Fargo is going great! It is finally warming up! We hit 50 degrees last week, which was a great change from the sub-zero temperatures that welcomed me into the city. Although this means that Fargo is having to deal with flood waters, but we are making it through, and sandbagging has been a great way to reach out to the community and meet new people. However, all the families in the Fargo/Moorhead area could definitely use your prayers.
Since I have been up here God has been doing so much to get us ready for the Fall. Right now we are currently working with 14 local churches, and that number is increasing each week as we meet and new people/churches, and we have been able to engage 6 smaller communities outside of the Fargo/Moorhead area to begin trainings, as well as to schedule more outreaches for our Fall campaign that will take place from September 19th-Oct 9th. God is opening up doors for us every day.
Two weeks ago I had the privilege of seeing 50 high schools kids come out to get trained to start small groups/outreaches in their high school. Then the day after the training a group of kids started a group through Facebook and with in 24 hours they already had 60 members join their group. The fields truly are white for the harvest up here!
In addition, to all of those kids raising up small groups through out the community we have raised up, through a partnership with Children's Evangelism Fellowship, 86 small groups for children. But we still have much more work to go. We are estimating that to properly handle the amount of responses we get during the tour with nurturing follow-up and discipleship we will need around 200 small groups for all ages through out the Fargo-Moorhead area, and the surrounding communities.
In addition, to that God has been so faithful to provide financially for the tour. Of our $350,000 budget that we have the community God has already raised close to $200,000 in pledges. In fact last week we received a check for $10,000 from a local business man, and then this week in a church kick-off we had gentleman pledge $45,000 and he began that pledge with a $25,000 check. God is so faithful to provide for His children!
We have a lot of exciting things coming up in the next month that we would love for you to pray with us on. First, is we are having a series of banquets that will help launch new communities, as well as bring on new churches through out the area. We are having 3 banquets in 3 separate communities April 29th and 30th, as well as May 1st. In addition, to our banquets we are beginning what we call local link trainings, which is where we go into local churches and train the church on personal evangelism and follow-up. So far we already have 3 churches who have booked their trainings, and a few more who are looking for dates. It is so cool to see God rallying His troops behind what He is doing here in Fargo. The final thing that we could use your prayers on is engaging the schools. So far we have 2 high schools committed to allowing us to do evening time events, but we are hoping to have about 6 more, and we need to book assemblies in ALL the schools so that we can invite the kids out to the evening performances where we will preach the Gospel. The assemblies are so key! Please pray for favor and openness as we approach the school to book assemblies for next Fall!
Thank you so much for taking time to read what is going on here in Fargo. I am so excited to be a part of what God is doing here in Fargo, and it is so encouraging to see all the churches rally behind this one call to reach their community. It is a huge blessing!
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