MESSAGE. “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life–not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace”. 2 Timothy 1:7-8
A house without power has no light and no heat. It may look like a nice house, but it’s dark and cold during winter. Apostle Paul compares us to a spiritual building. We are called by our Divine Architect to work with Him on building a strong house full of light. Examine your life and see if you are connected to the Source of Power. His power never goes out. There are no blackouts if we subscribe to His service.
Tomorrow morning in my homily we’ll study the meaning and the importance of the POWER building block.
MINISTRY.
On Wednesday night OAKS building committee met to review the progress of the school “Building Hope” project. This is an important stage in defining the scope of work and gathering bids. The project includes a new roof covering, and AC unit upgrades. There are fifteen or so units located on the roof. The roof repairs requires taking down all the units, replacing the old ones, building platforms on the roof to support the compressors and installing them back on the new roof. Big project, but we all agreed that it needed to be done. The work needs to be done while the students are on summer break. As of today we are at $140,000 in our goal to raise $185,000. There is nothing impossible for the Lord and His church. Thank you, church for your prayers and your financial contributions.
SALT. This year our church partnered with SALT for our local evangelism needs. Douglas Na’a is the SALT director. Tomorrow morning I’ll introduce Douglass and he in turn will introduce his team members. Below are their photos. Jefferd, Tui, Noah and Evelyn are SALT bible mentors that will be door knocking in the Ooltewah area. They have experience in giving people bible studies. Their goal is to get church members trained and excited about evangelism. Please pray for them and welcome them when you see them in church. If you would like to help and volunteer some of your time to go out with them please let them know.
STEWARDSHIP – “Not only did God create everything; God owns everything (cf. Job 41:11; 1 Tim. 4:3-5). This is the beginning of all biblical stewardship principles. Your life is on loan from God. He has given you your life to steward for his glory and your good. As the owner of everything, God desires for all things to be redeemed (Col. 1:20), including people, governments, businesses, and the arts.
Said another way: God desires for everything to bring him glory (1 Cor. 10:31).”
https://get.tithe.ly/blog/stewardship-bible
Light of Hope. Good news! Jaime Jorge’s Russian “religious” category visa has been approved and issued. Thank you for your prayers. This will be my last Sabbath before the trip. I’m flying out on Tuesday afternoon from Atlanta. Many of you have already picked a city you’ll be praying about. If you have not done it yet I invite you to be a part of this exciting missionary journey. If you let me know what city you picked I’ll be sending you updates and photos from that city on the date when we are there. Please, forgive my team for an error with the dates in the Russian part of our itinerary. Here is how it goes:
February 28 we cross the Russian border at about midnight.
March 1 – Belgorod
March 2 – Moscow, morning and evening
March 3 – Saint Petersburg
March 4 – Kaliningrad
March 6 – Ooltewah 🙂
Here is a link to the corrected newsletter with the full schedule:
https://www.lightofhopetv.com/single-post/2019/02/11/10-Cities-Event
PRAYERS. We continue our prayers for Mike Haughee. Mike’s faith and courage impresses me everytime I see him. This week once again he offered to join me on my pastoral visitations. He is visiting our church members between his radiation and chemo therapy sessions. Let the Lord bless you and heal you, Mike!
Richard Dahlberg is still at Ooltewah LifeCare Center. Adel and Ruchard need our daily prayers.
See you in the morning. Happy Sabbath.
Peter
Here is an update on the Youth Ministry sent by pastor Matthew: “On the last Friday night of January, several of our teens and youth leaders gathered at Pastor Peter’s house for the first youth Vespers of the year. We had a good time singing, sharing stories of where we saw Jesus that week, and listening to Pastor Peter encourage us to stand out as Christians in the world. Youth Vespers will be a recurring event every fourth Friday night of the month. Teens, we hope to see you at the next Vespers on February 22, 7-9 p.m.
Ooltewah Seventh-day Adventist Church 