Dear Pastor, Church, and Prayer Partners,
I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the Lord. It is a joy to serve the Lord with God’s people; to fellowship, sing, worship, and hear God’s Word with those that want to do so. We are so thankful the Lord put us in Poplar Bluff to start Liberty Baptist Church. As I told someone the other day, we are not here just to simply give another option for where to go to church, we are here to tell folks about the salvation available to them through Jesus Christ!
The first part of June my wife was able to host a ladies meeting in our church. She does such an amazing job, there are many months of prep and prayers that go into it. The theme for the meeting was, “Bloom where you are planted!” Needless to say there were plenty of flowers around the church building. My part in this is hanging this here and there, building this and that, and eating some of the leftovers. It was a great success. There were 17 ladies and young girls present. To God be the Glory! Also in June we began to assemble the door hanging packets I mentioned in our last update. We have began to put these out in our community, please pray as we put them upon doors and into the hands of those around our town. Our desire and prayer is that they wouldn’t go into the trash can but into the hearts of those that receive them. We take great confidence in the promise that God’s Word will not return void.
Likely the most exciting news I can share with you is an article that came out in our local newspaper. I called to get our church listed on the ‘church page’ and in so doing the editor became interested in our story. She had a reporter reach out to me to highlight our church plant. The article came out this past Friday. It started on the front page of the paper and then continued in the Religious section. Granted it’s not the St Louis Post Dispatch, but it is circulated around our whole county. We are very thankful for this exposure for our Church. We are hoping and praying that we would see some visitors as a result of this article!
Regardless, it is an answer to prayer. We have been praying and asking for prayers on the best way to get our name in the community. Our prayer was that it be economical as well as effective. Well, God took care of the economic part (free) and we are trusting He will take care of the effective part as well. The month of June and into the first part of July we also were happy to have some special visitors. Bro. Dale and Penny Aguiar were with us during the evening service of Father’s Day. We met them back in the mid 90’s when we were members at Calvary Baptist in Knob Noster, MO. They have been in evangelism for many years. We enjoyed getting caught up with them and look forward to having them back with us in the future. Also, we had two special ladies visit our services as well. Pauletta Marshall and Marilyn Rea were in one of our midweek services. Both of these ladies are very dear to our family. We have known them for many years and are glad they got to come for a visit.
It is so encouraging knowing that there are so many who are praying for us. I try and let our folks know on a regular basis how many there are that are concerned about what’s going on in Poplar Bluff, MO. Once again we thank you for your prayers, financial support, and concern for our family and the work here in MO.
The Mallards