General Thoughts

Hey Life Group family. It's been too long since I have provided updates, so here we go.

We have some exciting opportunities coming in the near future.

First, we have adopted a people group at the request of the IMB and our church leadership. The people group is the Iraqi Turkmen. You can find some information about them here, although I don't necessarily vouch for the accuracy of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Turkmens. I'll be looking into this people group and providing further details, but for now, what you need to know is that they are one of approximately 6,000 people groups who are unreached by the Gospel. As I was trying to learn a little more about this people group, I discovered that my brother Jeremiah is currently about 100 miles south of where this people group is centered and his squad has been operating in that area. The IMB is seeking to ensure that every unreached people group is being prayed for, so add the Iraqi Turkmen to your daily prayer list. I'll be pushing this in class as well.

Second, our class is seeking to adopt a home room at Taft Middle School down the street from the church. Here are some facts about Taft Middle School:
- 850 students, 40% Hispanic, 30% African-American, 20% Anglo
- 1 of 7 students have one or both parents incarcerated
- 1 of 4 students live with someone who is not their biological parents (grandparents, brother or sister, relative, foster care, Grace Rescue Mission)
- 1 of 3 live in a single parent household
- 71% live in a home we would consider “parentally distressed”
- One homeroom at Taft is for students who are in America for the first time. This homeroom has 22 students, with 8 foreign languages spoken in the room.

Obviously, there are some needs at Taft that we can be part of meeting. I think this will be a great opportunity for our families to develop relationships with those in need. I would like to take this task on in addition to the mission projects our Life Group families come up with. It is my understanding that NWBC will put us in touch with the home room teacher, and we will work through him or her to meet needs within the class. This could range from collecting school supplies to providing test monitoring.

I believe we'll have at least one opportunity to minister in the neighborhood of one of our Life Group families in the coming weeks. I'll provide more information on that as I receive it.

The Holder family has agreed to coordinate our Life Group's prayer ministry. We need to work out some logistics as they step into this role, but expect an email with details in it on how you can contact them with prayer requests and how they will be distributing those requests to the members of our Life Group.

We want to be sure that each of you feel connected and part of the Life Group and our church. In order to accomplish that, we've enlisted some volunteers from the Life Group to start calling you each week to find out what's going on in your lives and if there are any needs we can pray for and meet as group...so be expecting to hear from one of your fellow Life Group members in the coming days and weeks.

I hope each of you are working together as a family to put your testimony in writing. Each of you has gone through trials and tribulations that the Lord has rescued you from. I encourage you to memorialize these events, not just for use in reaching the lost, but also to encourage your future generations. Will your great-grandchildren know about what God did for you? Not if you don't record it. I would love to hear some of these testimonies in class in the coming months (I'll be asking). I want you to have a goal to be ready to use these testimonies by the Holiday Season.

Lastly, if you have any feedback regarding the class, please feel free to send it over to Jill or I. We want to know your thoughts, ideas and concerns. To be perfectly honest, Jill and I don't have time to run a Life Group by ourselves without the input, help and support of all of you. If you see a need that is being neglected, let us know.

Thanks for serving with us. I look forward to seeing you Sunday.

Josh