Same Values...New Ministry

Our values have not changed, but our ministry might look a little different. For the past 12 years I have had the amazing opportunity to serve Smith River Baptist Church as their youth pastor as well as to work alongside my dad. I can't say thank you enough to our church for the love and support they have shown Dawn and I. This church is and will always be our home church. We will miss so many of our friends, fellow youth workers, church members, coaches, players and obviously my parents. Good news is that we will only be 4 hours away and will look forward to trips back to the coast. God has been moving us towards a new opportunity for the past couple years. Interesting how his timing is always perfect, while we often sit wondering when and where he will move us. After years of prayer and consideration, we have decided to start a new ministry called Elevate Worldwide. A ministry that will share the message of Jesus to high school and junior high students in Northern California, Oregon, and Nevada. Our main objective is that through our ministries we will show students how to Love God, Love Others, and Love Life. We will begin with summer camping ministry and move towards outreach, missions, and leadership training. This ministry will be something that we will be doing full time, year round. We are starting this non profit organization from scratch. This will take time to build and develop. We will spend the next year building our camps, reaching out to youth pastors, fundraising, traveling and speaking at church's and recruiting college leaders. We are excited for the opportunity and look forward to seeing how God is going to grow our faith in the process. We will be raising our salary as missionaries of Elevate for the next 3 years. After that time period we are hopeful that Elevate will be able to pay us a salary. Please pray for us as we make this transition into a new ministry. We will be moving to Redding California in June of 2011 and will start camps in July. We pray that our kids will adjust well and enjoy our new ministry. Here is an article written about our move:

www.triplicate.com/20110131111331/News/Local-News/A-higher-calling

Bye Bye Summer 2010

How time flies when your having fun. What a great couple of months although very busy and tiring. It stated with a family camping trip to Lake Selmac an awesome way to start the summer. Grant and Shelia then came to visit over 4th of July...river, beach, fireworks and the redwoods. Next came Ryan, Marty, P, and M for two weeks of fun times...and laughing. Along with a week and a half at Lassen Pines for camp. Then we headed to Hume lake for a week of high school camp, crazy. Then home for a week of SRBC family camp followed by a weekend in redding for Melanie Connell's birthday. Dinners and sunsets on the beach have been our latest family fun back to back nights. It has been an awesome summer! Now time for Sadie to start 3rd Grade....wow..can't believe it.