Miracles still happen.  After the sudden death of my mother and best friend on New Year's Eve 2006, I knew I would never experience deep joy again.  But on June 8, 2008, I was delightfully proved wrong as my younger brother, Thomas, was baptized into Christ.

My husband Kevin and I (and our then fifteen-month-old daughter Ella) had just sold our home in Tolland, CT, with plans to relocate to Worcester, MA.  The reason for the move was to be closer to our biggest support - my mom, Marlene.  The day after our house sold, my mom died of a massive and unexpected heart attack.  We moved into her home in Worcester and lived with my brother, Thomas, for seven months as we all grappled with the dark days upon us.

There were many moments in the year after my mom's death that I thought I would lose my brother - to drug addiction, depression or self-destruction.  It was a very dark time.  I felt, in a word, despair.  I was taken by surprise when Thomas one day said, "I want to go to church with you.  I need God."

Seeing Thomas' life change has been awe-inspiring.  As I shared before the Worcester church at his baptism, to my shame I did not even have a mustard seed of faith for my brother.  In spite of this, God reached down and lifted Thomas out of the pit.  Today we continue to grieve, but we are blessed with the deep joy of being brother and sister in Christ.  To God be the glory!

Taking the charge to heart that there would be no "orphaned" churches, the Pioneer Valley Church has spent the past three years building a relationship with the church in Sophia, Bulgaria. We were happy to send Joan Lapointe two years ago, and then Carol and James Bright last year to visit and encourage the church. This year, however, we had the supreme privilege of hosting Miro and Doini Dolapchiev, and their daughter Clara. We came to understand more deeply the challenges they face being a church of less than 20 disciples and with no paid staff. Ties were strengthened as we shared our lives and our hearts.

This regularly scheduled board meeting coincided with a working meeting of several European church leaders and so we were privileged to hear their hearts, good news sharing and experiences for a portion of our time together.  Another highlight of the full day was the official announcement and okay in funding to plant a ministry in Storrs, Connecticut, at the University of Connecticut in September of 2008.  This will be the first planting of a New England ministry in twelve years.

The day, April 12, began as all days should with a hearty breakfast, great fellowship and a devotional and prayer time.  Mark Buchholz, elder in the Boston congregation, talked briefly about questions - like the one he heard recently, "Who do you have coming with you on Easter Sunday?"  He spoke of Jesus' questions, "Do you want to get well?", "Do you believe?", etc.  He concluded with John 16:23-24 and encouraged us all "to ask."  Jesus' promise is that "you will receive, and your joy will be complete."  Then Jim Blough, newly appointed treasurer of IMS, led us in prayer.

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With a thin layer of snow covering the landscape, the French-speaking European churches gathered on Easter weekend for their second retreat together. We were 220 people (150 adults, plus one dog and one fox...) from Paris, Geneva, Bruxelles, Lyon and Luxembourg. For three days, in the Vosges' beautiful mountainous landscape, in the Alsace region of the east of France, the Christians were brought together and spent moving times together (some hadn't met for 5 years...), attended classes, ate together (which is always something central to the French culture), danced, played until 2AM, visited the famous Wine Route (with the implied tasting...) or the magnificent Haut-Koenigsbourg castle from the 16th century. Nature, the ready hearts of the Christians, and the presence of God who orchestrated the event, made the weekend memorable, warm, joyful, and even visionary.

The children and teens have been particularly well taken care of, with a gigantic karaoke, Easter eggs decoration, a body expression session, classes and all sorts of activities, with even the participation of a werewolf (local version of the Mafia game)...

The retreat's theme was "That Christ may dwell in your hearts" According to Ephesians 3:14-21. The program, set up by all the churches, was the following :

Saturday :

- a beautiful and moving worship time launched the party. We even spent a time just shouting and applauding God who deserves our complete admiration and thankfulness. We could see the collective work

of the churches worship teams and it brought glory to God.

- a class from David McAnulty, from Boston, on Family. According to the above passage from Ephesians, there is no family that didn't receive its name from God. Our families exist because of God, and He is the our family's Father. We have family relationships between us, and we are together in relationship with God as a family. What is the goal of every family ? To be a house for God to inhabit, not just to bear with each other. God, Jesus and the Spirit live as a family, and they want every of their created human beings to live as a family, and yes we can have a unity as deep as that, and it should change the way we behave, in our physical families and in the church. Are we really devoted to God and to each other ? In the family we all need each other. If we are not involved with true love, when tough times come it's just too hard to become a family. God wants to live in us, among us and that we live in Him. Our churches shall become a family.

- David and Mardee McAnulty did specific classes for:

 - the singles (where we saw that singles are not second class disciples, our status as brothers and sisters in Christ is more important than our marital status)

 - the wives (with Fabienne Descotes)

 - the husbands (with the very personal testimony of Brad King)

Sunday :

- for the Lord's Supper, Franck Descotes, from Lyon, shared how he went through the years since his father's death in 2003. Gérard died as a disciple of Jesus in the church, right when it was going through a

terrible turmoil. The Christians were encouraged to see him participate actively in the retreat and share his life since that time. A whole array of miracles is currently happening in his family, as is mother, Annie, met a man, Alain, in a garden with the exact same type of dog she had. He came to church, and started studying the Bible with the brother Pierre-Louis Suchel for 3 months. He's 67 and lost his wife a year ago. He's been through a tough life, but had always loved God. Alain's been baptized in the Lyon church on March 16th. Annie and him fell in love, and while she's being restored to the church, they plan to get married June 7th !!! Franck shared the different emotional stages he went through and the dreams he has for the churches' future, including a greater return to fulfilling the Great Commission.

- Brian Homet, from Amsterdam, was invited to our retreat. As he was baptised in Paris in 1988, he read, during his message, the letter in

French (while not being a totally French-speaking person) he had written to the Christians in Paris the day after his baptism, a very emotional letter full of thankfulness. He then preached on the disciples going to Emmaus after the crucifixion, who were misled and going the wrong way, as it were, because they were discouraged and confused, and then when they finally found Jesus again, they returned to Jerusalem full of joy and faith. We can also find ourselves going to strange places when we lose sight of Jesus, but he's here to restore us to the right path.

Monday :

- testimonies, organized by Pitou, from Bruxelles, showed the retreat's spiritual impact on the Christians. Faith and a family feeling are developing again.

- Thierry Fender, from Geneva, preached saying that 20 years ago exactly, not knowing Christ then, he worked at a place very near where the retreat was happening, for a wine producer, in wine exportation. He had not returned there for the past 20 years, and now he brought Christians there to visit the exact same company. He could only glorify God for how much his life had changed since that time, and for having his sins forgiven. He exhorted us to become churches that pray to see God act among us, and to develop synergy between us - to put our strengths, our talents and our hearts together to accomplish far greater things than each church is able on its own. Great things are happening already in each church, and by putting them in common, we will be astonished by what will happen. There are ministries to start, campaigns, events, people to hire, new churches to plant, it will take our all working together to achieve them. We need to develop a deep love, a total commitment to each other, a total forgiveness, and to love each other like Jesus loved us.

- we finished the retreat with a great time praying together, before leaving.

Thierry Levasseur, and Brad and Ann King have spent so much time and energy to organize this retreat to make it an event we will remember for a long time.

Truly, seeing all the talents of the churches collaborate to an inspiring retreat, and also the atmosphere that was there, it all strengthens the faith and hope to accomplish even greater things together from now on.

In that spirit, a meeting of the churches' leadership teams showed where each of our churches is, and the things currently happening, like Alain's miraculous baptism and the heart for the poor in Lyon, the new leadership group and the worship in Bruxelles, all the events organized by the Paris church, the regular baptisms there and the numerous participants in the European Bible School, and finally for

Geneva: the worship team, the many people taking charge of specific responsibilities, the salary model, people studying the Bible, the brand new website. We unanimously want to cooperate more and to meet more often to strengthen our churches together, and dream and see the plan of God for our countries get realized.

And also to come back for the next French-speaking retreat...

Three years ago, Douglas Arthur put together a retreat in Maryland for dozens of ministers in an attempt to re-inspire the building of churches.  From March 31 - April 2, 150 leaders from Chicago, New York, Canada, New England, California and even Russia showed up to gain faith from the "Built To Last" 2008 workshop.  Though the conference has grown in size and scope, it has kept the focus on growing God's church in a dynamic way.

Monday kicked off our time together as many traveled up to twelve hours by bus and plane just to make this focused time of learning and fellowship.  There was a welcome dinner where electricity was in the air as old friends were greeted and new connections gained.  Following dinner, Dave Eastman led singing and taught us all about "Vertical Worship."  It was especially appropriate to sing of how "the mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name" as we worshipped at the foot of Niagara Falls. 

Tony Singh then preached a keynote message on "A Passion To Build."  Tony took us through many heroes of the Bible who had stand-alone convictions.  His call was to have a passion for righteousness (not religion) and for people (not programs or position).  He called us to give to missions and not just build a crowd, but build real church.

The evening concluded as we broke up into ministry groups to discuss and pray.  These groups were not geographic in nature, but more paralleled the types of groups we are leading (in church sizes or types of ministry).  This allowed us all to mix and mingle with many we don't see or hear from often.

Click here to see Photo Slide Show

Click here to see Slide Deck from Conference

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The workshop on "Vertical Worship" was led by Dave Eastman from Chicago.  Dave is an evangelist and worship leader who has influenced thousands in their devotion to our Father.  The event allowed many song leaders from around New England to use their instrumental and musical talents, as well as hear Biblical messages. 

Following many congregational songs to kick off the Friday night portion, Dave preached along with Power Point.  He referred to two

main scriptures.  The first, Ephesians 5:19, speaks of how we should speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  The second, Colossians 3:16, also deals with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  However, this time it mentions that we should sing these with gratitude to God.  Ephesians 5 maintains the importance of one-another or horizontal singing.  Colossians 3 deals with a different aspect of singing.  It is to God or vertical worship.

Dave's contention was that both types of singing are needed.  However, his experience has shown him that we tend to be much better in our fellowship with horizontal singing (because it is done far more frequently) than we are with vertical worship.  Vertical worship takes the focus off of what the up-front singers are doing or even those sitting nearby.  We are praying and communicating to God alone through the music offered to Him.

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