First Service!

       It's here!  Sunday, September 18th marked our first service at Lakeshore Baptist Church in Kewaunee, and we praise God for His blessing.  Forty-one people came out to fill our fifty chair auditorium storefront last Sunday morning.  A few of those were from Bay City Baptist, as some families have committed to helping us get established; but over half were residents of Kewaunee or neighboring Algoma.  Both of our ushers Sunday morning were faithful attenders of Thursday Bible Study who live in Algoma.  We have enjoyed meeting a number of couples and single men and women from town who express excitement about the work.  We welcomed special music from our guest Kay Lealiou, and sang hymns to an upright piano for the neighbors to hear :)  Ray preached a salvation message from John 3, and we know from conversation that there were unsaved souls in the service.  Pray for those who have heard the gospel, that they might come to trust Christ.  We had a full nursery, and I taught four children in Jr. Church as well.

      Assuredly, people will come and go, especiall at first, and that's all right.  God has placed us there at Lakeshore to minister to whoever comes through our doors, for whatever time they stay.  We do enjoy seeing some of the same faces through the weeks, though, and have established friendships that we hope will continue.  This Thursday brought a new couple to Bible Study who attended the first service, and they returned again today adding to our attendence of twenty-six.  I was also able to pick up a young mother for Bible Study Thursday who I met during visitation in August.  She is unbelieving, but searching for the Truth, and has agreed to come with me again next week.  Please pray that she will continue to come and allow Christ to reveal Himself to her.

      Thank you all for your continued prayers and support.  We are grateful to God for this attractive and furnished place to meet, but we are eager now to move from preparing the building to declaring Christ to the people of Kewaunee.    

      

Open House

      Tuesday night we hosted an Open House at the church building in Kewaunee.  The ladies from Bay City who now attend Lakeshore Baptist each made pies, and we served coffee and punch.  We wanted to provide a casual and non-confrontational opportunity for the community to come meet us and see what was going on.  While there was no mob breaking down the doors to get in, we were excited about a handful of friendly people who came out.  Each of them were fellow believers who expressed joy in having a Baptist church so near.  Of the six adults who visited with us, four said they would be out Sunday, and another is a "snow bird" who plans to worship with us when she returns from Arizona in the spring ;)  Thank you to the families from Bay City who came out Tuesday to greet the community with us.

      We are very excited about a specific answer to prayer for our children.  We have been praying all summer for some children to come to Lakeshore, so that our kids could have new friends, and someone besides their siblings in their Sunday School classes.  God has sent a wonderful Christian family who will be attending every service beginning last Thursday night.  They three children and one due in November.  In God's generous way, the children's ages are within one year of each of our own!  Please pray now for a few older ones, for our dear Curtis girls to spend time with.   I am so thankful that He is showing Himself a caring and prayer answering God to our children. 

      Our first service begins tomorrow morning, and I hope to post pictures of that soon.

More To Do

      Before I get to the pictures, let me praise the LORD for His faithfulness!  Thursday night, we welcomed another Christian woman from Kewaunee to Bible Study.  She was saved and baptized in a Baptist church, and now attends a non-denominational church in Green Bay.  We enjoyed her participation in the study discussion.  Our new friends from Algoma have also continued to come, and are now regular Thursday night attenders. 

      School started for Joe and Megan on Wednesday, and it looks like we'll have at least a month living in Green Bay to transition before the longer drive begins. Things are moving along well with our house sale.  This week the inspector came, and we made an acceptable agreement with the buyers on the report, which led us to do a little window shopping for appliances at Sears ;)  Please continue to pray about the bank accepting our offer on the house in Kewaunee.     

      This week we have made a few follow up visits from the survey cards, and scheduled another deputation service in a WFBC church.  We've been hanging bulletin boards, clocks, and coat racks; and I'm ordering S.S. curriculum for the children's class.  Thursday night was the first night the classroom and nursery were ready for use, so we were able to bring our own children to Bible Study.      

     Ray and I sat down this weekend and wrote down all of the final details and loose ends that must be done by September 13th's open house.  We were suprised to see the list was so long!  (We each had our own lists, but had not yet combined them)  This week will be busy, but we are still enjoying the work of the Lord.