A New Look

Well for those of you who have noticed, in some of our pictures over the last 9 months the famous wall and door that remained unpainted since Seth added a 2nd room ... they are now looking good. Paul was waiting for the right time to paint the whole basement. He did a great job, and several people from house church have mentioned how it feels more inviting and comfortable.




We are hoping our vistors thought so as well. We have been blessed by having at least one new visitor each week this month on Sunday nights. The Wednesday night times of praying for our city have been powerful as well. Several people have said that they felt a very strong presence of the Lord during the prayer time. We have been listening to a few messages also, including two from the Eternal Glory of an Intercessor by Corey Russell. It is an excellent series. One of the things, he talks about is just being with the Lord. He was mentioning how the Lord woke him one night, and as he waited to hear what the Lord had to say, he felt the Lord was saying that He wanted him just to be their with Him as He grieves over some of the conditions in world. It was a powerful insight to me. We also had special guests this past Wednesday night, Jonathan and Sara LePage, who serve at house of prayer in Jerusalem called Succat Hallel. It was great to hear what the Lord is doing over there. We hope to connect with them again when we are in Israel this summer.




On the Merriam front, Paul has met with four pastors this month. One has committed to pray weekly with other pastors, and another said he is possibly open to getting together with other pastors after Easter. There was unfortunately one who declined due to doctrinal differences regarding praying with others outside his group. The other pastor had Paul speak briefly from his pulpit, so he exhorted on the importance of prayer. Paul is also planning on following up with this pastor later on this month to have our church attend their Wednesday night prayer meeting. He also found out that this church has a good relationship with the church two blocks away. One step at a time ... we press on. Paul is also planning on getting together with some of the Korean pastors this month, as they have a busy season during January.


On the Kansas front, there was a state-wide KS prayer meeting for the abortion issue led by Earl Pickard. Paul went and was really impressed with how Earl seems to have totally given the last ten years of his life to praying for KS on different warfare missions across the state. They did corporate prayers, confessions, worship, and symbolic prophetic acts. It was one of those meetings where 100 Kansans gathered under the radar screen of the media and most of the church ... yet very significant in the Spirit. One dear old man got up to pray, who if he understood correctly has been praying each weekday in the Topeka capitol building for over 20 years, and after that type of sacrifice the anointing was truly on his simple little prayer. It was really moving. Earl has long been aware of the importance of the Native Americans and the African Americans in this transformation, and he also created a very Jewish feel to the meeting with a hupa (wedding canopy) related to our covenants, an understanding of shofars, etc. Earl's core intercessory team was expecting great things from this gathering, and Paul agrees that it was a key meeting. There is another KS worship and prayer gathering this first weekend in February, one of four that lead up to a key gathering in April in Wichita to pray for the abortion issue. The focus at the Wichita meeting will be on KS and America since national leaders are attending.


Paul has also been busy working on the books that the church is putting together. The latest title we are using for "the books" is Kingdom Expansion. He is organizing all 900+ pages of the notes that Maasen has faithfully typed up into quasi-chapters. This month, he wrote the first half of the first book, in a series of about 10 short books.

On a personal note: We have have updated noah's blog to be more of a family blog. You can check it out by clicking on the link: http://noahcalebblake.blogspot.com/