Blog

God has chosen to meet some of our financial needs by allowing me to drive for Peoria Charter Coach. A coworker of mine who heard about Next Step asked if we could help his great nephew. I only promised to add him to our prayer list, but ended up taking the 16 year old young man out to lunch and was privileged to lead him to Christ!

He grew up without a father in his home and himself has fathered 2 children (one still on the way) by 2 different girls. Only the grace of God and perhaps a loving, godly mentor will prevent the cycle of fatherlessness from continuing in this young man's children's lives. I have hope because we serve a mighty and gracious God!

I am thankful that God has provided a Treasurer for Next Step. Jim Rassi has begun auditing and overseeing the use of financial gifts. He is a man of integrity with a passion for reaching young people. His experience working with church finances is an added blessing. He is an answer to our specific prayer request about a treasurer and we're grateful to have him on board!

Since February when we started keeping track (of most of them), God has allowed me to invest well over 550 hours in this ministry. What did I do during those hours? The majority the time has been spent with young men. I've had them to our house for dinner, taken them to revival meetings, gone out to breakfast and lunch, begun working through a book called Talks My Father Never Had with Me (by Harold Davis), even getting "high" - when we visited the Peoria Heights Water Tower (pictured above)!

Time has also been spent developing this website, writing letters and thank you notes, meeting with men who have more wisdom than I, preparing messages for churches where I've been invited to speak, and reading books relevant to this ministry. This only averages to about 21.5 hours/week, but that doesn't tell the whole story. From February to June I would spend up to 50 hours in a week working on this ministry. Since the end of June I have been driving a motorcoach (as mentioned above) and my time given to Next Step has been 8-10 hours each week.

God is faithful and this ministry will grow in His time as I follow Him with my whole heart. Unfortunately, the heart is deceitful and desparately wicked. Pray that God helps me stay right so Next Step will grow right! It's been a joy to see Him at work so far.

Finally, let me praise God for bringing us up to 5 Personal Investors so far with 2 more committed to begin investing soon. Also grateful for 2 churches, both who have begun supporting our family and 1 supporting NS as well.

Standing in the gap,

Benajmin