Protecting the sheep...night patrol

Meet ALCC family members Xavier “Xay-Xay” Beres, and his pops, Jeremy “The Heavy” Beres.

With all that is going on at church with so many people coming in and out all the time a few months ago a security detail was put in place to monitor the facilities through the night.  You might not have known that.

Jeremy has been walking the grounds, giving the ‘rules and regulations’ talk with new arrivals, and keeping a general eye on what God has entrusted to us, all...night...long.  Jeremy is a man of few words.  He has a commanding presence (6’6 feet of presence to be specific), he has bright yellow shirt that says “SECURITY” (although he wasn't wearing it for this picture), he has a deep voice; but what’s most important is Jeremy has a deep love and appreciation for the Lord.  And he is actually a really fun guy.

Keep ALCC and Jeremy in your prayers as we continue to funnel hundreds of volunteers through our facility, not just housing and feeding, but pushing in deep and ministering to hearts that God brought to our very doorstep.  We feel so blessed and honored.

Thank you Jeremy and all the others at ALCC that are serving with love and a sharp eye.

Here is a new song that we will be singing in church tomorrow morning.  We sang it back in THE Core Youth service on Wednesday night and it brought every heart in the room that desired to be close to God, right to his feet as we sang and worshiped his most holy name.  I listened to it just a few moments ago and I wept.

I wept because of the depth of his love, and the beauty of this gift.  See you at Church!

ALCC Family Member,

Ronda

Wall to Wall...Heart to Heart

Wall to wall, heart to heart; this is where we find ourselves.  Hallways lined with tarps, tarps filled with names, names with real people behind each scribble.  This is where we find ourselves; serving the servants.

Pastor Larry walked with me through the halls, excitedly pointing out several works of art that jump off the "Hero's of Joplin" wall hangings.  You could see he was in awe of all the people that have come and that the names keep getting added.  More and more are coming through to help with the relief effort.

Do you want to know where else names are getting added?  The Book of Life!

People are coming from all over the country.  When you take a minute and you talk to a volunteer you see their face light up.  This has become their experience too as they see the damage, toil in the hot sun, and when they get back to church they get served; food for the body, and food for the soul.  So many volunteers have already accepted Christ as their personal savior.

This is a rare opportunity, and we are so grateful that God is allowing us to be a part of growing his kingdom.  It is what he called us to do.

I hope you have an extra minute to pray with me...

Heavenly Father, you see our hearts and you know our thoughts.  You have put this vision before the leaders of our church to serve the servants, to house the homeless, to feed the hungry, to be hospitable... But even more than just that word hospitable, you are calling us to minister to all those who are walking through the doors at Abundant Life, where right now the field ready to be harvested.  Thank you for entrusting us with these people.  Thank you for sustaining us in every regard as we continue on in this purpose.  We pray that you will continue to pour out your grace and mercy upon us during this time of great need.  We thank you for helping us to build Joplin, Abundant Life, and each soul that comes to serve: Bigger, Better, Stronger...It is all about you Jesus.  Amen.

Happy Friday!  Thank you for taking a few minutes out of your busy day to stay connected with us and all that is going on.  I get really busy at my job during the week and it can be hard at times to remember that at church, they are going nonstop.  If you want to help, ask...we can use you!

And if you are unable to physically come and help serve, but would like to help we could greatly use any financial support you could send as we continue to run the facilities 24/7, and serve over a hundred people daily.

Lord bless you! Have a great day.

ALCC family member,

Ronda

...come meet Derek and Rachel from San Antonio, Texas

When I arrived at church our youth band was having a quick practice back in The Core.

It wasn't "practice" to anyone else as the few of us in the room worshiped the Lord right along with them.  It was amazing.  The music was loud and gelled together with a beautiful melody and a simply put chorus that said it all:

Oh! How He loves us!

And this is the mood of the room when I met Derek and Rachel.

Derek and Rachel are youth ministers from 1st Assembly of God in San Antonio, Texas.  They brought 11 of their youth up here to Joplin to help with the relief effort.  They told me about how a friend of theirs from Tulsa had driven through Joplin about 7 minutes after the tornado had gone through and so Joplin has been on their hearts for a few months now.

When the media coverage faded they assumed that Joplin must be covered.  But then their friend told them otherwise.  That there was still SO MUCH to be done.  They told me they were blown away at all there was to do and that at times it seemed overwhelming.  They pick up at somebody's house and then look around them and it looks like they did nothing.

We are so grateful they have come to help us.  It was amazing to worship next to them last night.  Their youth and our youth intermingled and we praised the Lord together.

They told me one last thing before I shook their hand and said see ya, and that was, they were amazed.  Amazed at how connected they felt to Abundant Life and that our church was able to not only accommodate them and all the other groups staying there, but that the connection went deeper.

Derek and Rachel, San Antonio, Texas

And you know why?  God.

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.  Is anyone cheerful?  Let him sing praise.

If you feel led to help support the crew the Lord is sending to Joplin you can click the tap at the top for donations.  We appreciate you so much. Have a wonderful blessed day!

Your friend and fellow family member of ALCC,

Ronda  

...come meet Michael and Dillon, from Moore, Oklahoma

Michael (left) and Dillon (right) came to Joplin from Moore, Oklahoma.  Dillon came first with his youth group.  But after returning home he and a friend planned another trip out.  They told Michael that they were returning to Joplin and he wanted to come too.

Last night I introduced myself to Michael and Dillon as they sat at a table in The Core Cafeteria.  Our youth praise team practice is on Tuesday nights back in The Core and so while they were checking mic's and tuning instruments, I had a little bit of down time.

My camera battery is dead so I took this snapshot with my busted up cell phone.  Won't win any awards for amazing photography, but it lets you see with your eyes two young men who have servants hearts.

I didn't get to talk to Dillon much, not because he wasn't willing, but because I ran out of time.  I did however get to know Michael a little bit and our discussion blessed me tremendously.

Michael doesn't belong to a church.  In fact, from chatting with him I gathered the following:

1. He has a sincere heart that desires to serve and help people.

2. He is very intelligent.

3. He used to just believe in a higher power, but now he believes in God.

4. He said he would like to believe that Jesus was the son of God.

5. He was unsure about the Bible.

6. He was weary of Christians.

I got only a few moments to chat with him about this...and I treasure them.  Church, if you are reading this, the field is within our church walls.  We have a rare opportunity to bless and be blessed, to love and make new friends.  These people that are coming from all over the country, it may be their only chance in their busy lives to spend a few days helping.  We see them day in and day out, a mirage of faces, a sea of people.  Try and not get USED to them...See each one for what they are....a brother or sister in the Lord, or an opportunity to share the love of Christ.

A smile and "hello" can go a long way.


Heavenly Father, I praise you and I thank you so much that we are presented with such an opportunity as this.  Continue to supply all the needs to keep this operation up and running while we take care of all these travelers. Give us servants hearts and an attitude that is pleasing to you.  I pray that you will help us to be bold in sharing you with the people that we meet.  I pray for open hearts that are ready to receive your precious gift of salvation.  Salvation from the law, salvation from death, and that they will get to have the most amazing thing of all: a relationship with the creator of heaven and earth.  You are joy and peace and everything good.  We PRAISE your HOLY name! AMEN

~Ronda

It's a baby!

Sunday Crystal, our children's program director, called me and let me know that Misty, who was scheduled to be teaching in "The Rock", our children's department, was having contractions.  She was very pregnant...she is no longer pregnant.  YAY!  Welcome Rhaelyn Nicole!  Congratulations to Travis, Misty, and their family for their new addition.  Can't wait to see that little pumpkin!

So, because Misty was taking care of business, I got the privilege of hanging out with the kids.  And let me tell you, they love getting their picture taken.

We goofed around at first and then we got into God's word.  Then we played "Quack, quack, ribbet"  my favorite!!

We have an awesome group of kiddos.

Lord, thank you so much for each one of these little squirrels.  I pray that this week you will minister to their little hearts and allow them to be witnesses for you.  Children can be so bold.  I pray that they will get opportunities.  Thank you for our children.  Thank you for our facility so that we can teach, play, and grow!

We love you! Have a blessed week!

Ronda

...come meet our new friends from Huntington Beach, California

Love this group from Huntington Beach, CA. I took them to the airport today...They came to Joplin for several days. Love meetin everyone.


~Mary


I saw them at Church on Sunday and I wanted to come and track em' down and get their story.  But I got snagged and detained after church for a music meeting.  Mary, you will have to tell us more about them!


So grateful that people would sacrifice vacation time and come visit Joplin.  It is HOT exclamation point and multiplied to the 10th power right now... So grateful for all the hard workers.  We feel so blessed!  Thank you!


If you have it in your heart to help us as we feed all these helpers, we will put your offerings to GOOD use!  You can check out the tab at the top if you feel so led.  LOVE YA!


~Ronda

...come meet Bethel Community Church from Oklahoma

This group was set up in the hall at church studying Gods word.  They then began to give praise reports and talk about their reaction to seeing Joplin.  Some of them for the first time, and a few of them were return visitors.  Each one of them took turns praying for another in the group.  They held hands, little did they know they positioned themselves right in front of one of our WALL of HEROs, they are a part of us now.

If you get a chance, come to the church and be blessed by meeting these people.  Ask them where they are from, engage them.  The stories that you will hear will blow you away.  Why would anyone want to come to Joplin, especially these days when the media is gone…I will tell you why, because God called them.

I want to meet the people that God called.  SUCH A BLESSING!!!! Take advantage of this gift.

God give us strength.  I pray for all the workers as they head out into the heat today that you will put a bubble of cool protection around them.  That they will find shade and water wherever they go.  That you will be a cool spring that wells up inside them; in your MIGHTY power you will be their AC.  Send a breeze.  Enough to cool, but not so much that it is a challenge.  Thank you for taking care of your people while we take care of business.

God, please continue to provide.  Please continue to send people, food for the volunteers, food for the WE CARE Grocery Store.  Lord we praise you and thank you for seeing every need and providing with everything it will take to carry this out until you would desire us to do something different.  Give us clear direction, and let us have eyes to see and ears to hear your will for us.

I pray for Pastor Larry as he prepares for his message tomorrow that you give him every word, and that you will supply him with extra peace, and extra strength during this time of great harvest.

Thank you LORD, for preparing hearts for the message tomorrow.

We love you.

AMEN!

Have a wonderful weekend folks!  Enjoy your friends and family, or your jobs if you get the honor of working on the weekend.  Lord bless you, have a wonderful day!

Ronda

...come meet Kevin & Kary Duffy, Yellville, Arkansas

Mary Mary quite contrary grabbed me in the hallway and told me I needed to meet some folks.  When Mary speaks, if you are smart, you listen.  So I met some folks, and Mary was right...they were just who I needed to talk to.

Tonight I had the pleasure of visiting with Kevin and Kary Duffy.  Kevin did not like getting his picture taken.  Come on Kev!  May I call you Kev? Nothing to be scared of…sometimes I get a good one.

I gave them a quick rundown of who I am, what I am doing, why I am doing it.  They listened patiently, but after hearing them talk, I don’t think they needed any direction on how to interview.

You see, they have been interviewed more times than they can probably remember.  They have been interviewed by newspapers, news stations, ESPN, CBS Sports, etc… And behind it all is a God story, and it is a good story.

Kary started out by asking me if I saw the bus…no, no I haven’t seen “The Bus.” Then she began by telling me that she and Kevin were high school sweet hearts.  They smiled at each other as she told me this and you could see in their eyes that they love each other deeply.  Then she shared with me about her three children.  Kymball, Korbin, and Kyli.  That is when the story took an unexpected turn.  Unexpected because she had joy…she had a smile on her face…she had peace…

A year and a half ago their first born son Kymball Duffy, football #72, 16 years old, full of vibrant life, was taken to be with his LORD and savior after an automobile accident.

This is when Kevin jumped in and they both talked back and forth about all that took place with the media.  He told me how they kept trying to tell about how it was a GOD Story…not a Sport Story that the media was trying to spin it as.

People from all over the country blessed them by sending money.  In comes the bus.  Kymball had always given his dad a hard time that their youth group had to go on such long trips and that they needed a bus.  So they took the money they were blessed with and God provided this beauty!

I am excited and very hopeful that they will type out their story and all the “God parts” as they put it, so that I can share it with you.  They said God was everywhere, in every part of it.  They came, Church on the Rock, Kevin and Kary Duffy, and a portion of their youth group to help Joplin…36 blessings and a bus.

Thank you for coming, thank you for sharing, and thank you for your JOY!  What a wonderful testimony!

Lord God, I praise you and I thank you for letting me see what I saw tonight.  People studying your word together, people helping each other, serving each other, ministering to each other, around every corner, and in every room.  You are doing amazing things.  There is a silver lining in a tornado…you are drawing us near and we are so blessed by this time of fellowship with people that we wouldn’t have met (until Heaven) otherwise.  Thank you sweet Jesus.  Help them as they toil with their hands in the heat tomorrow.  Sustain them.  Thank you Lord!

~Ronda

...come meet Esteban! from Minden, Louisiana

Tonight I walked up to Libby and I said, I need a volunteer.  She looked around and held her hands up as if to say...'take your pick.'  So I clarified, and asked her to point me in the direction of one that really stands out.

See didn't waste time.  She told me to head over to a table where a group of youth were playing cards and to ask for Esteban.  So that is what I did.

He looked scared at first.  I am a stranger, I have a camera, I am asking him if I can take his picture and ask him a few questions... Really am I that scary?!?  Come on now.

I asked him the usual, 'where are you from?', 'why are you here?', that sort of thing.  He is from Minden, Louisiana, and he is here to help.  Thank you Esteban for coming to help.  We are very happy to have you.

Then I asked him, "can you tell me something that God has done in your life you would like to share?"

That is when I met Esteban.  He brushed the hair out of his eyes and with a passion he told me of his mother got sick, and going downhill fast.  He and his sister were devastated.  She was everything to them.  He was eight when this happened. She had serious illness and diabetes complicated the matter.  "But God healed her, she got healed," he told me.  He said he got saved when he was 8...and that his mother got healed when he was 10.  He said that she has been perfect ever since.

I wish you could have seen his eyes as he told this story.  I thanked him for sharing with me, and I praised God that I got to meet Esteban, and that his mother was healed, and that Esteban is saved.

God we give you all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise for healing Esteban's mother and for his tremendous testimony of your desire to make us whole.  To heal sickness, and to save the lost.

Thank you Lord for sending help, and for answering our prayers for a cooler day.  AMEN!

~Love you guys!  Have a great week!

Ronda

Come Play: Name that volunteer!

I met                      at the church on Saturday morning… I lost the piece of paper with her name!  Eeek!  I do remember that she was from Elgin, Illinois, and that she came with a group to serve for several days in Joplin and they found themselves at Abundant Life.  The story goes their church youth group was on a mission trip when the youth pastor felt it heavy on his heart that they needed to keep on keepin on and make their way to Joplin.

This volunteer was sporting an awesome shirt...

...and an awesome attitude as she bustled about doing any task that needed to be done.  I asked her if she could share with me a little something that God has done in her life and she barely stopped moving as she quickly looked me in the eyes and said, “Without Jesus there is nothing.  He is everything....I don't know what more to say then that.” And off she went!  She didn't need to say more...she said it all!

The volunteers keep coming in groups to help out in the tremendous HEAT.  Today it reached a scorching 100 degrees.  We are in a heat wave people!

Let’s pray for some cooler temperatures.

Lord I praise you and I thank you for everyone that you have sent to minister to the community and that you brought them to us at Abundant Life so that we can bless them and be blessed by them.  You see our great need God.  The tornado destroyed so much, and we are working hard to clean this place up.  We want to bring glory to your name for the good work that we are doing.  We put our hands to this effort daily and we pray that you bless all that we do.  We pray that you will help us to stay motivated and on task.  Not distracted by details, but that we give each day our best effort and that each day we have an opportunity to be a witness.  I pray that we will shine so BRIGHT for you!  I also pray for cooler temperatures that will even baffle the local weatherman.  I pray for a nice 80 degree weather trend. You are amazing, and we love you so much.  Bless the unnamed volunteer, and all that came from Elgin, Illinois.  Bless all that have come through Abundant Life, and all that will come.  I pray that this will be an experience that will make fresh their relationship with you.

Have a great week folks!  We love ya!

Ronda

...meet Mary, from Abbeville, Louisiana.

I was saved when I was 9 yrs old at a church camp in New Orleans. Since then I have walked that aisle many, many, times. Not until I attended a Word church did I seem to have some victory. However, I still hadn’t dealt with some issues from childhood and I let these issues control my life.

I was serving in the church walking around looking like everything was wonderful, but I was dying on the inside. I had a hard time accepting that God loved me as much as He does. I had a hard time believing anyone could love me. I have always felt like I wasn’t good enough or that I was unlovable. I had a lot of condemnation. About two years ago I had enough of ministry. I was sick of church as usual. We were serving in the ministry and I got sick of the people. So, I left church altogether.

I stayed out of church for two years. I became so miserable and full of fear. One day I couldn’t stop crying and I told my husband that I felt like I was gonna lose my mind. He called the Pastor who came and prayed for me. Things began to lift and I knew I needed to get back in church. I also knew I needed to quit my job. I was a corrections officer.

At the beginning of June the church gave my son and daughter in-law a baby shower. At the baby shower the Youth Pastor said he was taking the youth to Joplin. My ears perked up and I asked to go. My life will never be the same! God stirred up a fire down in my bones that I have never had! When I got out on the parking lot of Abundant Life Christian Center I could feel The Spirit of the Lord and all that they had going on was running like a well oiled machine. It was incredible! I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I called my husband and told him that I felt alive for the first time in years. I wanted to give back! I believe God has been preparing me all of my life for this. God put it on my heart to give back to the church and the pastors.

So, when I returned home I shared with our cell group what God was doing at ALCC and our Pastor said, "Let’s go back!" We put together a team of 15. Some we didn’t even know, and headed back to ALCC. God put the right people at the right time and the bathrooms were remodeled.

My husband and I are returning to ALCC again this week. We will keep coming till God says different.

I’ve been married for 21 yrs.

Bruce and Mary

We have a son and a daughter. We also have two grandkids. I love my kids so much!! And there is nothing they could say or do to change that... That is how God sees us. We are His children and He loves us that much!! And if you are in Christ there is now no condemnation. Romans 8:1. Glory!! So, I don’t let the enemy beat me up with that anymore.