Pray For Oktoberfest

I'm excited about ClearView's participation in New Albany's Oktberfest festival on October 4th. This is a great family event with lots of fun things for all ages. Last year's Oktoberfest was the first event we hosted a booth at and we connected with many people. I'm hoping for even greater numbers of connections this year. Our plans are to provide inflatables, tattoos, colored hair spray, crafts, balloons and more for children at the event.

We've probably bit off a bit more than we can chew ... so I need you to pray with us that God will provide needed resources so we can touch thousands of people with Jesus' love.

• We have a contact that has volunteered to provide inflatables to us for the event. This is a great blessing... but there are some details that need to come together for this to work out. Please pray that God works out these issues.
• Pray that we find enough volunteers to help us cover the events we've promised to provide.
• Please pray that God would lead us to teammates and be a positive testimony for Jesus in our community.
  

Thanks for praying with us! For more information on Oktoberfest (or to volunteer!), click here.

Room Mom! YEAH!

I found out yesterday that I got selected (most likely, no one else applied! :) as the "Room Parent" for Seth's Kindergarten class by the PTO leadership team at Seth's elementary school. I'm sure it's a bit unusual for a man to fill this post... but I'll give it a shot. Anyone have creative party ideas?

I'm not sure I can plan a great party for Kindergartners... but I'm really excited about the opportunities this will give Trish and I to connect to other parents of children in Seth's class. When it became apparent that Seth would need to attend public school, Trish and I made a commitment to be involved. Praise God for this open door to get to know new people and be sure we know what's going on in Seth's classroom.

Would you pray that God would provide opportunities to share Jesus and find teammates for ClearView from these new contacts? Thanks!

Block Party A Success!

We praise God for a great block party this past Saturday (9/13). Blessings from God were:

• Participation. Over 70 people were there at some point throughout the evening.
• A diverse crowd. We had people from diverse ethnic backgrounds and religions. Our neighborhood is truly a melting pot and it was interesting to see people of Caucasian, African-American, Asian, Indian, and Hispanic origins mix. We also were able to connect on a deeper level with atheists, Hindus, adherents to Sufism, Mormons, Roman Catholic, Christ-followers, and irreligious people. What a joy to try to be a light for Jesus and cultivate deeper relationships with many people that don't know Jesus.
  
• Help. Several of our friends and teammates pitched in to help provide food, set-up, and clean up.
• Positive feedback. Here are comments from two neighbors:

Thank you so much for have the block party! it was great! sorry we had to leave. the twins needed a bath and go to bed! We had a really nice time!

Andy and Trish, thanks so much for hosting such a great event tonight. The kids were just worn out from their playing excursion and went right to bed without our normal 20 treks downstairs for "one more question!"...It was nice for (my husband) and I to get an opportunity to met some more neighbors too so we really appreciated it. It's great to have neighbors like both of you around.

Please praise God with us for a great turnout and successful event. Please pray with us that God would use us to lead people to Jesus in our neighborhood.

Block Party This Weekend!

We'd appreciate your prayer for the block party we're hosting this weekend. We're looking forward to hosting our neighbors and friends in our backyard for a cookout, some games, and good conversation. We hope to build on last year's success (about 50 people) and meet some new people, deepen existing relationships, and build credibility with people we see almost every day. Many of them now know of our work... so this is a great opportunity for us to show people we are real people that care about them and want to serve them with love.

Please pray that:

• many would come...
• God would be pleased with our efforts to love people in a practical way...
• relationships would be deepened...
• foundations would be laid for sharing the Gospel with those that don't know Jesus...