September 2022
IN THIS ISSUE:
Bible Club Report
Our Bible Club (ages 5 to adult) is going through a growth spurt! Every two weeks, we have been mailing around 5,000 lessons…which is 1,000 more than our usual amount! Praise God! We are very thankful for the financial gifts that have recently been given to help us with the Bible Club mailing expenses!
We have received many positive notes from both the students and their parents. As the students are doing their lessons, some of their parents are learning as well. Cristina & Ada are just two of our many students whose lives have been impacted.
Cristina writes:
“Thank you for those beautiful stickers. I love those sayings on them. Thank you for everything you have given to me already. The minister said today that God is talking to us and I wanna listen. Thank you for sending me the Bible Clubs. I don’t know what I would do without it. I look forward to doing all my lessons. It seems since I started receiving them, I’m so much closer to God. I mean God is closer to me.” — Cristina
From Ada:
“Dear Bible Club Teachers, I hope my tiger was okay. It’s not very creative, but I had no idea how to draw a tiger. Sorry that it’s not more creative! To me it’s any ways more the words that count, not the picture. (That’s just me speaking, others might not feel like that.) But anyways, thanks so much for all the Bible Study prizes I have received. The lessons are good for me! Seems I get these lessons, most times when I’m feeling hopeless, self-pity, rejected, disappointed, and so forth. These lessons give me the boost I need. I’m trying! With Gods help. Again, thanks to you all, for all the work you put in here, and thanks for starting the Bible Club! God Bless you all as we struggle to win the race! Prayers needed! — Just a student, Ada”
Please pray for both the Bible Club and the students.
— Holley Tolliver
Discipleship
Sometimes, I meet with younger people for a few weeks or months, and then things get busy and they move on. Other times, our discipleship meetings go on for a longer period of time. Either way, I love nothing more than to spend time discipling the next generation. Jesus commanded every believer to do so.
Emery and I have been meeting two years. We try to meet every other Tuesday evening for 1-2 hours and talk about life and how that fits in with God’s purpose in Emery’s journey. No stone is left uncovered—we talk about everything and anything. We read the Bible together, talk about daily struggles and how to overcome and move on. We talk about work, relationships, dating and marriage, and a thousand other things. That is what discipleship is about—listening, caring, and looking to Jesus for answers.
Recently, Esther and I asked a young couple if they would like to start a Bible study on Thursday nights. They said yes. We asked a second couple, and they said yes. We asked a third and fourth couple. They all said yes. Can someone say amen?!
Eli's Baptism Testimony
I grew up Amish but didn’t care much for the lifestyle. It felt like people had control over me and thought that I was living the way that they wanted me to live by keeping all the rules, but in reality, I wasn’t. I didn’t want people to think that I was living a certain way and then realize that I was not – like I was a fake.
My view of God was not very clear as I was growing up. My dad only cared if we read out of German books, because that is what people were saying we should do. I couldn’t understand much German. I can understand English better. When I started reading more, I remember a few times when I understood a bit better. My brother John sometimes explained the Bible to me, and it made a big difference. He showed me that I needed to be saved.
I feel like it is possible to be saved as an Amish, but I wanted to live for God and not for man. A verse that is meaningful to me is Romans 10:13 “Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” This verse always comes into my head to show that the only little thing we must do to be saved is to call on the Lord. You don’t have to work your whole life to get to heaven or see if you can follow all the Amish rules. After I was saved, I still had ups and downs, but I had so many more good days…and I had hope in my heart.
I always knew I wanted to be baptized. Jesus asked us to do this. I want to continue to become stronger and more knowledgeable in the Word of God and get involved with ministry. I want to speak freely to others about my faith.
—Eli Hostetler
Joe Keim writes: Marriage and starting a family are a BIG deal to Esther and myself! When Eli and Susan asked if we would do their wedding, we said on one condition; that is, they give us 15hrs of their life. During those hours, we asked the couple to look beyond their wedding day—to visualize their children and their children’s children. At the wedding, God opened the door for me to preach the gospel to about 15 Amish family members. In September, I helped Pastor Jerry baptize Eli. Eli and Susan recently moved to Iowa where they will begin to live out the many hours of discipleship.
