Lancaster Family Prayer Letter
June & July 2015

 

Dear Friends, Family, and Supporters!

Well, another exciting month has passed and we have just as much news to update about! Last time I (Pepsi) wrote, we were getting ready to head off to our mission board’s Family Fellowship Week. We packed up and were all ready to head out of town when we ran into serious car trouble! A band in our transmission broke. We took it to a transmission shop to have it replaced and they told us that at the mileage of our transmission, it really needed to be rebuilt, and they couldn’t just fix the band. This was difficult news, but the Lord knew what He was doing! Having the transmission rebuilt was something that we knew needed to be done, but it simply was not in the budget at that time. Joshua contacted a dear friend he had made while in college, and he agreed to do the work for us. In the time it took him to get the work done, the Lord miraculously provided every dollar we needed! He led a church’s Sunday school class to give us $500 for the repairs. What a blessing from the Lord! Through various other means, all the money came in in time for us to pay the bill. Isn’t it amazing how GOOD our God is?!?

While the truck was being worked on, God provided again through some dear folks that let us borrow their truck to pull our trailer over to Family Fellowship Week. This was one of the best weeks of our entire ministry! It was clear that the Lord was at the meeting. Great men of God delivered powerful messages that spoke to our hearts each and every service! We had a wonderful time catching up with old friends and making new ones!

After Family Fellowship Week, we immediately headed up to Illinois for a Youth Meeting at which Joshua was scheduled to preach. What another great week! The theme was Cola Wars, and the teens had a fantastic time! The competition was fun, and the Lord led in the services! Eight people total were saved that week, and many lives were impacted for the Lord!! A couple of the teens that were saved were a core part of the youth group that several in the church had spent many hours in prayer over. We are so excited to see what the Lord is doing in that church!

The next week and a half gave us an opportunity to spend time at home visiting with friends and family. We were able to see most of my family and enjoyed some down time while in Illinois. The last part of the visit we were able to spend with my parents, brothers, and sister. They decided to send me off to Virginia with a gift! As soon as we got down to Virginia I came down with strep throat! It was one of the worst sicknesses I’ve ever had, but in all honesty, no one had any idea anyone was sick and God was good through it all. As soon as we headed out of town, my parents’ family started feeling ill and then the first two days in Virginia it finally caught up with me. Praise the Lord for Walk-In Clinics! I was able to go and get an antibiotic, and thankfully I recovered quickly!

Despite being sick, we had a great kick-off to our summer here in Virginia! Landmark Baptist Church in Richmond has very kindly allowed us to park our travel trailer at their church for the time we are in Virginia. We have also been at our first few services at Faith Baptist Church (the church we will be helping at all summer). Joshua has started teaching Sunday School with the theme: Following the Fathers of the Faith. I have started working with the Jr. Church kids and I’m so excited about our theme: We Love Missions! We will be studying missionaries of old as well as learning about the current missionaries the church supports. We have also had one Wednesday night so far with the teens (although I missed it, due to being sick). We have some really fun things planned for the teens this summer!  We will try to continue to update about them as they come up.

Two Saturdays ago we were able to attend another GBAC Prayer Rally and Choir Practice. It was a great afternoon and evening of singing and praying in preparation for the Crusade in September. Things are really starting to pick up concerning the Crusade. Door hangers and tracts for the Crusade have already been printed and were distributed to the participating churches this weekend. Joshua is underway with preparing the maps for the door-to-door soul winning effort. Soul winning trainings have started and people are getting ready for the official start to the forty days of door-knocking , starting on August 1st. Great things are happening for the Lord! Another exciting thing the GBAC is starting this year, is the GBAC magazine that will be out the months of July, August, and September. In it are articles written by various men who are helping lead and support the Crusade. The July issue has already been passed out and the one for August is being prepared now. Digital copies of the GBAC magazine are freely available at: www.GodBlessAmericaCrusade.com .

 Praise the Lord for another great opportunity that came up this last week. At Landmark (the church at which we are parked) there was a junior camp scheduled, with preaching times in the mornings and evenings. They had a speaker lined up to preach, but his wife was expecting a baby, and the baby came early. The speaker was no longer able to be here, so Joshua was asked to fill in. We were excited to be able to fill this gap and reach more youth for Christ! At least 2 children were saved and many other decisions were made throughout the week! It has been so neat to see all the fresh young people the Lord has put in our path the last several weeks. We have not necessarily gone looking for youth meetings, but obviously it is the Lord’s will for us to have an impact on the next generation. It is so desperately needed that we reach out and win young people’s hearts for the Lord! We are so thankful that the Lord has put them in our path!

There are several things about which we would appreciate prayer:

1. Please pray for the Crusade! The most important thing on this prayer list is the Crusade! Some of the biggest things are the finances, the door hangers and tract distribution starting on Aug 1st, the Prayer Rallies and trainings, and the Crusade itself. Byron Foxx has challenged us all to stop at the 12 o clock hour for “The Hour that Makes the Difference”.  There are people all over the country that are stopping at 12 o’clock noon and 12 o’clock midnight Monday-Friday and spending 15 minutes in prayer and Bible reading for the Crusade. We would like for all that receive our prayer letters to consider joining us for this time of daily prayer and Bible reading! (Suggested passages for reading and topics for prayer are also available at the website mentioned previously.)   

2. Pray for the young people that Joshua spoke to this last week. Pray the Lord will continue to work in their lives and that the ones that came to Christ will be discipled in their home churches.

3. Pray for our responsibilities at Faith Baptist Church. We deeply desire to encourage the Pastor and his people, teach the things the Lord has laid on our hearts, and reach new people for Christ!

4. Pray for the two men that will be assisting Joshua in the door to door efforts in the next couple weeks. Marco Hannel will be with us all summer and will be Joshua’s right-hand man in getting things done. The second is Ramon Corder from Pennsylvania that has come down to help over the next couple weeks. These men have already been a blessing and are working hard for the Lord. Please pray that the Lord would provide financially for them as they are both college students and instead of worrying about money for the fall, they are giving their time and efforts to the Lord!

We appreciate SO MUCH all of the prayers and support! We will try to continue to provide updates on all that is going on in the work that the Lord has called us to do!
 
His Servants,
Joshua, Pepsi, Parker, and Porter Lancaster
James 4:8-10 & 2 Chron. 7:14