Luke 10:2-3 And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.”
Please forgive me for the delay in keeping you all up to speed with our progress. We are still working hard in making The Refuge and our mission known to churches, our community, and individuals throughout the state. We are excited that on the 29th of this month we will sharing our vision with Living Water Fellowship on the south side of Des Moines. The message I will be sharing will be titled “We Have The Answer”, talking specifically about the addiction dilemma and the remedy that is found in The Gospel and The Word of God. If your church is interested in having us come and share please contact us at refugewinterset@gmail.com or call us at 515-249-7134 (Ben) or 515-313-7452 (C.J.)
One thing is certain, and that is our desire for The Refuge to be a fully-functioning reality in Winterset. This desire and calling grows on a daily basis! We recently had a young man named Gerrit brought to us by a concerned friend of his. Gerrit was fighting a losing battle with methamphetamine. As I sat in The Hub (Redeemer Church office) and shared the hope that is found in Gospel of Jesus with Gerrit and saw the hopelessness in Gerrit’s eyes I was so burdened that I just wanted to take him home with me. Unfortunately, my wife might not have been on board with that given his current struggle and our already packed home. I kept thinking, “If only The Refuge was up and running”, but meanwhile we had to help this young man. We made the decision to take him to Hope Ministries and their long-term recovery program in Des Moines. We are truly grateful for the work they do there and our ongoing relationship with them. We have members and other regular attenders at Redeemer that have gone through their program and the fruit of that has impacted our church and community greatly. We are so thankful they allow us as a church the freedom to take guys there and then let us walk beside them throughout the process there. I bet you are wondering how Gerrit is doing, aren’t you? I picked Gerrit up this past Sunday so he could join us at Redeemer for worship. I had no idea what to expect, I was just relieved he was still there to be honest. He met me at the door and I barely recognized him! This guy was all cleaned up and had an intentional look in his eyes and a big grin on his face. I was thinking to myself, “Who is this guy? He looks very different than he did two weeks ago when I met him.” What happened? On April 27th, just three days prior, during a Chapel service at Hope ministries Gerrit repented of his sins and believed the glorious, life-changing message of the gospel of Jesus Christ! Standing in front of me was a brand new man (2 Corinthians 5:17), it was absolutely undeniable! All praise and glory be to God for the turn of events in his life. May God continue to grow him in his faith as he follows Jesus. Prayers for Gerrit and others like him are greatly appreciated.
I share this testimony with you to encourage you, but also to challenge you. The harvest is plentiful! Do you see this in your church and in your community? The laborers are few! The work of ministry in this area of drug/alcohol issues is not an easy work by any means. If it was everybody would be signing up to do it. It is our calling and ever-increasing desire to be those workers at The Refuge. So keep praying earnestly and considering how you might partner with us in our ministry. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Here am I; send me.” We have counted the cost and we are all in! Please help us make this happen through prayer and financial partnership!