It's All About the Youth!

Lots of really great things are happening in our youth group, and we want to share them with you! First of all, on Monday night of last week, Nick Charlie met with Duane to accept Christ as his Savior! Praise the Lord for our new brother in Christ. Nick is a senior in high school and plans to attend college in Florida next year. Pray that he will grow in the Lord as he pursues his education further and that he will be diligent in finding Christian friends and groups to be involved with even when he leaves for college. Nick's a great kid, and we have high hopes for him!

This past weekend, Friday night through Sunday morning, Duane and Heather took 10 of the youth to the Gulf States Mennonite Conference Youth Rally. The forecast called for rain every day, but the Lord was more than faithful and it only rained the first night we were there! The theme for the rally was "Taking Risks for God" and the speaker was a young woman who is a recruiter for Mennonite Missions. The youth were challenged to step outside of their comfort zones, which was a relatively difficult concept for many of our youth to grasp. Heather is going teach further on this in the coming weeks. The youth girls participated in the Pine Lake's Got Talent talent show on Saturday night at the rally, and so did Daelin, one of our youth who did a dance to Michael Jackson's "Beat It". It was extremely entertaining and we were glad our youth got involved!

This coming weekend is the Pastor's & Wives retreat at Pine Lake Camp, which Duane & Laurie will be attending, while Heather has a small group sleepover at the house for the youth girls!

Heather's schooling is going well and she is enjoying her classes. She and Laurie got to go to the main campus of MSU today to visit Nancy Fultz, the head of the National Student Exchange program that is hosting Heather at MSU this year. Laurie and Heather got to share TONS about the ministry we are doing at Pearl River Mennonite and Nancy and the two other MSU faculty that went to lunch with us were very impressed with the ministry we're doing, as well as with Heather's willingness to serve. It was an encouraging time!

Please be praying for Duane's knee. He says he "tweaked it" at the youth rally. Not really sure what that means exactly, but he's been icing it a lot. Hopefully it will heal completely! Also, please continue praying for the sale of our home back in Indiana. Heather has been applying for jobs down here and has not heard anything back from any of them yet. And also keep the Pastor's & Wives retreat in your prayers as well! We will continue to update you! God bless.

The End of a LOOOONG Week

Duane's first week as official pastor of Pearl River Mennonite ended up being quite a tiring one. One of the most prominent members of the church, Annie Pearl, and her 4 children who attend semi-regularly had an emotionally draining week as their father (Annie's ex-husband) had a massive stroke on Monday. On Tuesday they decided to take him off of life support, and Wednesday evening he eventually passed away in the hospital. Duane was at the hospital numerous times throughout the week encouraging and praying for the family. Thursday and Friday night were the wake for Glenn Bell (the man who died), and as Choctaw tradition goes, the pastor delivers a devotion and the members of the church who are present sing a few hymns to the family. Glenn's body was at Annie Pearl's house, which had to have been very difficult for her considering it was her ex-husband, but she wanted to be strong for her kids. It was quite the testimony of forgiveness, because she shared with us later that he was a womanizer and abusive. The funeral was then held on Saturday and Duane assisted Glenn Myers (the pastor who just retired) with the funeral. Heather and Laurie sang with some other members of the church at the funeral. It was very emotional. After the funeral we were all exhausted. It had definitely been a long week.

Wednesday was church as usual. Heather led the youth group and taught about how intimately we were created by God. It involved everyone making a man out of playdough (our Adam) and realizing that in order to create all of his organs, and brain, and connect all of his veins and blood vessels that it would be a very intense process. It seemed to go well!

Sunday was Duane's first Sunday preaching, and Heather's first Sunday playing the piano along with the hymns. Next month Heather will be in charge of leading worship... should be interesting!

Heather has stayed very busy with her schooling. Taking online courses is proving to be a time-consuming venture, because she is basically teaching herself. She ended up not getting the job at the bank that she had applied for, so she applied at Pizza Hut but hasn't heard anything back from them yet. With all the school work, she's not sure how much time she could devote to a job anyway. Please pray for her as she looks for a job. Anything will do at this point!

And last but not least, Duane found a job! The man who owns the company goes to Jubilee Mennonite Church (one of our sister churches) and came up with a software program to help schools track student's progression in classes throughout the years and to see how teacher's students do in comparison to other teachers. Apparently the program has caught like wild fire and is going state-wide, so production is up and they need help! This is right up Duane's alley since he just finished his certification in IT services. Thank you so much for your prayers! Duane will start his job on Tuesday the 8th.