Small Groups Starting this Week!

We wanted to start our small groups 3 weeks ago and were planning to do so, but my wife was told that she needed a root canal and the same day she came down with a bacterial infection that turned out to be the worst illness that she has had since a bad bout of pneumonia about 30 years ago. Getting a root canal meant driving to Mexico because it would save us over $2,000. (Last year I got two root canals and two crowns for a total of $1,000 and in Oregon it would have cost me $6,000.)

We immediately decided that it was better to go before we started our small groups rather than to start and then have to interrupt them just to go to the dentist. Unfortunately, Jerilyn’s illness meant antibiotics and a period of healing before such dental work could be done. Thus, the three week delay. Alas, after working on Jerilyn’s root canal for over 3 hours in two days, the dentist decided that the roots of that tooth were too far gone to save and that extraction was the only option. It took a different dentist over an hour to get the remaining pieces of tooth out of her mouth. My poor wife suffered quite a bit through all of that. In the end, the suffering would have been no different in the US and the whole thing actually saved us over $3,000. Three hours of root canal and one hour of tooth extraction cost us a total of $250.

Enough of dentist talk! We are starting our small groups this week and we need you to pray for us. We will be having our first Jefferson small group meeting on Monday night at 7pm and our first Salem small group meeting on Friday night at the same time.

Each time we get together in our small group we will be spending some time in fellowship, some time in Bible study, and some time in accountability. Our Bible study will start out by digging a little deeper into what we are studying in church on the weekends. We just began to study 1 Corinthians. We have asked each person in the small group to meditate on the scripture that we just studied and come prepared to share how else God is speaking to them through the passage. We will also be sharing other scriptures that God has used to speak to us this past week.

During the accountability time for the first several weeks we will take turns sharing our “life maps” – our testimonies of how God has worked throughout our lives to bring us to where we are in our lives today. This testimony will last 20-25 minutes followed by a question and answer time followed by prayer for the individual sharing his life map. This week, I will be sharing; next week Jerilyn will be sharing, the following two weeks our lay leaders in each church will be sharing- Luis and Jessie Zavala in Salem, and Juan and Remedios Alvarez in Jefferson.

Please pray for us that we will have meaningful fellowship, interesting Spirit led discussions in Bible study, and a deeper understanding of each other and how we can pray for each other during the testimony times over the next few weeks.

Thank you for praying!

Small Group Meeting Update

Eight days ago I asked for prayer for two meetings that we were going to have – one last Sunday at our house and one today in Salem. The meetings were for those interested in participating in our two small groups that we are starting, one in our Jefferson Church and one in our Salem church.

Both meetings were very successful and both left me very encouraged. However, the first meeting at our house did not at all go as planned. I had no idea how many people to expect. I asked people to show up at our house any time after 2 and said that we would be eating around 3. One family arrived a little after 3 but we did not eat until after 4, ¡with just the one family! Another family told me they had a meeting in Portland but could probably arrive by 3. I texted them after 4 to see if they were coming and they texted that a massive accident left them stuck in traffic. They finally arrived a little after 4:30.

While we were waiting, we played a friendly game of Farkle (don’t ask). When they arrived we invited them to grab a plate of food and they could watch us finish our game. When they sat down at the table the family we were playing with informed us that they had to leave soon because they had another appointment. So, we quit the game and started our meeting while the new arrivals were eating.

I originally anticipated that the meeting would last about 1½ hours but I had to condense it down to about 25 minutes. We were able to cover most of the basics and we were all in agreement as to how to proceed. Most of my concerns about this meeting were alleviated by the fact that the young people I was expecting might come didn’t. It was an easy decision that we will only have one small group to start with in Jefferson, made up of the most mature people we have – the core group of the church.

Our meeting today went much more as planned. We had a great meal together. Afterwards, the adults huddled in the living room while 9 children played together outside. Our meeting lasted about the 1½ hours I was expecting. We had some great conversations, good questions, and agreement that we are in this thing together.

The plan right now is to launch both small groups the week following next Sunday. Everyone is on a steep learning curve but right now all systems are go. Please pray that these two launches will go well. We need the Holy Spirit to guide us, because, as Joshua told the people of Israel, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it… that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before” (Joshua 3:3-4).

We are also walking in new territory so we need your prayers.

Small Groups Getting Closer

On Sunday, September 16, we will be hosting a dinner and meeting for everyone in our Jefferson church who is interested in possibly participating in the small group we will be starting in 2 or 3 weeks.

Pray that everyone who should be there will be there. Pray for wisdom as I share a little about what the group will look like and answer questions.

Pray that we can find a day that everyone can meet faithfully and that we can agree on the length of time the meetings will last.

We also need prayer for wisdom as we decide if we should have one group or two as we have both younger and older people interested.

We will be having a similar gathering the following Sunday for people from our Salem church meeting at Juan and Vicky Herrera’s house.