Current Newsletter (download pdf)
Dear Partners:
I want to thank each one of you for faithfully praying, volunteering and supporting us financially. Over 450 projects were completed on widow's homes last year in partnership with nearly 1400 volunteers.
Last year we, also, more than met our Project 100 goal, which was to raise $50 thousand dollars in order to insure that the home repair needs of widows continued to be met without interruption.
Beginning this month we will again initiate Project 100 in order to fund widow's home repair projects throughout the rest of 2008 and into the first quarter of 2009.
Again, this initiative is posted on our web site, widows.org, so that anyone desiring to can monitor it's progress. Please consider being one of the 100 donors that we are seeking to make a onetime gift of $500 or more to this fund.
If you would like to see some of the volunteer groups that served with us in 2007 up to the present, you can view video footage on our blog site, widows. chattablogs.com. Short term mission groups that we have recently worked with over their Spring breaks include a college campus ministry group from 1st Presbyterian Church, Ann Arbor, MI, that works with students at the University of Michigan; a high school youth group from Seymour 1st Church of the Nazarene, Seymour, Indiana, and another high school youth group from Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church in Key Biscayne, Fla.
For those of you that do not also receive our e-mail updates I want to let you know about Dick Mason (long time widow's home repair coordinator). He was recently diagnosed as having prostate cancer. A bone scan was done soon after to determine if the cancer has spread and, praise God, it has not. He and his wife, Brenda, are praying about which direction to go for treatment. We are all praying for Dick's Complete healing.
In light of this, Dick has asked for staffing help. Whatever treatment they choose, it will place limitations, at least temporarily, on his time for helping widows and leading volunteers in home repair projects. Please pray for both the provision of an individual that can assist Dick in all that he does as well as the funds to support this position. With a busy summer coming up, Dick will also need several interns to help him out this summer, which will also need to be funded.
Dick's passion for the Lord, which is so profoundly demonstrated on a daily basis through his, seemingly, inexhaustible drive for meeting the needs of widows, has not only blessed thousands of widows in our City and beyond, but he has also served as an inspiration for 10's of thousands of teenagers that he has supervised, mentored and discipled on widow's home repair projects.
By the time you receive this update, our annual widows and pastor prayer luncheon, on April 15th, will have taken place. This year Robby Holt, Assistant Pastor at North Shore Fellowship, will be our guest speaker. Robby has had a long history with Widows Harvest beginning when he first started volunteering after school when he was at Chattanooga Christian School. Now Robby and his family live in Widows Harvest's old office on Mitchell Ave, which is located right in the heart of south side Chattanooga's urban downtown neighborhoods.
Willie Kitchens, who is also a long time friend of the widows, will be leading our worship time on that day, as well. Whenever Willie leads worship, the felt presence of the Lord is always unmistakably and powerfully there.
Widows Sing Week and our annual "Gertrude Gaston" Widow's Prayer Gathering is almost here. This year "Widows Sing Week" will begin on Saturday, May 10, and end on Saturday May 17, culminating with our annual prayer gathering. This year we are highly honored to have Dr. Evelyn Polite, Founder and Director of Widows Harvest Savannah, Georgia, as our speaker. Dr. Polite, who spoke at our 2007 widow's Thanksgiving service and luncheon, is a truly gifted and passionate communicator of God's word. We are all tremendously excited about her return and we are filled with great anticipation for the ways that God will use her for His glory while she is with us.
The deadline for registering for the prayer gathering is May 5th. Please contact us if you would like us to send you a registration form, or visit our web site and simply fill out the online form. Cost for widows, as always, is free, so that we might both bless and honor them. For non-widows the cost is $25. Our costs will be significantly less this year since this will not be held at the Chattanooga Convention and Trade Center, but instead will be held at St. Elmo Ave. Baptist Church. There are still costs involved, though, and at present, we need to raise $3000.
For those coming from out-of-town, a special rate is available at the Staybridge Suites downtown (which is about 5 minutes from the Church). For reservations call 423-267-0900 and tell them you are with Widows Harvest Ministries.
Please remember that May 15, of this week, is International Widows Prayer Day. It is both for non-widows to pray for the plight of widows around the world, as well as widows to pray for the Church, to be the spotless bride that God desires her to be.
For details on all of these events please visit our web site's home page, scroll down to the appropriate heading and then click on the link.
Another prayer need is for Chiquita Bass, who began ministering with us over a year ago. God has used her so quickly to bear so much fruit for His glory and honor.
Chiquita just recently lost her brother, who lived in Atlanta and worked in the school of medicine at Morehouse College. Not only was his death completely unexpected, but at the time of his passing he had been making preparations to move their recently widowed mother, and 2 older handicapped siblings that live with her, from Washington D.C. to live with him in his home. Their care is now in Chiquita's hands. She will, quite soon, be moving them to Chattanooga to live with her and her 2 daughters.
One of Chiquita's key areas of ministry is the annual widow's prayer gathering, so you can imagine, with all that she is presently doing unto the Lord, she will be stretched even thinner. I know that she would truly desire your prayers at this critical juncture in the life of her family as well as the ministry God has called her to.
I want to give special thanks to local Christian radio stations, J103 (103.1 FM) and WMBW (88.9 FM) for promoting so many of the ongoing Ministry events of Widows Harvest. J103 has generously donated a full year of radio spots to us and WMBW has been promoting, quite vigorously, the upcoming widow's events in May, and also our Joint Mission opportunity that is being offered to local church youth groups called "Bearing Christ's Reproach." This very unique mission opportunity which is in full partnership with Lurone Jennings (Director of the Bethlem Center) and Alfred Johnson (Pastor of Church of the First Born), still has weeks available this summer. For more information about this opportunity for local youth groups as well as mission opportunities for groups located outside the Chattanooga area visit our web site.
Finally, the article included with this newsletter, entitled "The Widow's Might" (download pdf) is by Miriam Neff, and it was first published in the January 2008 edition of Christianity Today. Miriam is the widow of Bob Neff, who was the former head of Moody Broadcasting. I had the privilege of meeting Miriam when she was in Chattanooga, recently. She is very good friends of the Leboeufs. Many of you, locally, will recognize this name, because Leighton Leboeuf is the station manager for WMBW, the local Moody station. It was, in fact, Leighton that contacted me to see if Miriam and I could meet while she was in town. We had a truly wonderful visit and I am greatly excited about getting to work together in the future. I think that you will be as blessed by what she shares in this article as I have personally been, as well as all of our widows who are a part of the ongoing widow's prayer ministry here.
For more information about Miriam and her widow's ministry she has a wonderful web site:Blessings and Thanksgiving,
andy mendonsa
Widows Harvest Ministries