Approved

A Trip to West Africa: (essentials for the skimmers)

• The board of trustees has approved us for service in West Africa!
• We leave for Peru in a few weeks.
• God met our goal for funds to support our Peru trip. Worship with us.
  
• Thomas Beck, a coworker who was a very hard agnostic, came to Christ Sunday! Praise the Father!
  
• New photos! Album: Last January in NC.
  
• Fisher is humongous.
• Racheal recently gave Instead of Ashes a web makeover with several new lines of jewelry.
  
• SMOi welcomes the Hoover family to the prayer site. Pray for them as they prepare for West Africa too.
• Coming soon! Stories from the Ends of the Earth, a book of a collection of stories from the SMOi missionaries' experiences overseas will be available around the end of May.
  
• PrayeRequests below.

A Trip to Peru: (extras for the readers)

Dear redeemed,

In the last month or so God has really touched people's hearts concerning our finances to go to Peru. Right now we're celebrating as God has abundantly provided our goal! Worship with us as God has been so generous.

So reign, please reign in us
Come purify our hearts
We need Your touch
Come cleanse us like a flood
And send us out
So the world may know You reign, You reign in us!

In Fisher Stone news, he is growing so fast! At five-months he was wearing 12-month clothes. He's almost eight-months-old now. He grew his first two teeth two weeks ago and should start walking or crawling any second.

On May 4 we received great news from the mission board that we'd been approved by the board of trustees for overseas service in West Africa. This simply means it's official now.

Many have asked us for our time line of our upcoming dates:

• May 19 :: Sharing requests at the prayer gathering of Center Grove Church in Clemmons NC, 6:30p
• May 23 :: Giving the teaching at the worship gathering of the River Church in Arcadia, 10:30a. Teaching series: The Ultimate Fighter (spiritual warfare, the armor of God, and the Sword of the Spirit)
  
• June 3-4 :: Racheal's family's reunion in Goshen KY
• June 5-12 :: Family vacation with Racheal's parents, her brother, my parents, and my sister to Hatteras.
  
• June 14-September 1 :: Peru trip! We'll be teaching Latino and indigenous people how to be missionaries. Most of the time we will be in a jungle setting for classes. We hope to plan a visit to the village of Paiche Playa where i served in 2007-2008.
• Sept 2-14 :: Visit Racheal's hometown of Key West and see her parents one last time before West Africa.
• Sept 15 :: Appointment ceremony in Brandon, FL for the mission board
• Sept 16-17 :: Visit friends in eastern TN.
• Sept 18ish-Oct 10 :: Last days in Tobaccoville, NC
  
• Oct 11-Dec12 :: Training/orientation with the mission board
  
• Soon after Dec 12 :: Move to West Africa for 3-4 years

You might be thinking to yourself, Wait, does that mean you'll only be in Winston for two more weeks before Peru? Yes! And, only three more weeks before West Africa.

My friend and coworker, Thomas, was hardened to the gospel. He was an agnostic after growing in a rough family (to put it mildly) and working on a boat on the Mississippi. He was afraid that God, if He existed, had left him because of how many he had lead away from God by his reasoning. But, this past Sunday, May 16, 2010, the scales fell off Thomas' eyes and he found out what Paul meant in 1 Corinithians 1:18: "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." He started to weep and ran outside as we sang "How He Loves" by The Glorious Unseen (popularized recently by The David Crowder Band). After i came out to find him he told me he had an epiphany that God loved him so much in spite of his lifetime of sin. So, let me write his obituary...

BECK - Mr. Thomas Beck, 38, died May 16, 2010, by taking his own life and laying it at the foot of the cross. However, he was in a moment born again as the new Thomas Beck, alive in Christ and filled with the Spirit of God. He is survived by his fiancee and three children who he is already sharing Christ with that they too might have a relationship with their Maker. A celebration ceremony is being planned for sometime within the next two weeks where he will be buried in baptism and raised to walk in the newness of life. Details to come!

PrayeRequests:

• Praise God for the money He's raised for Peru. Praise Him for the money that He's about to raise to reach the $4000 goal.
• Pray that God would send someone quickly to disciple Thomas in our absence.
  
• Pray for the Peru trip. May the missionaries that leave there tell thousands of the good news.
• Pray that we'd be good stewards of the short time we have in the States.
  

†il the whole world hears,
the pendergrass family