Praise God!!! Matteson's 100% funded

Today, is the day we stand in amazement and know that God has called this family to join us here in Perth, Australia. God has called an army of prayer partners and an Army of people to financially partner with this amazing family to use them and change lives of Australians. They are coming to change peoples lives for eternity! There is no greater place to be, then right in the center of Gods will. And, he has definitely called them here to Australia to partner with the ministry! In less than 3 weeks they raised 40% of their budget. Our God is amazing. Please pray for a few loose ends.
1. We need their visa approved. They will be coming in on a 90 day visitors visa then swapping over to a longer one. Please pray that the government would quickly make a decision on their longer visa.
2. Pray that we find them housing.
3. Pray for their family as they are saying good by and packing up to come here.
4. Pray for them to have strength. They have had a crazy whirlwind of a week.

And, most of all thank you for your prayers!!! god has heard all of us and has moved his mighty hand. Thank you for partnering with us to change lives!!

Praises and Prayer Requests

Prayer Requests Pray for Upward Sports Camp registrations and for the Camp which starts July 7th-12th Pray for Women's Retreat July 4th-6th Pray for our family to receive Permanent Residency in Australia Pray for Mark and Dawnielle Matteson to reach full support and arrive before July 1st Pray for the Eastern Hills Missions Team as they arrive here on July1st Pray for Chris as he leads a men's retreat June 20th-22nd

Praises Praise God for confirming in our hearts, this is where he wants us! Praise God for holding our family in his hands! Praise God that 12 people came to Christ! Praise God for an awesome youth camp! Praise God for blessing our church as we work on the "thankful heart" series

Matteson Family!

Today is the day we ask all of our supporters to make a faith promise or onetime gift to Mark and Dawnielle Matteson! 

Who are Mark and Dawnielle?  They and their three children will be joining our family here in Perth, to help carry the work load.  Chris and I have had one sunday off in 5 years, and work atleast 100 hours a week!  They are coming to help us minister in this community.   We are desperate for more hands, and have been praying for God to open a door for another family to join us! And, he has called the Matteson's to come serve.


They have raised 73% of  their support  since January! And, they are hoping to leave for Perth, Australia to work at our church by July 1st!!!!   Yesterday was Mark's last day of work in the USA... Their estate sale is today and tomorrow, and they have already rented out their house.   They are convinced and so are we the God has called their family to move here to be God's hands and feet.

We are so excited about the doors God has opened for this family to come work with us for an entire year.   They and we would really like them to get here in time for Upward Sports camp (July 8-12th) as this will be a great time for them to start to meet the community.  It allows us to have more kids at the camp, and we don't want them sitting in the USA, when God has so much in store for them here. 

With all that said...  Here are your options to help this family minister in Perth, Australia.

1) join their prayer team!?  
2) Can you give a one time gift, now? 
3) Sign up in faith,  promising to give a specific amount sometime within the next 12 months!

We know, that God will get them here, in his time. But, we also, know that it takes lot's of people standing behind the missionary to allow them to be the hands and feet of God.  

We appreciate all the support all of you have given to us.. and that is why at this time in the 11th hour of them raising support, we have come to those we love and know to ask you to help this beautiful family!   Please click on the link below to pray or give!

God bless,
The George's

http://www.wesleyan.org/gp/minfo/WM29-0096

Permanent Residency!!!!

Please continue to pray for  our family to receive Permanent Residency in Australia. We applied back in November and slowly but surely they keep asking us for more stuff. But, we think we are down to their last request.   and, let's be frankly honest.. It has not been cheap. so far, it has cost our family over $10,000 sine November to meet their requests, and demands.  Everything from, paperwork and a flat out 8,000 fee and then physicals, and exams, and tests, and blood work, and eye exams, and new passports for the boys because theirs were baby pictures, and the list is non ending.  But, we think this is their last request... FBI fingerprinting! These were turned in over a month ago.. But, the FBI has FINALLY taken out their payment for the fingerprinting process. Would you please pray for us that the FBI would actually process these quickly, and then that we would get the results quickly returned to us, so that we can turn them in, here in Australia.  We feel that we are on the final leg of getting permanent Residency.  This is such an important hurdle for our family to get over and approved, so that we can stay ministering here in Perth, Australia.   Please pray that:
1) The government would favour our applications
2) that FBI fingerprint would get turned around quickly.
3) That we could receive our answer soon!!!!

A thankful heart!

   We have been going through a series recently on stewardship with our church.  And, being thankful to God.   When we least expect it, God has always got our back.  We thought we would take a week and focus on tithing and ask everyone to bring their gifts to the Lord. Then, on  Thursday we received a call from Bunnings that they had a cancel on a sausage sizzle.   Our church is a little behind. And June is the last month of the financial calendar in Australia, and there were lots of things we had wanted to do as a church and hadn't been able to do yet.  But, God he knows our heart, and he knows our desires, and he knows we want to move in our community. So, out of the complete "nowhere!" God drops this special opportunity in our lap for us to sell sausages for our local building store! Not only did we meet some families and their kids are going to join our soccer camp.  But, we were able to triple what our tithe was... on the next day.. Because we were willing to go and work and serve our community...   God, opened the door we were just willing and ready to do whatever was needed to meet his amazing opportunity. 

Best Easter ever!!

Today was a very special day! Not just because we were celebrating Easter, but because God called people to him. We had our regular evening service and Chris and I had been praying all week along with many of you that his would move in People's lives.. But, tonight we had 10 people accept Jesus Christ as their personal saviour. It was such a heart Moving moment. Such a God moving moment. We had 10 people give their lives to Christ and many more commit to draw closer to him and to really stand for Christ in their life. Chris preached on being made new in Christ and God just used him in an amazing way. The children were out with me in Sunday school getting the same message and all of them were confidently wearing their crowns they made, that protested out loud that Jesus made them new!!! What a great day! Pray for these individual's that we would be able to give them the tools to grow in Christ and to understand what an awesome decision they have made!   Thank you for your prayers!!!

Also we still have not heard anything on our PR so please keep that in your prayers...

In 5 hours we leave for youth camp. The theme is 4 real! Pray that god would move In the teens lives we  are taking and that Chris  and I would say the right things that they need to hear and that we also would be great listeners. We have a 3 1/2 hour drive in the car so looking forward to hearing them all chatter on the way there! Please pray every day for us on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday!!!

Palm Sunday

Today was an awesome community outreach day as we had over 80 children come to our community Easter egg hunt. It was an extra special day as we had craft booths and lots of stations where kids could think about what the true meaning of Easter was. We also had a message time where Melissa shared with all the families the "best gift they were ever given" at the end of her sermon the children could come up and accept a gift of they wanted to believe in Jesus. It was quite moving to see the kids who were touched by today. Afterwards we had a movie night and we finally succeeded at getting people to stay for "church" we had at least 60 people stay and watch the veggie tales movie an Easter carol. It was truly a special day!! We also had the most volunteers we have ever had at a church event. There were 31... It was really a god moving day as we stood there and could see a glimpse of what God had in store for his church here in Western Australia.

Praising God!

This week we have so much to be thankful for.

On Saturday a group of Wesleyan women came together and I had prepared stamping card kits for the ladies to complete as well as we had a bible study and shared life together in fellowship . It was a lot of fun!

Secondly we had our first AWANA awards night for 2014 on Sunday. The kids are learning lots of scripture and are really learning how to apply it to their lives.  It was a great time for them to show off all they have learnt . I spent an entire two days sewing lanyards so the kids would have something to put their new badges on .

On Monday we had our immigration appointment. We left at 9:30 and arrived home at 2:45. We spent all day in a cramped office having medicals, X-rays, eye exams, our weight taken, blood pressure, physicals, and blood exams. We have now officially turned everything in for our permanent residency and would definitely appreciate your prayers for us to get approved. There is nothing more we can do, it is now a waiting game for the immigration office to make up their minds.

On Tuesday Luke came home from the hospital and is now resting in his own bed! This is amazing considering the original plan was that Luke would be in for a few weeks. Please continue to pray for him to regain his strength and energy and for him to continue to heal quickly. The doctor has actually said he believes he has gotten all of the tumour which is huge!

On Wednesday we partnered with the school and helped them put on an amazing ANZAC service. The school even let Chris do a pastoral prayer at the service.

Today our AWANA group committed our first RAK! Better known as a random act of kindness. All term the kids have been preparing thank you eggs. They have stuffed plastic eggs with words of thanks, kindness, and of course yummy chocolates to say thank you to the teachers of our local primary school. Then we dressed up as an Easter bunny and delivered them secretly! It was a lot of fun, but most importantly hopefully will soften their hearts to hear the word of god.

This is just a normal week of busy here in Australia, but we only accomplish as much as we do because we have an amazing team that prays for us!!! Thank you for your prayers and especially for your financial support. Continue to pray for us this weekend as we have our Easter egg hunt on Sunday at 4:00pm. Pray that the community would hear God speak to them and that families would come and enjoy time together as they participate in activities, and especially as they sit and here our message of the greatest gift ever given to them on Easter is free, as well as we will be showing the veggie tales an Easter carol from 6:00pm onwards. Can't wait to see what god is going to do this weekend.

Luke's surgery went well!

Luke is out of surgery and moving his right and left side! So, at this point everyone is very pleased! Praise God!!

Prayer requests

Today at noon our Aussie brother Luke will be having brain surgery to remove a tumor. Please pray with us for a safe surgery and for removal of the whole thing. The tumor is non cancerous. But, this is his second surgery in four years as it keeps continuing to grow.

Permanent Residency Sponsorship

Praise the Lord.  We have received word from the immigration department that the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia has received approval to sponsor us for a permanent residency visa.  This is a big step in the right direction.  We have also received a list of things that they immigration department would like in order to approve our visa application.  Pray that we will be able to get all of the things that they want in a timely manner and that they would look favourably on our application.  Having permanent residency would relieve a lot of stress when we are on partnership development as we wouldn't have to apply for any further visas to serve in Australia.  Thank you for your prayers.

Community Connections


With every day that we are privileged to serve here in Australia our prayer is that God would help us to make connections with people that will have an impact on eternity.  We try to be involved with as many things in our community and with our neighbours as we can and hope and pray that through those connections avenues are opened to share Christ with those we interact with.  I was reminded again last week of the quote that holds true for our ministry here in Australia, "people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care".  This week, we have a great opportunity to connect our church with the community through the Landsdale Community Neighbour Day.  We will be handing out information about our church, selling scarfs to raise funds for youth camp and selling cool drinks to those in attendance.  Pray that God would open up opportunities for us to connect with people and that He would use us in a special way to show His love.  Pray not only for the planting of seeds, but pray for a harvest as we see others come to Christ. 


Sunday we will be holding a Bunnings Sausage Sizzle for a fundraiser.  We are given two of these a year and they are always a great money maker.  Pray that we would sell a lot of sausages and make enough funds to run the ministries and things that the church is wanting to do. 

Western Australia family camp

Yesterday evening we started our WA camp. Please pray for God to shine through this camp. So far we have found it difficult to get our families to actually attend the rallies. Pray that we would have the words to say. We have 11 families tenting from Landsdale which is awesome! So, pray that Chris and I would be able to sit and chill with families and not be running non stop, which so far is the way it has felt. Pray that we have meaningful "real" conversations.  Camping with 80 people so far has been fun, but pray that god would be the center of All that we do!

Kids Club and Youth Starts on Friday the 14th!

On Friday Valentine's Day will be a very exciting day for our kids and youth ministry.  Chris and I have been working hard over the past few summer weeks to do a complete overhaul on our children's ministry and our youth group.   With the children's ministry we have finally been able to purchase AWANA here in Australia and are super excited to see the potential of outreach it will have here. Melissa has for the past 9 years been spending lot's of time programming and sorting out every week the kids ministry items that we would include.   I am very excited to see what God has in store for our new AWANA program.  
The Youth have been getting together over the summer still on Sunday nights and it has been vital to see them all continue to grow in their faith spite all that has happened in our church recently with the loss of one of our youth. But, God has been faithful and has been in the midst of all our conversations and the youth have seen God already at work through all of this in their own lives.
Pray for Chris and I this week as we try to book accommodation for our youth camp that will be around Easter time.


We will kick Friday off with an Olympic party for both groups and focus on Finishing the race with Jesus Christ as our first love! 

First day of School!!!

First Day of School 2014

Today was our children's first day of school for 2014.  School starts in February in Australia. So, Makayla is now entering 5th grade, Dawson is entering 3rd grade, and Brayden is entering Pre Primary.  The kids are super excited about their teachers and are really excited to go to school.   Pray for Brayden this week as he actually only knows one child in his class, Dawson knows a small handful, and Makayla has gone into her class with 12 friends. Pray that they would be able to stand strong and be a Christian influence around their friends. Pray for them to have the strength to invite their friends to our afterschool program, and pray for them to do well.   As we start school, I am as a parent worried about the realities that this year  of school holds for us.

1) Both Makayla and Dawson sit the NAPLAN. NAPLAN is an Australia test probably similar to your Regents state type exams. So, the children sit them and then it places them amongst other children in Australia. Pray that our kids will learn and understand the concepts they are learning. 

2) With us coming home in November to do home ministries after being in Australia 5 years, our children will be missing about 7 weeks of school at the end of the year. Pray that our children will build strong bonds with their teachers so, that they are willing to meet us half way and help us educate our children from a long distance away!

3) Next week I step down as the school's P&C secretary. I have loved the job, but really felt God asking me to step away from a lot of the "smaller" jobs I was doing and really focus on the church this year.  I know that God will show me how to still connect with people and will open doors for me to meet people still. But, pray that someone would step up and take on the job.

We love the school we are a part of. We have been blessed to have children who have been able to hold their own, so they could attend a public school in Australia and meet great people and build great friendships!   God has truly blessed us with the community we are apart of. and, God has build a relationship  with the school so far that is amazing. Pray that we would continue to build our bond between our church and school and that our church would have a great influence on our community school.

Bethany's Memorial Service

A date has been decided for the memorial service and Chris and I have been asked to take part in it. Chris will be officiating the service and they have asked me to give a eulogy.   Please pray for us and the Nichols family as we put plans together and meet with a local catholic school.  They have so far been willing for us to have a Wesleyan Methodist service in their chapel. Pray that God would guide and direct us all as we make preparations and final details.  Pray for Chris and I, that God would direct our thoughts as we write and prepare, especially for Chris as he writes the sermon that he will give and myself as I write the eulogy.  The service will be held on Friday the 7th at 5:00pm, Perth, Australian time.  Which is Friday the 7th at 4:00am USA time.

On a flight

Please continue to pray for Phil and Kathi. They are on a flight home as I am typing this. The flight is very long. Pray for comfort, peace, and rest in the flight . Pray for their thoughts as well. Because even when you fly that long on a good day, all you have are your thoughts and memories you think of. Please pray for this family in this time of grief and mourning. Pray for the boys as we meet them at the airport.

Pray for Phil and kathi

Please continue to keep Beth's parents in your prayers. Their flight to Australia has been delayed two days because of the snow storms PA is receiving. Please pray that god would give them patience and peace as they wait to return to Australia with Beth's ashes. The boys have been doing really well. We have had them for lunch and dinner everyday. I kind of feel like everyone is in the eye if the storm. We know what reality is... But, it will hit us all when the whole family is home And in their own house and Beth is not there.   Please pray for Chris and I as he officiates the funeral, and as I write and give the eulogy. Pray that I would have the words to say.  

I also want to stop here for a moment. Because this is a private blog. And those of you who receive it, know that it is our prayer and praise page for our ministry here. Last week I upset and hurt someone's feelings by what I wrote. I do not know who that person is and I can't write back to them. But, I didn't mean for what I wrote to be taken the way, they read it and am very sorry. I was writing my blog with only 2 hrs of sleep in 5 days and realised as soon as they sent me an anonymous letter that what I had written was not... What I meant. I am very sorry. And I do hope that, that person checks back in. As I would never write something to be judgemental. There was nothing judging... Just concern for peace and comfort in a time that is unexplainable and so painful. I also was writing  through tears and did not re read. So please forgive my writing. ... I have waited a while because I thought I might not write anymore on this blog as I felt really bad that I had hurt someone's feelings. But, I think maybe I will learn from this experience and make sure I read what I write before I post it off my phone.

Continue to keep our church in your prayers as we have our regular daily happenings, please pray that we would find someone to rent the granny flat on the parsonage. Pray that our AwAna material would arrive so we can run kids club and that it can run smoothly especially with is having to train staff and everyone move around a bit.  

God has been good this week in a million ways, and given us strength and guidance through a lot we have never experienced before.  Thank you for your prayers and support.  

Melissa

Prayer Requests Pray for Kids Club and our Church Weekly Ministries as they start back up the First Week of February when school Starts again. Pray for Labour Day Family Camp Feb. 28th-March 2nd, 2014 Pray for our church, youth, family, and kids club as they mourn the loss of Bethany Pray for the Nichols Family as the mourn the loss of Bethany Pray for Melissa as she mentors another GP missionary in NZ. Pray for Chris as he starts to oversee the WA zone of churches and give leadership to the pastors Pray for our New DS Phil Hotchkin

Praises Praise God we have been having more consistency in attendance from families at church. Praise God Rachel and Laura were baptized! Praise God for being our Comforter, Rock, and Stronghold! 1/19/14 Praise God for all that he has blessed the LCWMC with in 2013! We now have a parsonage.