Wonderful Day

Sunday was another awesome day at JRA – in fact sometimes it’s hard to wrap your mind around all God is doing. So if you have a minute here is a summary of some of the incredible things that are happening!

So far in July we have had 81 people come forward to receive Christ on Sundays @ JRA.
At the first of 4 Jamesriverkids camps we had: 163 campers, 76 staff, 56 decisions for Christ, and 19 baptized in the Spirit.
Sunday, nearly 300 people signed up to participate in Project Partnership. On August 8, hundreds of JRA volunteers will be working on two elementary schools (Sherwood Elementary in west Springfield and Republic 3 Elementary in Republic). Each year for the past 11 years, JRA volunteers have made a huge impact on the community by painting, landscaping, building cabinets and doing general maintenance on area schools.
Cherish Kids is a ministry that was launched this year to raise awareness of the need for Christian families to consider adoption or foster care. In response to Sunday’s message from James 1:27, 70 families filled out cards expressing interest in participating foster care and adoption with an additional 33 families indicating interest in offering support to those families. Here are a few excerpts from some of the emails we have received:

“May God bless the efforts! Ron and I have seen miracles from our adoption of Annya 6 years ago. It was like he drew us together and paved the way through the whole adoption process. It is not easy but it is a reward like no other. Annya is going to church camp next week, she loves the Lord and 6 years ago she had never had a visitor or been considered for adoption by anyone but us.”

“I was so touched by the sermon. We already have filled out our paperwork for foster care and are scheduled to start the classes soon. We are very excited by what God is going to do through us and the church. I am praying that adoption is in our near future!”

“Thanks for a wonderful message today! This week is our last foster care class and we will soon have 3 little kiddos, hopefully a sibling group, in our family! We have 2 boys ages 6 and 8 of our own, so this is an exciting and scary adventure for all of us. I didn’t know why my 8 year old wanted to come with me to service today, but now I understand! What a God thing!! It was just what he needed to hear. “

“Loved the message. So life changing for my family and I. Kids have always been in my heart but I thought our own 2 were it for my husband but not after today. I have never seen him like this before. We are going to start out as foster parents and see where the Lord leads us from there.”

It’s pretty amazing – the church is being the church – engaging society – encouraging people – changing history. We’re excited about all of it and we know the best is yet to come!