerick and the City.       Also pray for the people I will be meeting with next week. Pray that they will be honest and that we can get each of them to start attending church. I will be meeting with them next Wednesday and asking about 20 people who don't know Christ, what's keeping them away from church. Pray that it will be the beginning of something that will turn this city towards Christ. Pray for Marie, Tara and I. That we will stay strong as a family and that we will be the example to others. If we're not strong what we are starting won't be. There really is so much to pray for that I could keep typing but please pray that we will meet, greet and keep the right people to get this church off the ground. Pray that we get the money to do what we are planning. We need the financial backing to do this, so please pray that people will start giving in any amounts to help us.

Here are some photos we took this week! Tara wanted to throw the ball and have me run and get it, she couldn't understand why on earth I wouldn't do it. So i just sat with her and she had to deal. I took Marie and Tara feeding the ducks this week, Tara had so much fun, she loved seeing the swans and ducks and throwing the bread to them, but then decided to eat the bread herself and not give it to the ducks... I think she missed the point.