Grace, Grace, God's Amazing, Wonderful Grace

On March 7th, 2010, I was excited to go to church. I was super excited to teach God's Word to our Sr. High class. I stopped at Schnucks to buy our teenagers some doughnuts. We had a great class learning about wise strategic maneuvers to follow in order to say "no" to sin, Satan and self and "yes" to God.

After class, I led congregational singing. Our songs this morning focused our heart's attention on God's grace. We sang about "Grace Greater Than Our Sin." We sang about God's "Amazing Grace." We sang about being redeemed "By His Grace" and being cleansed by His blood. We sang about the "Wonderful Grace of Jesus."

After singing, I slipped out the back door and ran upstairs to my office really quick. I needed to get something to give to a member after church. As I was coming back down the stairs, one of security personnel said, "Pastor Mike...someone just told me that you are needed in the front." After hearing this news, my adrenaline is pumping. I'm thinking to myself, "Oh my, we have a security issue in our church. Someone needs some counseling or help." I began to walk very swiftly to the foyer of our church. The usher stopped me and said, "They need you up front." I said, "The platform? What for?" I change directions and go back into the auditorium through the door I previously exited and everyone cheered (I guess Pastor Burman was stalling). Pastor Burman asked Kristen to come up to the platform and join me. And he proceeded to inform us that our church had been secretly taking up a special love offering for us to help with some of our adoption expenses. Our church family gave us a monetary gift that is enough to cover our airfare to Taiwan and back. This was an incredible blessing! A total surprise! A tremendous testimony of God's AMAZING, WONDERFUL, GRACE!

We love the Lord! We love that He put us into the ministry! What a privilege it is to serve such a loving group of God's people at Brown Street Baptist Church in Alton, IL. We love each and every person in our church from the bottom of our hearts! Words cannot express what an honor it is for us to serve in an adoption friendly church! Thank you to each one in our church for being obedient to God's Word in James 1:26-27! We can't wait to share Samuel with you! We pray that God will richly bless each of you for your gift, your faithfulness in your love, prayers and support!