Week Of Thanksgiving 2003

This is the second day of our week of Thanksgiving. I want to reflect now on our second year at HBF! Personally it was a much easier start. Amy and I finished 2001 with a remodel of our temporary home in Harrisonville and within the first month (on January 30th 2002 to be exact) we suffered a once in a lifetime ice storm in our newly remodeled 800 sqft. home. It was narley to say the least. After one week without power and a yard and street that looked like a war zone, we pulled ourselves together. I want to thank Bob and Sarah, Jason and Ryan for really coming to our rescue during that time of need in our life. 2003 promised be a much smoother start for us personally as we acclimated to our new home in Harrisonville and prepared for another year of blessing. It was in 2003 that we took classes with DFS in hopes that we would work with foster children and may even have opportunity to adopt. God really blessed us in November of 2003 with and opportunity to adopt a child from a teenage mother in Lubbock Texas. A special thanks to Steve Miller who cared enough to be used of God to arrange the adoption of our first child in 2004.

God continued to bless the ministry of HBF in 2003. Just as we were about to see fruit in our personal life, God was continuing to produce fruit in the ministry of HBF. We saw a large influx of wonderful transfers from churches in the community. As a church planter you never want to build your church on transfers, but in our case, God brought these fine saints to help provide the stability and maturity to build his church. By the end of 2003 our congregation had grown to around 50 members!

The spring of 2003 fired us off to a wonderful start. Jeff Barker, who was about to go to Brazil later that year to start his work in Canoes, was the key speaker of our first vision conference. God knit our hearts as we prayed about what God would do with this fresh start in Brazil. Jeff was excited about Discipleship since he had heard about it from Steve Boshen at High Street. We were fired up about the possibilities God had before Jeff as he launched out.

Later in the spring we had our and only spring men's retreat in Branson Mo. This was an incredibly fruitful meeting of our men and the ministry in Brazil. Ron Kassen drove the boat on our fishing trip, Jeff busted the Word, and Harold Hatman was deeply convicted about Jeff's invitation to have him join him in Brazil. On the way home Harold shared his burden with me and we began to pray aobut Harold joining Jeff in Canoas.

Later that year we began making plans for our first mission trip to Brazil! This was a sweet time in the ministry of HBF.

It was in 2003 that we held our first Valentine's banquet at Pearl Street Grille! Michelle did a great job (as always) and we had a good time. Our Kingdom Kids ministry was being formulated. Much of the structure for the ministry we use today was laid in those foundational years. Another special thanks goes out to Rick and Becky Johnson who allowed us to use their Betty Luken notes for the entire curriculum!

The fellowship at HBF was exceptionally sweet during 2003 as we had many opportunities to fellowship. Every Tuesday night we had dinner before Tuesday Night Bible Study. Many of the ladies of HBf worked tirelessly throughout the years to provide dinner for our growing church family.

I thank God for his incredible grace and mercy upon his people. God has done many things in which we must give thanks and praise! Please drop me a line if you have any special memories you would like to share.

Discipleship was the priority in 2003. While the planting team and and some of the fruit from the first year invested our lives in discipleship with the new members of HBF we also started our first Disciplship 2 class. Our first D2 class met in the basement of our office on Commercial Street. It was a special blessing to launch our D2 class and see the body's knowledge and maturity grow as we looked forward to what God would do in our midst.