internet ready!

Well it has finally happened we have internet. It turns our that At&t internet was down for the entire area but now I feel like I can breath again. Hello internet friends!
Now that we are officially on the field I will more more forthcoming with information because it does not pertain to further fund raising.
Well last night we finally met all of our neighbors and we are the only ones on our street with small children but of all ten of them we have only met one Christian family. So please pray that we can continue to grow the relationships that we have started and see them all come to know Jesus or at least begin that journey.
Today was a great day. I got up and an extremely early hour to go and pray at the offices of a church here in town. The church is six years old and was planted by the current pastor who also showed up in town with a couple names and a young family. At the prayer meeting was a group of people that are involved in homeless ministry. I sat and listened, praying with them and was struck by their heart for the broken. Afterward I had coffee with the pastor and he shared their journey and the process he used for gathering people. He was very kind and encouraging and if interested in allowing us to team up with them in some of the homeless outreach that they do. I am so thankful that God has placed so many interesting people in our path.
Pray that we are able to reach people for Christ and start building our launch team!

January 2009 Rhodes Family Church Planting Update

Dear Family and Friends,

GOD DID IT! We have reached our first fundraising goal and moved to Chico. We are so excited that we are finally here. When we found out we made our first goal we immediately set out to find a place to live in Chico.

We came up for a day with a list of properties to view and a battle plan. After viewing all the properties and not feeling they would work for us, we stopped and prayed. We not only prayed for a house, but also for the people in Chico and the work God was going to do there. We grabbed some lunch then went to Peet’s Coffee to re-assess what to do next. There in Peet’s was a newspaper with a bunch of rental listings. We decided to drive by some of them and see how they looked. The first one we chose was on Holly Ave. We wanted to look at it cause it said it had a large yard and well lets face it the name sounded cute. Well to make a long story short, this 8 year old 3 bedroom 2 bath house is what we now call home. We love it!! God answered our prayer and the landlord chose us over another family looking at it as well. It is a perfect fit for us and has all the appliances we needed and is in our budget!

We have been here for a week now and are settled and starting to make connections in the community. We have met a few of our neighbors and are planning to introduce ourselves to everyone on our street. The people two doors down are a wonderful Christian couple who invited us in and have already offered to help us in any way they can. They even have a pool that they have offered to the kids during summer!! They have a church home and we don’t want to take them from that, but it is so nice to have people so close who love God!

Now that we are on the field we really need your prayers! We have a tremendous task ahead of us that we can only do with God’s guidance. We also need you to continue to be faithful in sending in your support. Our financial stability is dependent upon those that have supported us to be faithful in sending in that check every month. If you have not yet started sending us the support you have pledged please start now!

Even though we have reached our first goal the fundraising is not over. After the first year the support we get from Sunergeo decreases by half so we will continue to need the support of those around us. If you have not yet committed to support us and would like to you may do so at www.sunergeo.org/donate. If you have already pledged support to us and would like to sign up for automated debits you may also do so at www.sunergeo.org/donate. We encourage you to do this so that you don’t have to have the pressure of remembering to send a check every month.

We love you all and are so thankful for your faithful prayer and support. We would never have made it to Chico without you. Thank you for allowing God to use you in our lives. Until next time!

Blessings!

Jeremy and Elizabeth Rhodes

Email: pastor.jdr@gmail.com

Blog: http://rhodes-project.blogspot.com/

in Chico

We are in Chico officially church planting. There are more specifics to come.
I write this from a Starbucks hoping that my Internet at home will work soon so that we can get the newsletter out. Sorry for the lack of updates.
We moved here on January 17th and spent all last week unpacking.
We are now ready to rock and roll.