Nora & I want to wish all of you a very Christ filled holiday celebration of our dear Saviors birth with your family & friends. As we all know, "Jesus is the reason for this season"! It is HIM we celebrate and the gift HE has provided to all of us who have accepted Jesus as our personal Lord & Savior.To HIM be the glory, both now, and forever!
We have been experiencing some wonderful opportunities this past week as we have seen Jesus continue to be faithful to us over & over again in so many different wonderful ways.Today, we were blessed to attend the wedding ceremony of a precious couple from our fellowship at CCMB, Jeremiah Cheatum and Angela Park who have been in our fellowship for about 2 - 3 years. We have seen our Lord bring them together to become one flesh in Jesus Christ and they made their covenant with each other for the rest of their lives to love & cherish each other, forsaking all others,& making Jesus Christ the center of their lives and marriage. The ceremony was absolutely outstanding, a most beautiful bride and a very handsome groom, but most of all seeing first hand their love for each other and their total commitment to Jesus Christ. My good friend and former Senior Pastor, Bill Holdridge, performed the ceremony and as usual did a masterful presentation of the sanctity of a marriage commitment, as they made their vows before God and the witnesses in attendance.
New news, we have now booked our flight to Africa and will be leaving from San Francisco on Monday January 26, 2009, flying to South Africa to visit our friends and fellow colleagues there, before traveling on to Malawi.The time is rapidly passing us by, with the holidays before us, then to the Missions Conference at the CC Bible College, visiting additional churches and friends in Southern California before returning to Monterey to wrap up the last of the details necessary to allow us to depart on 1-26-09.
Our fund raising is going well as we are approximately 75% completed for 2009, so please keep praying for God's provision for us. We desire to focus entirely on the ministry duties prior to departure. We are also waiting for the Malawi Embassy in Washington D.C. to respond to our inquiry regarding obtaining all the required documentation to allow us to obtain an extended multiple entry visa's. As Americans, we are allow to go and stay up to six months without any visa, but our plans are for us to live there and to come home every 12-18 months over the next 3-5 years, so this presents a different need for the visa's.
We wish to thank each of you who have already given sacrificially to our ministry efforts for Malawi, words cannot possibly express properly how much your love & support has meant to us as we have stepped out in faith to follow HIS call on our lives! You are are a vital part of this work to be done in Malawi,as you hold the rope on this side of the world as we become your eyes, hands, legs,& ears, as we listen to God's sweet voice as to what HE desires us to do upon our arrival. We think we have a handle, but we also know we know very little, so we desire to be led by HIS Holy Spirit in all we attempt to accomplish in HIS name.
May our Lord bless you all real good and always remember, HE is God and we are not!! Let us be the Ephesians 3:20 Christians who truly believe HIM to do "exceedingly, abundantly above all we can ask, think, or imagine, by the spirit that dwells in us."
Steve & Nora
Steve & Nora
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Update as of 12-9-08
It has been a very full two weeks since we last updated all of you, and there is still so much be be accomplished. Our support continues to come in and we are about 74% funded at this time and our goal is to be fully funded by 12-20-08. So please continue to pray for us in this arena as well as getting all the rest of the details accomplished before 1-15-09.
Nora & I both have been extremely blessed by the warm responses we have received, both from those at our local church(CCMB), as well as many other churches we have had the honor of sharing about our ministry to Malawi Africa. God is just blowing our minds as HE opens doors no man can open and HE keeps reassuring us that we are in the center of HIS will! God is so good to us and we truly are blessed by all of HIS people.
The Compassion Pregnancy of the Monterey Peninsula, where Nora has served the past 25years, gave her a going away celebration this past week. It was so good to see and fellowship with so many people who have served at the CPC over the past years as well as those serving today. It seems to very hard to realize that Nora will not be an active part of this ministry since she has been involved since its inception.... but God! Thank you Debbie Jones, Terrie Bennett, and the entire volunteer staff for your love and support all these many years. We will miss you a lot, but plan on keeping in touch by e-mail & skype.
We want to wish all of you a very blessed Merry Christ mas and an extremely Happy New Year. We will be in our prayers and please keep us in yours.
Steve & Nora Braselton
Nora & I both have been extremely blessed by the warm responses we have received, both from those at our local church(CCMB), as well as many other churches we have had the honor of sharing about our ministry to Malawi Africa. God is just blowing our minds as HE opens doors no man can open and HE keeps reassuring us that we are in the center of HIS will! God is so good to us and we truly are blessed by all of HIS people.
The Compassion Pregnancy of the Monterey Peninsula, where Nora has served the past 25years, gave her a going away celebration this past week. It was so good to see and fellowship with so many people who have served at the CPC over the past years as well as those serving today. It seems to very hard to realize that Nora will not be an active part of this ministry since she has been involved since its inception.... but God! Thank you Debbie Jones, Terrie Bennett, and the entire volunteer staff for your love and support all these many years. We will miss you a lot, but plan on keeping in touch by e-mail & skype.
We want to wish all of you a very blessed Merry Christ mas and an extremely Happy New Year. We will be in our prayers and please keep us in yours.
Steve & Nora Braselton
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