Glory be to God on High

See our latest news at the link below including a little about our experience at the Proclaim Gathering in Germany and some plans for 2013. You will also get this in the mail if you are on our newsletter mailing list.

Never are we more thankful for our blessings than at this time when we celebrate the coming of the Word made flesh.

                                                       SEE JENKINS JAZZ DECEMBER NEWS                                                         

God invisible appears

Endless ages wrapped in years

He has come who cannot change

And JESUS is His name 

Tax deductible donations to Proclaim! preferenced for our ministry can be made at the Donate link on the sidebar of this site.                                                  

Proclaim in Asia

Our Proclaim team has just returned from three weeks in China where they were overwhelmed with the opportunities and open doors. The amazing thing was the openness of the people -- in the market place, in restaurants, on public transportation, in schools . . . There is freedom to share your faith and people are open to hear these challenging ideas and to interact. Proclaiming can't be done in the public way that has been our main Proclaim model, but just as we have adapted our approach in other less open cultures, we are seeing many innovative ways to have an impact there.

Our whole Tuesday morning Jacksonville staff meeting last week was spent learning about the intriguing ways we can work with believers there, and hearing how things have already been set in motion on this tour -- still using the arts to teach and communicate. God is so endlessly creative! The group went with only a vague idea of what they would be doing once they arrived. But God had put together a team that was ready to connect and build bridges through their gifts and passions.

Rino, our team leader in Proclaim!-Peru, was in demand as students at a music school saw mime in action for the first time and couldn't get enough of the basics he taught them in mime and movement. John and Diana gave voice lessons non-stop. Charles, a Proclaim-Jacksonville board member with an engineering background, connected in a special way with an unbeliever who traveled with the team as a translator and is  studying in that same field. 

Plans are already developing and tentative dates are forming for various projects that are coming out of the areas of exposure on this trip. A bit ironically, at the very time we were talking about these exciting new possibilities, our fellow citizens were in the process of setting a course for our country that could have a profound impact on how we continue to do ministry. That makes it all the more exciting as we have no basis for hope on a human level of success in expanding our ministries to include something this far reaching. God's provision and opening of doors will be undeniable and miraculous.

Proclaim GO Tournament Golf Fundraiser

This week on Tuesday we are having a golf tournament fund raising event -- our first for this bunch of non-golfers. The response has been weaker than we had hoped, so we are trusting God for what he wants to do through it. We know that even in this last day before the event we could get more golfers or financial sponsors. If not, God is still at work and we rejoice in what He is going to accomplish in His way. If you have not heard about the GO TOURNAMENT here is a link with details. Would you be praying that this will be a God-honoring event.

PROCLAIM GO TOURNAMENT

Sound, Silence, Heat and Treat

Kim, Todd and Jim have been regularly frequenting the park at nearby San Marco on Friday evenings to play and share truth with people out enjoying the milder fall weather.

 Last weekend Rino was here from Peru so he added interest with his mime act to the music.

They have recently been able to share the stage with a group of fire performers headed up by a professor at the local state college. The guys play for about an hour and then do some background music for the transition into the fire act when it gets darker. 

We have started to develop relationships with some of the regulars to the park and with some shop keepers on the square and have had some good conversations.

Earlier in the week a church event - TRUNK OR TREAT - was the setting for some tunes like The Munsters, Star Trek, Alfred Hitchcock Theme, Purple People Eater,Candy, and Candy Man. 

Cars lined up in the parking lot and treats and tracts  were handed out from the trunk to local trick-or-treaters. It was another opportunity to reach out to people from the surrounding neighborhoods.

 

Powering Up then Heading Out

We're going into an exciting and crazy busy week as July flies into August. Sunday night kicked off an annual week-long event that we get to be involved in this year. Power Up Clubs, led by teens in our church, meet in front yards of host homes all over the city. There are 78 clubs that meet either in the morning or 1 of 2 evening slots each day. So each team of young people puts on 3 clubs a day. They "camp out" at the church and have a full schedule of preparing and leading the clubs, then ending the day with a late evening worship time together.

As our part, we are helping host the club that meets at the church -- serving 2 large neighboring apartment complexes. Then Jim is in the band for evening worship sessions. The evening clubs started Sunday night and it was a wet start. The clubs that meet at 5:00 (including  ours) were timed perfectly to get drenched by about a 45-minute deluge! Water day was planned for mid-week, but God has his own event schedule. On Friday evening there will be a big Power Surge final event to further connect with families from the week. Please pray with us that this week many children and their parents will be introduced to the Savior! 

This week is also the first introduction of Patty (see more about Patty in the previous post), our newest Proclaim member, to the office. We are looking forward to distributing office responsibilities to best use all our gifts and strengths. I am in the office as much as possible this week to work with Patty and to finish up some projects since we will be leaving Saturday to head north. On that trip we will spend time with family and stop to visit friends and supporters along the way.

Jami will not travel with us this time as she is in training at her new job at Chick-Fil-A. She is enjoying it, doing well, and learning a lot. This job is a provision from God -- thanks to all who prayed for her through the long search!




(Trying to wake up for an early morning shift)

It's All Coming Together

Thanks for the prayers for our office transition after the seeming disaster with the lightening strike. It has all been pretty challenging, but not nearly as overwhelming as we had anticipated. All the upgrades have been made and new equipment in place, and I am quickly getting past the point where multiple times a day I have to Google what I'm trying to do in Office 2010. 

It was a big victory this past week when we made the decision to finalized the purchase of donor software we had been testing for about 3 weeks. This is a move we have needed to make for at least 6 years! Thanks to God's timing all this has been happening while the Smalleys are back in Jacksonville. Todd amazes us with his ability to make sense out of all this and make everything work like it's supposed to, making all these transitions more painless than we could have hoped. And even when there were frustrating times, I think all of us felt a peace and confidence that God was in control. I have no doubt that prayer carried us through.

So we are back in business just in time to welcome a new office staff member -- an extraordinary blessing and answer to prayer!  Patty and her husband John have been long time supporters and friends of Proclaim in our church in Jacksonville. Most importantly, Patty and John both have a heart for missions and a love for Proclaim. But on top of that Patty has had 12 years experience in administration with another mission organization that uniquely qualify her to meet a growing need within Proclaim as we have recently added several new or reappointed members. This is a lavish provision of God, beyond my most faith-filled prayers! Can you tell I'm excited?

Once again -- God has shown how pointless it is to fear and worry ahead of time about his provision and his enabling. I think he might have mentioned that a couple times . . . 

Kathie

Blessing in Disguise

We are still dealing with the results of one lightening strike! It wasn't even in one of the hurricanes -- just a normal Florida storm. A direct hit to the business where the Proclaim office is took out everything in the building that was connected to the internet or a phone line. That meant several days of scoping out the extent of the damage and then making replacement decisions. The bright side is that it prompted a lot of long overdue upgrades in both hardware and software. The biggest blessing and challenge is a complete change in our donation software. A huge undertaking to select the best program and transfer all the data, but a huge blessing to have a system that will better accommodate the growth that Proclaim is experiencing. We are still in the middle of this transition. 

Proclaim has just finished a tour in Croatia and Bosnia where our newest band Soul Tattoo was well received. See more about the band:  http://www.proclaiminternational.com/bok-hrvatska/

One member of the team is a young lady who was a guest at the Gala in April and was really excited about getting involved in Proclaim's ministry. Destiny immediately put in her application and in less than 2 months was on her first Proclaim tour! She loved Croatia and the tour experience, and even changed her return plans at the end of the tour so she could stay an extra week to help with an English language camp there. We're blessed to see such a quick response on one of our major goals for the Gala events!


Tour photos by Maasej & Haidy

Keeping Tuned In and Tuned Up

I remember those old TV sets we had when we were kids. It seemed my dad was always fiddling with those knobs in the back to adjust the vertical and horizontal hold for the picture.  When everything was just right I could actually see what was going on with the Lone Ranger! Without it I could only hear the music and the gunshots and had to guess what kind of adventure the Lone Ranger and Tonto were getting into.

Recently, Kathie and I started going to a chiropractor.  No major complaints -- we just knew some things were “out of whack." We learned that the body is an amazing creation and that when everything lines up vertically (spine and head) and horizontally (shoulders and hips) it can heal itself of many of the aches and pains of daily life. So, the doctor is helping to train our bodies to line up the horizontal and vertical hold.

God designed us to also have the proper spiritual relationship of the vertical and the horizontal in our lives.  When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is, he answered:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, love your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10:27)

In this compact answer is a deep well of wisdom concerning our relationship with God, ourselves and others.

For the next two weeks I am in Pennsylvania receiving training in how to help us in our Proclaim Community keep our relational horizontal and vertical holds in good adjustment. Pray with me that I would be open to anything the Lord cares to show me in this process.


Jim

Ministry Starts Here

We are all about evangelism in Proclaim. We put incredible amounts of time and effort into planning and leading overseas tours completely focused on that goal with all our energy and passion. Our Los Vecinos team has just finished such a tour in Belarus where every event and activity has been planned to maximize opportunities for the gospel.

But what about times when we are not involved in an organized tour. One of the concerns that we have felt is the importance of keeping this priority in focus all the time, in our individual encounters with people and in planned events. During the past year Kim Peterson has headed up regular excursions where Proclaim musicians and even others from our local Christian community can take it to the streets nearby -- playing music and engaging people in conversation. Lately St. Augustine has been the target area. Pray that we will keep finding creative ways to reach people locally.

PROCLAIM! GALA  Another big focus for us right now is planning our April fund raising Gala. This year we are especially praying that God will bring people who have a passion for missions and will catch the vision for partnering with Proclaim in significant ways. We need to have a strong Jacksonville ministry base to provide resources for all that God is doing through Proclaim internationally. We are praying for people who through their partnership will fuel the fire and fan the flame! 

OUR PART  As we're working on addressing the needs in Proclaim, we are not forgetting our own support shortage. In fact, getting our personal support more stable through monthly donors or special gifts would have a positive effect on Proclaim overall. You can help with donations for our ministry through the DONATE link on the right sidebar. Contact us if you would like to find out more about Proclaim or our part in the ministry.

FAMILY  

Jami just celebrated a big birthday. A milestone for all of us! She is busy finishing up a writing project between her church commitments, part-time care giving, and still looking for full-time work. 

Jim has had a lot of playing opportunities -- men's retreat and Sundays at church, street evangelism, in addition to several private events. He has an interesting opportunity next month coordinating music and playing for a wedding where the bride and groom have definite evangelistic goals for the event. 

Kathie's role of coordination and communication in the Proclaim office is challenging and fun as we are adding new members to Proclaim and gearing up for the coming tours this year. A recent project has been helping develop the new website which is up now. See it at www.proclaiminternational.com