April Update

**By Bret

Hey Everybody,

Greetings from sunny New Orleans , where the only thing murkier than the water is the air!

The small list of friends who are aware of our dreams and plans in church planting has grown somewhat, but we’re still waiting for the public unveiling! In the meantime, I thought I’d send an email to those who have heard, just to update you on our progress and plans.

Over the last month we’ve had four different couples/individuals decide to partner with us, several more suggest that they’re interested and a couple that have given some one time gifts (which have already helped with travel for support-raising!) We are excited to say that so far we have just over $500/month committed – which means we are on our way!

We’re in the process of scheduling several dinner conversations with old friends - some of whom are old because we’ve known them for a while others are old because they were born a long time ago! Within the next several weeks we hope to meet with friends in Granbury, Dallas and San Antonio (nearly all the people we’re going to meet with in San Antonio are actually friends from Corpus that left the beach for Sea World!)

This morning, I met with a graphic design artist that is going to turn a handful of documents and blurbs about our ministry with Christ Journey and church planting into a slick and professional looking packet with information, vision and goals for this ministry. I hope to have these completed very soon and we’ll be sending them to anybody and everybody who might be interested in partnering with us. Our artist, Amy, even has an editor that will work with her to perhaps come up with some, as she called them, “teaser sheets” (I’ll tell you what those are when she shows them to us!) Amy is so excited about what we’re doing that she is going to donate most of her time for this project!

Thanks to the internet I’ve already had the opportunity to begin working with the folks at Christ Journey. Chris Chappotin has begun a workgroup blog that allows several of us to discuss and process through the text for Sunday’s worship gathering. Because of this, Chris and I get a chance to begin working and thinking together, and I get a chance to interact with other leaders at CJ – building the rapport that is going to be so vital when the Lord brings us all face to face.

Please continue to be in prayer for our family as we prepare for this transition. We are extremely excited and ready to invest in this community. However, before that can happen we want to give special care to this end of the transition. As most of you are aware the past few years have been very difficult for us. Though we’ve never really felt like insiders here in Mandeville, this family has become very dear to us. Our prayer is that Lord will guide our interactions over the next couple weeks, particularly as we reveal our plans to the community here.

While a certain degree of pain is unavoidable when a preacher leaves, we truly want to do whatever we can to minimize the difficulty. We believe that this transition is a part of God’s call in our lives, just as I am convinced that the Lord directed us to this place 2 years ago. In many ways I owe my level of preparedness for this new leg of the journey (however much or little that may be) to Tammany Oaks and this community.

Again, we covet your prayers as our preparations continue and if you or anyone you know would like to officially partner with us for financial, prayer or emotional support – we welcome you! Christ Journey is already set up to receive donations for the Wells family, and in fact has already received some! Thanks to you all for your encouragement.

Grace and Peace,
Bret, Rachel and the wellsbrothers