Week of Thanksgiving 2004

2004 was a great year for us personally. We had the fortune of adopting our Son Samuel. It was an awesome thing for us to adopt Samuel! It was all so rushed that the nursery wasn't even ready when we left. By the grace of God a team from HBF cleaned, painted and set up Samuel's nursery while we were in Lubbock working through the adoption paperwork. Missouri was slow to approve our paperwork but they finally allowed us to come home with our bundle of joy after waiting two weeks. I can't express enough gratitude to everyone who helped us both here and abroad. Steve Miller went over and above the call in working to see this came to pass. He is the man!

The church continued to grow in 2004. The Brazil trip we planned to take to help Jeff establish his church and two others was executed in 2004. We had a great time in Brazil. Harold really was convinced of his call during that journey. He returned home and began preparing his family in earnest to return to Brazil as missionaries of HBF. It would be June of 2006 before God actually placed Harold, Tammy and Chase in the field. God was so gracious with us!

It was also in 2004 that the Lord blessed us with the ability to pay off the balance of the 20 acres we now have our church building on. A special praise and thanks to God for Art Harris the former owner of our church property. He was a joy to work with.

It was in 2004 that the facilities team was formed. Walt Cundiff graciously took the chair of this team and off we went planning the future home of HBF. The facilities team consisted of Walt Cundiff, Chriss Lemler, Bob Bohlken, JR Hatman, Chris Chiodini and myself. These men were a joy to work with and they obviously did a great job. By the grace of God we were able to stay focused on the Word of God and the souls of men through the entire process and HBF was not distracted from our primary responsibility to build the body of Christ.

Speaking of body building. The first class of D2 graduated and celebration was held at our home the spring of 2004! We were averaging 92 members on paper and about 70 in attendance. The pattern of doubling every two years has held from our inception. Today our membership on paper is over 300 but our attendance with children is in the mid to upper 200's. Run the numbers and you will see that God doubles our size every two years.

There were a number of key events in 2004 to praise God for:

2004 Vision conference was preached by missionary Randy Foster of Zambia and Gene Purtle of Keys are at the Cross Prison ministry.

The church property was paid in full.

HBF was privileged to participate in the Billy Graham crusade at arrowhead Stadium. It was an excellent time for our church family as we ministered in this historic outreach.

Our second Discipleship 2 class began September 2, 2004!

In November of 2004 we took our first level three missions trip to Brazil to train three pastors and their churches the philosophy of discipleship.

2004 marked a significant transition in our ministry. I began training disciples at a level beyond level three. That year I completed Discipleship one with a special young man named Jamie Davis! What a joy it is to pour our lives into those God entrusts to our care.