Hello from the North woods of Wisconsin,
As I write we still have snow on the ground even though the first official day of spring has come and gone. Long cold winters are just a part of living in the North, and we are happy to be in the place God has called us to serve.
After Bible college, we served for almost two years at Grace Independent Baptist Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. While there I was the assistant pastor and school principal. My wife and I had a bus route, worked with the teenagers, and taught in the Christian school. Bible college along with those two years were great preparation for what we are doing now.
In June of 2003, we moved north 1300 miles to start New Hope Baptist Church in Kennan, WI. This coming June we will be celebrating the 15th year anniversary of our church here in Kennan. We are in a very rural area in northern Wisconsin. Our town is small with about 100 people living in it, but there are several other small surrounding towns around us that we are also trying to reach. We have had high and low days. This last year we averaged 70 on Sunday mornings.
In these past fifteen years, we have seen many souls come to Christ through the ministries of our church. It has been a joy to see young people go off to Bible college, and some have come back and are now teaching in our Christian school. It has also been a blessing to see the young people we have reached, get married and raising their own children for the Lord.
The Lord has allowed us to start several ministries through our church. One is our Christian school. It is a lot of work, but also a great blessing. This year we have two graduating seniors. Both of them love the Lord, and we look forward to seeing what God will do with their lives. The young man who is graduating will be doing a one-year internship at our church, and then going off to Bible college.
We also have summer outreach programs. Vacation Bible school and youth camp are the highlight of our summer. Many souls have been saved and influenced for the Lord in these ministries. For years we met at a county park for camp, however we are now praising the Lord for giving us property for our own camp!
God has also blessed in allowing us to continue to fix up our church building. In the last couple of years, God has sent in money to allow us to put a new roof on our building as well as complete several remodeling projects. We are in the process right now of replacing several windows and are continuing to remodel our building.
In these years God has also blessed our family. When we first came to Kennan, our oldest daughter was only six months old. Since then God has blessed us with 5 more children. It has been a joy to see them one by one accept the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior. We are raising them to serve the Lord, and as they grow it is a joy to our hearts to see their love for the Lord, their willingness to serve Him, and their desire to live for Him. Thank you for all who pray for us. God bless you in your service for Him.
Pastor Jonn Morrow & family