Greater Portland Baptist Church

Keith and Donna South: July 2006

Praises: There is always so much to praise the Lord for: Our great God and the relationship we can have through His Son Jesus Christ, our family He has given to us, the ministry He has given and continues to bless. We also praise Him for our tremendous team of supporters and prayer partners. The ministry continues to be used of God in wonderful ways. We have had several accept Christ as their Savior since our last letter and 2 baptized. We are also praising the Lord for a great year of camp. We sent twelve campers and three staff for the summer. Jeff, Doug, & a boy in our ministry by the name of Jeremy were the three we sent for staff. We had close to 250 kids for the first 3 weeks with many asking the Lord to save them and many others making great decisions concerning their Christian walk. We are also praising the Lord for good attendance at church throughout the summer. We usually take a hit in attendance in the summer but not as bad this year. This has been encouraging and points to growth in our folks.

Prayers: As there is much to praise the Lord for--there is much to seek His face for. We would ask that you continue to pray for our ministries and in particular our upcoming ones. We will be running a concession stand at our county fair this year. God blessed and we were approached by the fair committee to run it. They wanted to open a second concession stand and came to us to see if we would do it. They are waiving any fee that they would normally charge and everything we make can go straight into our building fund! Pray that we will exemplify the Lord and our testimonies would bring glory to Him. Pray also that He will bless and we will be able to put a nice chunk of change in our building fund. We currently have around $30,000, but still need much more. Please pray for this and ask God if He would have any of you to be a part of this great endeavor. Pray also for our upcoming fall ministries as we look forward to another school year. I will again work with the football team as their statistician on Friday nights. Both Brad & Doug will be playing so please pray for their testimonies and safety. Jeff will be attending Northland Baptist Bible College in Dunbar, Wisconsin this fall. Please pray for him (& his family that will miss him greatly) as he adjusts to this new chapter of his life in preparation for full-time ministry for our Lord. Pray for our upcoming "Local Heroes" service in September. It has been growing each year and we are asking God to touch hearts and bring more out for this service as we honor & thank our local emergency medical technicians, law enforcement & fire department members. Master's Kids, Teens, and Young Adults will be getting back into full swing in the coming weeks. Pray for good attendance and new faces to minister to. Please continue to pray for our newspaper articles as well as our church's news letter. We are reaching many with these publications that we would not normally be able to reach. May God's Word rule supreme and may folks be saved as a result. Please continue to pray for our land. It looks like things are starting to happen. The water line should be going in and that means that we will be able to move forward in obtaining building permits. In two to three weeks the stage should be set for us to start submitting drawings. Pray that we can get the necessary engineer's stamps and begin to put together our print packages for approval.

Personal Stuff: The Lord is so good and I want to say before I get into this section that we have never been closer and more in love with our precious Savior. I also want to thank those of you who have sent some love gifts to help pay down our medical and reporting-in debt. We have received about $1000 that we've been able to put towards this. We are still looking at about $23,000, but God is good and we know that He will guide us through this. The biggest news on the personal front is not the best but it needs to be given to all of you so you will pray. Last Monday Donna was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD). Some of you already have received the word but most have not. This last week has been rather challenging but again our sweet Savior has been so good. There is no cure, only treatment for symptoms. For the last year she has been experiencing trouble with dexterity in her left hand and arm. She has suffered through a gauntlet of tests and finally last Monday at the neurologist it was confirmed by two doctors that PD is what she has. There has been much praying and seeking God's will in this already, but we would appreciate you praying with us. Many tears have been shed and the normal fears and anxieties addressed. I've always said that my Sweety was my hero and this has only confirmed it further. She is an awesome lady that will eventually need me and the boys more and more. Even with camp going on, I have had great opportunities to talk with all the boys and we have come to the same conclusion. When God gives us His love we are to develop it so it will be shed abroad in our lives. Loving someone with God's love makes it possible to go through things like this and never see it as a burden. The entire burden was born by Christ at Calvary and what is left for us is to learn to love each other as He loves us. When we talked, I told the boys this is what it's all about:: for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health until God says it's time to come home. God has told me to love your mother as Christ loves the church and Jesus said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, I will be with you until the end of the age." This is it, the love of God shed abroad and God giving us the strength and perseverance every step of the way. If God does not intervene, Donna will continue to decline in her abilities to control her muscle functions, but we don't know what God is going to do. We only know that He never makes a mistake. May God bless all of you and may He strengthen your desire to know Him better and serve Him more faithfully each day that He gives us.