Abundantly More ...

God is so cool.  I love how He is continuing to bring together the plans He has in store for Connection Church. Here are some things that have been going on lately.

As many of you know, we've been in the process of renovating an old workout gym into a church. 

There have been hours and hours of sweat equity put into this place.  We've ripped up carpet (not as easy as it sounds), took out a sauna, painted the whole place, enlarged a bathroom, built a classroom for nursery space, built a stage, retextured walls, run wiring for sound equipment, dug up rocks in the flower beds (I'm proud to say that my two kiddos did that all by themselves!), assembled 135 chairs, etc., etc., etc.  The list could go on and on.  We've had lots of help from volunteers.  God bless them -- especially the carpet pullers! 

 It has been much more work than we first anticipated (aren't renovation projects always like that), but we are mostly done. 

Done enough that we could use our building for the first time on Sunday!  It was exciting! 

Here's another cool thing about our new space.  We have been told that this summer, Spearfish's Main Street is going to become a construction zone.  Traffic will be diverted to 5th Street.  What is Connection Church's address you ask?  738 5th Street!  Boo for construction zone on the main thoroughfare.  Yippee for all of Spearfish being diverted right past our new space!  Coincidence you say?  I think not.  My vote is that 738 5th Street was God's plan for where we should meet!  Amazing! 

Another cool thing that has happened is that our dear friends (adopted family), Mike and Mary Gandy from Pampa, Texas have moved here for the summer.  I am still stunned and in amazement that the Gandy's would uproot their world to join us in planting Connection Church this summer.  God is so faithful to send us two more sets of hands to help with the work and two more people to spread the word of Connection Church and what God is doing in Spearfish. We are so, so, so very grateful for the Gandy's and their willingness to come and help us.  We're also thankful for cotton candy machines which serve as an extra incentive in getting Mary here!  (Giggle)  They moved into their "summer home" April 1st and will be with us through early September.  AMAZING!  I hope that the Gandy's receive huge blessings for the sacrifice of the time they are giving to help us this summer!  I know that we are already blessed to know them and expect great thing to happen this summer as a result of them joining us here!

We are expecting two more volunteers to head this way the 1st of May and the end of May.  A new friend, Wynona Bradley will be coming to volunteer her time this summer as well.  I look forward to meeting her and am so grateful for her willingness to come serve in Spearfish and for her help in keeping up with our database of contact information from our block parties.  She has NO idea the load that takes off of me and I am very thankful for her.  I just hope she is able to handle the craziness of knowing the Hixson's!  Also, a young lady from our last church, Brienne Moyer, will be joining us for the summer as well.  Brienne is a very hard working young lady and we look forward to seeing her again and watching her grow as a leader as she takes on leadership roles for us this summer.  She is a sweet young lady and we're thankful for her willingness to serve Jesus this summer.  Not many teenagers are willing to give up their summers. 

So, we stand back in awe of all that God is doing.  We feel like He has big things in store for Connection Church.  We are along for the ride and expect it to be the ride of our lives!  Sunday was confirmation that we are on the right track.  I was having a conversation with a lady who visited us for the first time.  Let me set the scene for you here.  We are doing Bible study only right now - no music, no frills, no nothing, but the Bible and Doug teaching what God has laid on his heart.  This lady said to me, "This is amazing.  Just what I've been looking for.  I'm so excited to have been invited to come to church with my friend." I said to her, "Good.  We hope you felt welcome and will come back again."  She said, "Oh, I'll be back!"  She then took a good sized stack of our invite cards and said, "I can't wait to pass these out and invite my friends!"  Amazing! 

We are just weeks away from our first preview service where we'll add music to our Bible Study and begin to look like "real church"!   So, we continue to work, continue to meet new people, continue to build relationships, continue to tell people the story of why we're here, continue to share our faith, continue to provide a place of grace for messed up people.  After all, we're all messed up.  I know Jesus gives out grace to this messed up girl daily!  God is so faithful!  We look forward to all He has planned for Connection Church and for Spearfish.  Our prayer is that we make a difference for the kingdom in this city.  This scripture regularly comes to mind, Ephesians 3:20, "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations (in Spearfish, SD), forever and ever."  Let it be Jesus!