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Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.” With many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized. There were added that day about three thousand souls. They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer.” Acts 2:38–42 WEB

October Newsletter - 2015

Hello there,

Thank you for reading our devotional and being a part of Refreshing Hope Ministries. This is our monthly update on what has been happening here during the last month and I hope that you will take the time to read it. First, I am sorry for the lateness of this month’s newsletter. We have had an extremely busy month.

Hurricane Joaquin came by and caused crazy flooding in the area. We had boards floating through our yard. Then the Waccamaw River rose above its banks, crossed the highway, and cut us off from town. So a 15-minute drive became 1 hour after detours. We managed to keep power and Internet the entire time, so our equipment and the website miraculously stayed up. I could see the telephone boxes along the road completely submerged in water though and have noticed that our speed is sporadic. That should clear up soon. The water is receding now and we are safe and dry here.

While praying about the theme of the newsletter this month, I saw an image of a bicycle wheel and then this came to me. All the spokes on a bicycle wheel are connected to a central hub. That hub distributes the load to each spoke on the wheel as it turns. The spokes are connected to each other, but only when they are connected to the hub. A spoke on one side of the hub may not even know that there are spokes on the other side that are sharing the exact same load. When the spokes are all connected to the hub, everything runs smoothly. When enough spokes break away from the hub, everything collapses.

God is the central hub. We are the spokes. Together we all make up the body of Christ. When we have a proper relationship with God and put Him first, we will walk in true unity for it is God that joins us all together. Our relationships with others need to run through Him. We also can feel that it is us carrying the entire load, when really everyone has their own part to play in this. We counterbalance each other. One spoke does not make a wheel. Also, a spoke can never be the hub.

The word “Fellowship” in the verse above (Acts 2:42) is the greek word “Koinonia.” It means “sharing, joint participation, unity, close association, partnership, contributory help, a communion.” The first church began when the people began sharing things together in joint participation. It took all the spokes working together. As we put the Lord at the center of our lives, we will be connected to the others in the body in a proper way. If you are not already involved in a church, today I encourage you to participate in the online church at www.refreshinghope.org. We need each other. The simple act of sharing, participating, encouraging one another will help us all get where we are going. None of us are getting there alone.

September marked the one-year anniversary of Refreshing Hope Ministries, and the seventh month since the launch of our online church. We have grown to 2,545 members and have many small groups led by people around the world. There are groups for cooking, crafts, dreams, photography, military, Bible study and more. We have a chance to fellowship with each other, and it will strengthen all of us as a whole.

I want to thank all of those that support us and pray for us. We could not do any of this without you. Our video sermon project is underway and we are about two-thirds of the way there with the equipment. We are buying it one piece at a time as we can. It is all in God’s timing, we are in no hurry and when He provides the means we will be there.

On the day after our forty-day fast, Guideposts Outreach / Magazine contacted us and we have worked out a partnership with them. It has been a work in progress, but the short version is that we will be helping them share somethings and they will be sharing our devotional. There will be more to come on that soon.

We attended / worked at, a pastor’s conference last week where there were a couple of hundred pastors from around the world. It was part of Evangel Fellowship International, which we are ordained through and was held in Conway South Carolina. Other than the flooding, we had a good time, met some great people, and came home encouraged once again. We got some timely words from the Lord while we were there which can be summed up as “Well done, a bigger wave is coming so get ready.” So be it.

Thank you so much for sticking with us, and for all who have supported us throughout the month with prayer, encouragement and financial resources. We could not do it without you. We are learning as we go and mistakes happen. When we fall, we just try and get back up and do it better next time.

I pray that the Lord richly blesses you and that you are covered with His presence as you read these words. May He guide your every step and fan the flames within you. May the Lord lead us all into everything that He has for us as we follow Him one step at a time, in the name of Jesus I pray.

Pastor Dion