| These are from the Spiritual Warfare series. http://www.divshare.com/download/25405582-577 |
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
J.R.'s New(er) Sermons
J.R. has been pastoring at Ridgeway Baptist Church for almost 3 1/2 years now, and some members that aren't local, friends, and family have asked for access to his sermons. Since we don't have that capability on the church website currently, I'm sharing them here. I hope you will be challenged and blessed!
In Christ,
Becky
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Long Overdue Update
I'm sorry it's been awhile since you've heard from us; it's been a busy month! My mom and dad (Randy and Cindy Hume) got to come for a visit over Labor Day weekend, and we had a great time. Emily was in 2 parades and a talent show for her dance class, so they were able to see those. We had lots of fun playing that weekend!
We began Sunday School this past Sunday morning at 9:15, and it went really well. I don't know the total number we had, but in the children's department we had about 12. The adults had somewhere around 25. Our people aren't used to things like taking roll, so that's why I don't have a good count. We also had a fantastic day in worship; we ran between 75 and 80. We also held a children's ministry volunteer training this last Sunday, an that was great! The people that were there are so excited to serve our children, and I was able to share with them the resources available to them and how to use them.
Our praise team is really coming together, so that is definitely a praise. Tonight the praise team will begin practicing on Wed. nights at the church (instead of in somebody's basement), so that will also reduce the number of nights of the week we have church activities. That will be a nice break! That also brings me to a prayer request for tonight; we begin our combined mid-week Bible study tonight. We have been having mid-week Bible study on Tuesdays, and the men and women alternated every other week. Our attendance had decreased dramatically (according to Mickie, our pastor), so we are going back to combined Bible study. We will also begin a children's program called Adventure Zone with the kids from age 2 (our son Adrian) to age 11. We are short some workers (I'm the only one as of now), so I will have all those kids together until we have some more help.
We are still working on finding land for the church to build, and we are now beginning the process of making a building campaign video. Right now we are just waiting for God to show us the place He has for us and making the most of the resources have for right now.
JR is pressing on his job, but it is a bit discouraging at times to be a salesman with so many businesses cutting back on spending and employees. He will go to a 2 week training (I think in Minnesota) the end of Oct., so we're hoping that will provide lots of ideas and encouragement. I'm still doing a little bit of tutoring and teaching piano. This week I began doing homeschool preschool with our kids, so we've had a lot of fun with that so far. Emily will also start dance classes again this Friday. That's been a great opportunity to get to know some women in our community.
Please continue to pray for our housing situation. Our landlord is moving to Los Angeles at the end of this month, and her son is planning to move into the main floor of the house (where we live) when his house sells. When it sells, we will have 60 days to move out, so that makes us feel like we are in a precarious position. We are hoping to buy a house, but the process is slower than we would like, especially since we don't know when we'll have to move. We believe that God has a perfect place for us, and we truly want to wait on His perfect timing and will.
We have had several health problems arise in our church lately, and I would like you to lift up one of those in prayer in particular. Rendi, our pastor's wife, has been experiencing frequent migraines, so she had several tests run. Tomorrow she will have a biopsy on a mass that was found, and she will also have her gall bladder removed in the near future. In the midst of all the emotional and spiritual trials here, this just adds to the stress for their family. Please pray that God gives the family peace and comfort as they go through this. Pray that new tests would come back clear. Pray that the doctors have wisdom to treat any problems found quickly and easily. Pray that this provides Rendi and Mickie opportunities to share about the greatness of God and His love for us.
I know that was a lot to share; I'll try to get out updates more frequently in the coming weeks. Thank you for your prayers! In case you haven't checked out our church website check out the "God of This City" video I made a few weeks ago; it's under Blog. It shares the vision and history of our church a bit more, and we love the song!
Praises:
*God's continuing provision
*1st Sunday School Meeting
*Great Children's Worker Meeting
*Great attendance on Sunday
*Growth of the Praise Team
Prayers:
*1st Combined Bible Study tonight
*Adventure Zone children's program
*Our housing situation
*Rendi's health problems (biopsy tomorrow)
We began Sunday School this past Sunday morning at 9:15, and it went really well. I don't know the total number we had, but in the children's department we had about 12. The adults had somewhere around 25. Our people aren't used to things like taking roll, so that's why I don't have a good count. We also had a fantastic day in worship; we ran between 75 and 80. We also held a children's ministry volunteer training this last Sunday, an that was great! The people that were there are so excited to serve our children, and I was able to share with them the resources available to them and how to use them.
Our praise team is really coming together, so that is definitely a praise. Tonight the praise team will begin practicing on Wed. nights at the church (instead of in somebody's basement), so that will also reduce the number of nights of the week we have church activities. That will be a nice break! That also brings me to a prayer request for tonight; we begin our combined mid-week Bible study tonight. We have been having mid-week Bible study on Tuesdays, and the men and women alternated every other week. Our attendance had decreased dramatically (according to Mickie, our pastor), so we are going back to combined Bible study. We will also begin a children's program called Adventure Zone with the kids from age 2 (our son Adrian) to age 11. We are short some workers (I'm the only one as of now), so I will have all those kids together until we have some more help.
We are still working on finding land for the church to build, and we are now beginning the process of making a building campaign video. Right now we are just waiting for God to show us the place He has for us and making the most of the resources have for right now.
JR is pressing on his job, but it is a bit discouraging at times to be a salesman with so many businesses cutting back on spending and employees. He will go to a 2 week training (I think in Minnesota) the end of Oct., so we're hoping that will provide lots of ideas and encouragement. I'm still doing a little bit of tutoring and teaching piano. This week I began doing homeschool preschool with our kids, so we've had a lot of fun with that so far. Emily will also start dance classes again this Friday. That's been a great opportunity to get to know some women in our community.
Please continue to pray for our housing situation. Our landlord is moving to Los Angeles at the end of this month, and her son is planning to move into the main floor of the house (where we live) when his house sells. When it sells, we will have 60 days to move out, so that makes us feel like we are in a precarious position. We are hoping to buy a house, but the process is slower than we would like, especially since we don't know when we'll have to move. We believe that God has a perfect place for us, and we truly want to wait on His perfect timing and will.
We have had several health problems arise in our church lately, and I would like you to lift up one of those in prayer in particular. Rendi, our pastor's wife, has been experiencing frequent migraines, so she had several tests run. Tomorrow she will have a biopsy on a mass that was found, and she will also have her gall bladder removed in the near future. In the midst of all the emotional and spiritual trials here, this just adds to the stress for their family. Please pray that God gives the family peace and comfort as they go through this. Pray that new tests would come back clear. Pray that the doctors have wisdom to treat any problems found quickly and easily. Pray that this provides Rendi and Mickie opportunities to share about the greatness of God and His love for us.
I know that was a lot to share; I'll try to get out updates more frequently in the coming weeks. Thank you for your prayers! In case you haven't checked out our church website check out the "God of This City" video I made a few weeks ago; it's under Blog. It shares the vision and history of our church a bit more, and we love the song!
Praises:
*God's continuing provision
*1st Sunday School Meeting
*Great Children's Worker Meeting
*Great attendance on Sunday
*Growth of the Praise Team
Prayers:
*1st Combined Bible Study tonight
*Adventure Zone children's program
*Our housing situation
*Rendi's health problems (biopsy tomorrow)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Kids' Clubs and Sports Camps
This is a bit of what happened this past week. God totaly blew us away! Again He did far beyond what we could have hoped or imagined. Thanks for all your prayers!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Updates
Okay, well we're "settled" now--if settled means things are in full swing...We're loving the gorgeous mountain views, and we find Payson to be a very pleasant town to live in. Our church is very warm and loving, and we're meeting more and more people. JR is doing well at his job, and he will be going full time in the near future. Emily started dance classes on Wed., and it was a bit hit! She very enthusiastically showed her teacher everything she already knew how to do. During one of their stretching exercises they pretended to put peanut butter and jelly on the bottoms of their feet, and she has been practicing that one all week. Adrian is talking ALL the time, and he's actually speaking pretty clearly in full sentences all the time now. Sun. the 22nd is his 2nd birthday, and we're going to visit the Salt Lake City zoo to celebrate. He loves animals, and he loves to tell you what the animals say. Bugs are his biggest obsession and fear right now. I've been doing lots of work with the church as we prepare for a mission team from Kentucky to come do Kids' Clubs and Sports Camps. They will be here one week from today, so this is kind of crunch time. JR and I are also leading worship at church, and it is quite the experience. My rusty and limited piano skills are being put to use while JR plays the guitar. Our band is growing weekly. This week we added 3 singers, and we have a drummer practicing with us. Hopefully, he'll be playing with us next week. It's amazing to me how a good drummer really fills in and keeps us on track. We do 4 songs weekly, and we will be leading at our church's Praise in the Park service on June 25. I am more than a little nervous about that one. Yeah, the music would be the thing that keeps me the busiest and stresses me the most every week. It is getting easier little by little though. I am also beginning to pick up some tutoring business (I have 3 students), and my new adventure is teaching piano. I have one very excited 10 yr. old that I'm teaching piano right now. Hopefully, I'll be kicking off my Spa business soon too, so I have a feeling things will only get busier from here. I'm still learning how to use Blogspot, but I'm going to try to post some pictures on here soon, so you'll have some images to go with the things I've told you about. Thanks for keeping up with us!
--Becky
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
We finally made it!
Thank you for all your prayers over the last couple of weeks as we made the physical journey to Utah! We arrived Fri. the 9th at about 5:00 PM, and many members of our church arrived within the hour to help unload, provide dinner, and fellowship. It was a little chaotic, but it was such a warm reception after a long, tiring 2 days of travel. The kids are doing well settling into their new house, and Emily is especially excited about the dance class she gets to start in June. Emily has already made several friends at church, and Adrian just tags along with whatever his big sister is doing. JR began his job on Mon., and he already got a 50 cent raise today. His manager at Fastenal is definitely LDS (he was discussing buying a wheat grinder for their long term supply of food that the LDS are supposed to keep), but his district manager is very turned off by the LDS church. He was very interested to hear what JR was doing. Kyle is the manager, Matt is the district manager, and Sean is the sales rep. that JR works with. I'm still settling in and unpacking boxes, and I've been battling allergies/sinus infection since Sun. Church was refreshing on Sun., but the kids will take some time to get used to it. There is no nursery/kids' classes until it is time for the sermon, so both of our kids will have to learn to sit in the service some. Emily kept asking to go to her class, and she didn't understand that she couldn't go until later in the service. There were at least 30 adults at church on Sunday and at least 20 kids. Yesterday was my first trip to the grocery store in Utah, and it felt a little eerie even though I was in a normal Walmart. It's strange to be in place and realize that you are so drastically different from the people surrounding you. Somehow you don't feel that way in the Bible Belt even though many of the people around are not Christians either. I realized that we probably stuck out like a sore thumb as non-LDS because Emily was riding in the cart carrying her little bottle of Diet Coke, and we bought coffee. We have found some incredible restaurants in Payson (great Mexican and Chinese). Tomorrow I can begin cooking at home more because they are delivering our new stove! I've made dinner in the crock pot the last 2 days, and I must admit that we didn't eat today's experiment. I decided to buy tuna instead of chicken for my concoction because it was cheaper, and we opted for Chinese because none of us wanted to eat tuna and noodles in the crock pot. I guess in the end the chicken was cheaper after all. Tomorrow I can be back to cooking the way that I know how to cook! Thank you for all your prayers!
In Christ,
Becky Hopson
Praises:
*Safe trip to Utah
*Great services at Crossings last Sunday
*New stove coming tomorrow!
*JR got a raise
Prayers:
*Becky to get well
*Emily and Adrian to continue to adjust (and JR and Becky as well)
*Matt (JR's district manager)
*Kyle (JR's manager)
*Sean (sales rep. JR works with)
*Ways for us to meet people outside of the church (esp. Becky)
In Christ,
Becky Hopson
Praises:
*Safe trip to Utah
*Great services at Crossings last Sunday
*New stove coming tomorrow!
*JR got a raise
Prayers:
*Becky to get well
*Emily and Adrian to continue to adjust (and JR and Becky as well)
*Matt (JR's district manager)
*Kyle (JR's manager)
*Sean (sales rep. JR works with)
*Ways for us to meet people outside of the church (esp. Becky)
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