Download the Keeping Current January 2008 newsletter here.

Articles in this issue:

• Becoming Russian One Funny Story at a Time - Johan Maurer
• Prayer and Praise Notes

The governor of Georgia made national headlines last November for convening a meeting at which he led citizens in praying for rain. Some rain fell the next day, which scoffers said had been predicted anyway; then an inch or more fell the following week. Was it divine intervention? Believers opined it might have been; in any case they praised God for it. (Rain-drenched folks elsewhere would gladly have shared their over-oversupply!) Continue reading …

Out of my mind…Happy New Year to each of you! I am so excited about the coming year—trusting that God is going to guide us and empower us in new ways as we seek Jesus’ kingdom!

In this new year, our brand new boards for NWYM will really be kicking off their first-ever ministry plans. New people are being added to the NWYM staff as we work to expand and deepen our ministry to local churches and beyond. I have hope that there will be signs of new fruit from this ministry we have been called into together—new people finding Christ and welcomed into our local church communities, new churches being planted, new ways in which we are all increasingly transformed into Jesus’ likeness, new ground broken because our peacemaking, justice work, and compassion ministries are touching lives and needs in our world.

Continue reading …

February 22-24 is our annual Friends Men Retreats at Quaker Hill and Twin Rocks Friends Camps. This is a good time to get away with the men of your church and enjoy the hospitality of these retreat centers and the dynamic fellowship of men gathered to celebrate, grow in faith and enjoy the company of one another.

At Twin Rocks, our guest speaker is Tim Tsohantaridis, Professor of Biblical Studies and Greek at GFU, native of Thessaloniki, Greece, ordained in the Greek Evangelical Church and a recorded NWYM minister. Tim will be focusing on this theme, “Learning from our Past to impact our Future.” We will be looking at the Good Samaritan story, reflecting on our own past actions, and learning lessons on how to identify our neighbor, and how to be a good neighbor in the future. This is a timely message that the church needs to hear and we as men need to wrestle with. Dan Banham, pastor of City’s Edge, will again be leading us in worship. Come prepared to lift your praise to God.

At Quaker Hill, Melba Friends worship team members will lead in praise and worship as we prepare our hearts to hear God’s message from Steve Diehl. Steve is the founder of Forgiveness Ministries and travels extensively giving seminars on forgiveness.

Again, we want to invite you to set aside this weekend, February 22-24, and join us at either Quaker Hill or Twin Rocks Friends Camp for our annual Men’s Retreats. Also, remember pastors, your weekend is on us. So bring your men and enjoy a weekend at the beach or mountains. And as always, there will be plenty of good food, inspired worship and blessed teaching.

Brochures are available at your churches and as a downloadable PDF at this link.

Please contact me if you have any questions: mulkeyronald@yahoo.com or call: 541-390-6696.

Happy New Year,

Ron Mulkey

Download the January 2008 Connection here in the PDF format.

Articles in this issue are:

• Providing Support for Christian Education by Laurie Conant
• One More Thought by Karen Oberst
• New NWYM Ministry Staff introduced