Let the Games Begin!

On September 22, 2007, Philip Glassmeyer was ordained by Pacific Presbytery and commissioned to begin the church planting work in North Las Vegas! The week leading up to Philip's ordination was so encouraging. Many of the donor's we had been speaking with began to crystalize their financial commitments to this work! After a very conservative estimate, we find ourselves over $400,000 towards our overall goal of needing to raise $680,000 over a period of three years! What a great confirmation from the Lord!! We were on cloud nine through the weekend and then Monday came and the enemy sought to take away our joy. Both of Philip's vehicles were broken into and items were taken. We discovered a bump on Caleb's bottom that turned out to be a staph infection that normally requires hospitalization. My computer got sick (caught a virus) and I was not able to update you all for the past several weeks as a result (its amazing how much we depend on technology rather than God). And the list goes on and on...But our Lord met us during our time of need. This doesn't mean that everything was resolved, but we all sensed the peace and loving protection of our great God. Momentum is building here and it is so great to be a part of it! On October 7, 2007, we participated in an installation service to officially begin the work of church planting in North Las Vegas. So here we stand, having begun the work of church planting. Will you pray for some things specifically: 1) that Caleb's staph infection clears up...it looks really good to us and he will see the doctor on Thursday; 2) that we would find housing in North Las Vegas that we can afford; 3) that the Lord would bless my ordination preparation that will take place Jan. 22nd; 4) that we would love one another better as a family; 5) that we would finish the work of fundraising so we can concentrate solely on the work of church planting; 6) pray for the Lord to bring people we develop relationships with out of darkness into light; 7) that we would make progress in all the matters that go into transitions...car and health insurance, DMV, etc; 8) that we would know the love of God and learn to be faithful during the difficult times...and even joyful. We have a lot of things we would like to praise the Lord for...1) YOU- those that have given financially, praying for us, hoping the best for us...you have been a real blessing; 2) we like living here...even in the midst of obvious sin...this place has a lot to offer; 3) our relationship with the one PCA church (Spring Meadows) in the west part of town...meeting with Pastor Posey and being a part of their community has been such a joy and great learning experience; 4) that we are doing well financially; 5) that Micah loves the school he attends; 5) that we are not alone, but have the Glassmeyer's who are quickly becoming great friends; 6) that Annette and I got to go on a date last weekend; 7) that we are staying in the condo that has been provided by one of our donor's free of charge; 8) and that Jesus loves this city more than we do! Rejoice with us and we will update you again soon...now that the computer has been repaired!

We thought that using some new technology we recently acquired would give you a more enhanced view of our experience. This is our first try at it, so please be gracious! The video clip is me coming into Las Vegas after my drive from St. Louis. Before then, this is what happened. Annette, our four kids, and Angie Glassmeyer got onto an airplane in St. Louis last Friday. It was a little stressful getting them on the airplane, and then Annette's worst fear (and mine) was imagined. After getting settled onto the airplane, a terrible storm swept across St. Louis. The plane lost power and sat on the runway for an hour and a half (with everybody still on board)! Not a good way to start a potentially stressful trip. By God's grace, they reached Las Vegas and settled into the condo where we are staying until Sept. 3rd (and hopefully longer depending on negotiations that are taking place). The condo provides us with a place to stay that is rent/utility free and is a tremendous provision from the Lord. Getting back to the road trip, while the family was flying, I loaded up our van (in the midst of that terrible storm). First the wind storm came that blew around dirt like a really bad sandstorm. Then the rain came a tumbling down! It was like somebody didn't want us leaving to go to Las Vegas (Hmmmm). Thankfully, with the help of two friends, the van was loaded up before it got too bad. Then I jumped in the van and began the official "Trip to Las Vegas Tour 2007". I video taped my trip at various places across the country. I left Friday afternoon (around 3:30 pm) and arrived safely in Las Vegas Saturday evening (around 11:00 pm). If you want to see a video of my road trip, I could send you a CD in the mail. It is sort of funny, in a quirky type of way. It was so good to reunite with the family and begin to get settled into our temporary home. We enrolled Micah in a Christian School and he began classes yesterday. So here we are, finally in Las Vegas, excited to be here, a little tired, and thankful to the Lord for a relatively smooth transition. Before we left last Friday, we were notified that we received approximately $40,000 in pledges for the week. This was really encouraging to hear as we were leaving St. Louis (home for the past three years) and going to make a new home in the Southwest. Please continue to pray for our transition, fundraising, sale of my parents home (they had two lookers in the past week) and their health, that we could stay in the condo for the next couple of months, Micah would feel adjusted to his new school, productive study for ordination exams, and provision for our living expenses during the month of September. Please especially pray for Caleb's eye (his tear duct appears to be clogged). Thank you so much for praying and caring for us! Let us know what you think of the video as well! I was filming this at about 80 mph, so the next one will be a lot better! Stay tuned!!

We are headed to Vegas!

The Lord answered many prayers this week! Caleb our new baby boy is doing great! He is doing so great we have decided to make our transition to Las Vegas! We were scheduled to be out of our current home this coming Friday as the family is returning from their summer internship. Annette, our four children, and Angie Glassmeyer (the wife of Philip, the lead church planter of this work) will be flying out around 2:30 pm this coming Friday. We are amazed how the Lord worked out these details and provided a seemingly smooth living transition. Please be praying for all the aspects of this trip. Pray that it would be a lot of fun for everybody and that Caleb would be protected from any germs and sickness. We are so thankful that Angie agreed to help Annette! Praise the Lord for her love for her and our family. As I was talking with a particular donor about our travel arrangements, he offered to pay for all six tickets! Praise the Lord with us for this provision and this donor's love and care for our family. Getting tickets three days before a flight can be expensive, but praise the Lord that we found really good prices! We are so excited to finally get to Vegas! I will be driving our van to Vegas after I drop the family off at the airport on Friday. It is around a 23 hour car ride, so please pray for my safety and no break downs. I want to get to Vegas as legally fast as possible to be with Annette and the kids. A fully funished and equipped condo has been provided for us by a donor as well. We will be able to stay there for at least the next couple of weeks and possibly the next couple of months. All of the expenses including rent, utilities, and ammenities have been provided for as well. This is such a blessing for many reasons. It will allow us to focus on fundraising without having as great a financial burden. We will also be able to keep our belongings in storage and not have to move them more than once. Praise the Lord with us for this gracious provision! Please pray that the details would be worked out that we could stay there for the next several months. Would you please pray for us to make good decisions regarding temporary health care as well? Please pray for my teammate Philip, who is taking his final two ordination test as we speak and will stand for ordination on Sept. 22nd. This is a key undertaking for our work to proceed, so please pray for a successful ordination examination for him. Please also continue to pray for our fundraising. We are happy to report that we have crossed the $100,000 mark in pledges. We only have six more of them to go (our total goal is around $700,000). If you are still thinking and praying through this, I thought this update might be helpful. We have a few key churches that are meeting this week. Please pray for them to decide to support this work in Las Vegas. Thank you so much for your care and love for us by your praying regularly. The next time you get an update from us, we will hopefully be in Las Vegas! Rejoice with us!!

Rejoice with Us!

Many of you all have heard by now that Caleb was born August 15th at 2:50 am! He was 7lbs. 3 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long. We are so happy and thankful to the Lord for such a remarkable labor and delivery. Annette literary did not have to push for Caleb to come out. It was one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen. The dude was cooperative. Thank you for all your prayers! Caleb was having some breathing difficulties and I wanted to update you specifically on these concerns. Apparently, the doctors believe that because Annette didn't have to push, Caleb had more amniotic fluid in his lungs than normal (I guess when the momma pushes, this helps the baby to lose fluid in their lungs). So it took a little extra while for the fluid to come out of Caleb lungs. He is now "fluid free" and breathing like a champ! We are so thankful that it wasn't anything more complicated and rejoiced at the news that both Annette and Caleb will be released from the hospital tomorrow! I put some pictures up on this blog (scroll down), so please rejoice with us of the birth of Caleb (we haven't decided on the middle name yet) Phillips, child of the covenant!

New Addition Coming Soon!

No, this isn't our new baby. This is Joshua after he was born. But I thought I would get the blog ready with baby pictures, because that is what you can expect after Tuesday, August 14, 2007. Annette will be induced tomorrow! We will make sure to put up some pictures for you to view of our new baby. Please pray for a safe (and quick) delivery for both mommy and baby. We are excited to welcome our fourth addition to our family! So stay tuned! Now for a quick update on everything else. We are hoping to make a smooth (whatever that word means) transition to Las Vegas in the next two weeks. The home where we are staying will be re-occupied by its owner on August 25th, so we need to be out on the 24th. Please pray for housing to open up in Las Vegas so we do not have to make an extra transition to another dwelling. Micah is scheduled to begin school on August 27th, so if our housing opened up at that time that would work out really great. We grow more and more excited to land in Las Vegas! On the fundraising front, things seem to be going slow with pledge cards coming in as of late. That is the nature of summer though, so we are still encouraged. We have almost broken the $100,000 barrier in pledges, and this is extremely encouraging! We have a lot of people and churches making decisions in late August and September, so please be praying that the Lord would move in their hearts to join this mission to North Las Vegas. My parents are hanging in there and still have their home on the market to be sold. Housing market is not good for that right now, so please pray for their house to sell in the right time. For a few good reasons, I have elected to put off going through ordination until January of next year. I will be coming under care of Pacific Presbytery at their next meeting in September (they asked me to do this first then go through ordination at the next scheduled meeting in January). This works out a lot better for me and our family. With all the transition going on, I found it difficult to effectively study anyway. This slight delay in the ordination process has yielded some great family time at a local waterpark (its been really hot in St. Louis). This has helped both the kids and Annette tremendously! So here we stand, asking the Lord to provide a healthy and safe delivery and baby, depending upon the Lord to open up a place for us to live in Las Vegas, trusting him to provide for our financial needs, hoping that he will work out all the details with my folks, and asking him to help me study for ordination exams. We are also joyful that he has blessed us with another child, thankful that he seems to be working to open up a home for us free from financial burdens for the next four or so months, trusting his promises to provide everything we need according to his glorious riches, confident that he will work out all the details with my folks at the right time, and glad he has been preparing me well for these ordination trials for the past three years. We would not want to be in any other place! Please join us in praying, because that has been the cause of our faith sustaining during this time of transition. Prayer makes the difference!

Frog Hopper?

Fundraising is like being on the Frog Hopper (the amusement park ride you see in the picture). This particular thrill ride goes up and down at any moment. It leaves feelings in your stomach that you would not normally experience. You cannot even tell if they are good or bad...they just are. That is how this last week has been for us, like being on the Frog Hopper. One minute we have an overwhelming sense of insecurity, the other minute an unbelievable sense of thrill. I have been reading through the first five books of the bible, and have been considering the exodus of the people of God out of the land of Egypt where they were slaves. The LORD brought them out of Egypt after displaying his power to Pharaoh via the plagues. Then in a great display of the LORD's power through the parting of a sea, the people of God must have been absolutely thrilled. Then as they travelled through the desert day after day, month after month, year after year, there was an overwhelming sense of insecurity. They began to complain and actually considered that it might be better for them to return to their slavery than trust in their LORD who had delivered them. I relate all to well with these people. We have seen the LORD do some pretty amazing things over the past two months, and even so I find myself at times wondering if it would be better to return back to the things that I have found myself enslaved too in the past (things like control, security, pride, and many others). Why would I do that? Because I am weak, sinful, and lack faith. The LORD is the only one that can love me the way I need to be loved. I am convinced of that and need not look any further than the time Jesus entered the desert. After being baptized by John, Jesus entered the desert and fasted for 40 days. Then he was tempted by the devil but resisted as he clinged to the law that brought him freedom to express his true humanity. Insecurity is a powerful feeling that should drive us to cling to the one true God, not embrace false gods that bring bondage. Would you pray for us? Pray that as we ride the Frog Hopper of life, that we would do it like our kids did in the picture. Happy, thrilled, joyful, at peace, and wanting to do it more! You could also pray for those things I listed last week as well (fundraising needs, safe delivery for mom and baby, parents health and the selling of their home at the perfect time, and fruitful study for ordination exams).

Prayer!

We need it! We are coming upon the first critical time in this beginning ministry. We have traveled to visit many people whom we have been praying will commit to partner with us in the Lord's work in North Las Vegas. Each of these people have received a newsletter and pledge card from us asking for their partnership. We are optimistic that the next couple of weeks will really help us to have a sense of where we really are in our fundraising efforts. So we have been praying! Now please realize that during this time, life does not stop. I had to take Annette to the hospital last week because she was having some pretty painful contractions that lasted for four or five hours. Thankfully, they subsided and have not returned to that frequency or degree of pain. She will be 36 weeks pregnant tomorrow (Tuesday). Please pray for her and for the baby to hold on until late in the 37 week or early 38 week. The reason for this prayer is that we have to move out of our apartment we have been subleasing at Covenant Seminary on August 24th, and having the baby early would work out really well in us transitioning to Las Vegas. Be praying for a healthy baby and quick recover as well. You can also pray that the condo in Las Vegas (many of you have heard this story, if not I would love to tell you about it) would get nailed down soon. The owner is trying to come up with a creative way to make this work so that we will not have to pay for any housing expenses (including rent and utilities) and making it a slightly larger living arrangement than we first expected. Pray for this to solidify for our peace of mind and smooth transition. We also have been thinking through schooling for Micah (who will be in first grade). We are searching for a Christian School for him. Pray that we would find one that would serve him well and that the Lord would provide to cover this expense. As many of you know, my parents (Tom and Treva) will be moving with us to Las Vegas. Please pray that the Lord would sustain their health and that they would sell their home at the perfect time to accommodate a transition to Vegas. I have also been studying for ordination exams in the midst of this craziness. Please pray that the Lord would bless my studies and that I would be prepared to take the written tests that are due by the end of August and then the oral exams September 22nd. Lastly, pray that people would become partners with us in this ministry in North Las Vegas by completing a MNA pledge card and committing to support us through their prayer and/or finances. This would be so encouraging to us! Thank you for praying! As there is a lot going on with the ministry, pregnancy, and transition, I was particularly grateful this past week to be affirmed of God's love for me. Nobody/thing can love me like he can and does. I would encourage you to think about this truth: God is love, and he loves you. God has expressed this love in 66 books contained in the Old and New Testaments. May we all know the love of God in a more significant way this week and turn away from those things that fall so short of the Lord's steadfast love for his people! I will be praying the same thing for you.

Lessons Learned After Five Weeks of Fundraising Travel

The last two months have gone by so quickly! It is hard to believe we are nearing the end of July already! After graduating in May, we loaded up all of our belongings (after Eric went back to Maryland and Pennsylvania to gather some belongings that our folks had been storing) into an ABF tractor trailer to be transported to storage in Las Vegas. Not only did we fit our stuff in this packed tractor trailer, but also the Glassmeyer's belongings as well. It was so heavy that the trailer made a dent in the concrete pavement! We have officially left our mark at Covenant Seminary (literally)! After this exhausting event, we headed for Maryland where Annette and the kids "set up shop" at her dad's in Laurel, Maryland (a great central location to many of the places we wanted to visit). Meanwhile, Eric travelled to Memphis, TN, to attend General Assembly and then Cape Coral, FL, where Eric served as Pastoral Intern last summer. We quickly realized that our expectations of fundraising were radically changed. We thought our role in fundraising would be to accurately communicate the vision of North Las Vegas to people with the hope they would become excited enough to actually fill out a MNA pledge card and commit to support us financially and more importantly prayerfully. This happened, but the Lord was gracious to help us see our role was much more important than this. Our role was to be used by the Lord to minister to people through intentional personal relationship. The Lord gave us many opportunities to spur many on toward becoming more passionate and devoted to the advancement of God's kingdom on earth. He used us to speak kind words to those who were discouraged and to sit with those who were sick. Mission to North Las Vegas is important, but ministering to those whom the Lord providentially placed in our path seemed to take priority. It was a wake up call to us to minister to those whom were before us in the present, rather than waiting to minister to those we have not yet met in Las Vegas. So we tried to be faithful in every providential circumstance placed before us. It was so good to renew relationships and just be a part of God's work in the present. This was a great reminder and application of Matthew 6:33-34, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." One day at a time, seeking the kingdom by choosing to play our part in bringing righteousness to this broken world and its people, is what we were able to experience on our travels and what our continual prayer seems to be. Would you pray that we would experience peace, not worry, seek the kingdom and righteousness, and minister to those whom providentially come into our path?

GRADUATION AND THE FUTURE!

Jesus Has Carried us Through!

As I was studying for my last final exam at Covenant Seminary, this short phrase came to mind, “Jesus has carried us through!” I stopped studying to reflect over the past three years of our journey. We left everything secure in our lives three short years ago to come and prepare ourselves for full time vocational ministry. The time and work has been rigorous and demanding. We often wondered how we would make it through as our faith was stretched in multiple ways. The intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual struggles have been many. Yet all along the way, Jesus has carried us through!
When I failed my first five Greek quizzes, Jesus carried me through. When we needed to make ends meet financially, Jesus carried us through. When I was preaching my first morning sermon and Micah was in the emergency room getting an appendectomy, Jesus carried us through. When the Lord revealed to me my emotional pain, Jesus carried me through. When Annette wondered how she could handle our third child, Jesus carried her through. We have nothing to really boast about in regards to what we have done. The diploma that we received really testifies that Jesus carried us through. The Apostle Paul testifies of this in I Cor. 1:30-31, “It is because of him (Jesus) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God– that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’ So that is what we do brothers and sisters. We boast that Jesus has carried us through. This chapter of our lives is ending and we are trusting King Jesus to carry us through into the next chapter. Thankfully, he has revealed to us what that next chapter is! We are so excited to announce that we are in the process of being called to Las Vegas to participate on a church planting team as an assistant pastor.

Mission Las Vegas and Your Partnership!

We have two immediate needs for you to pray about and consider. We are expecting our fourth child in August and will not be moving to Vegas until early September. We will be living in St. Louis until then. I will be studying for licensure and ordination exams as well as traveling to Maryland, Tennessee, and Florida in June to meet with churches and individuals to share the story of how the Lord called us to Las Vegas and to seek your continued partnership in this Kingdom work. Our first need is financial support during this transition summer period to Las Vegas, and the second is your consideration to support us in the Vegas church planting work. I hope to contact many of you to arrange times in June to meet, but if you would like to contact me that would be very encouraging. The Lord is doing great things in Vegas and I cannot wait to tell you all about it in the upcoming months. Please plan to get excited about the gospel!

Tentative Summer Schedule
June 7-11th Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, California, MD.
June 12-13th General Assembly, Memphis, TN.
June 14-18th Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Cape Coral, FL.
June 19-20 Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, California, MD.
June 21-26 Providence Presbyterian Church, York, PA.
June 27-July 2 Pittsburgh, PA.

Transition Summer Support Needs
Living Expenses: $5000
Moving Expenses: $2000
Total Expenses: $7000

Transition Summer Support
Please make checks payable to Cornerstone Presbyterian Church and write Phillips Seminary Scholarship Fund in the memo line. Please send the check to the church: P.O. Box 783, California, MD. 20619.

Contact Information
eaphil2@sbcglobal.net
314-719-7736 Cell Phone