Journey of Shawn Peoples' Walk in Grace!

This morning I woke up to a basement lined with boxes and a house that looks like several mini tornadoes ran through it. Yes, this means that we are packing. With each day, it becomes clearer that we are moving and that our days here are drawing short. I just opened a checking account in Hawaii online (that was weird) and the stress level is going down with each box we pack. It is really setting in that we will not be living here in less than a month. Many of you have been praying and your prayers are being answered. One of the things I can announce since my last post is that we are almost fully funded. As of yesterday, we only lack $150 a month for our funding. We still need about $25,000 for seed money and our house to sell, but I am not sweating it. God has been too good to us for me to worry about those things, especially since they are both out of my control. Well, the moving company comes this week and we will be heading to Memphis for the last time as Ohio residents next wee...

This has been one incredible month. The past 30 days have shown us the power of God and the power God uses through prayer. Several weeks ago I was informed that we were without $2500 of funding monthly and we were still facing raising over $28,000 in seed money. I was at depressions door as I spent my last day on staff at Urbancrest at work somewhere else and we were without a core team. Even through all that God has shown Himself to be strong. In the next few weeks, I will have some exciting news to share with all of you. I can't wait to tell you what God has shown us in the last week. He is providing and showing Himself as faithful. I am simply blown away and can't wait to tell you what He has shown me. I know, you want to know what I am talking about, but I cannot speak about it yet because of allowing .... well that would let the cat out of the bag. Oh, I wish I could tell you, but just wait and you will shout with me. So we stand at $2,500 short of our monthly support an...

This has been a heck of a month so far. Satan has done some great things to get Michelle and I in discouragement. First, I spent New Year's Eve, Day and the day after sick. I usually quarantine myself to the basement when sick and enjoyed (not) three days down stairs by myself. Michelle had to run the house while I was out of commission. After the weird stomach bug I had, I came down with a chest cold. On Thursday, as I was healing up, Michelle had a kidney stone attack. We went to the ER and they sent us home thinking she would pass the stone. Friday afternoon arrived and she ended back up in the ER. This time they sent her overnight to a hospital about 20 minutes away from the house, where she spent the night and had surgery the next day to take out the stone. Michelle's parents drove all night and some students helped me watch the kids. She came home Saturday after surgery, while we got Joshua to his first basketball game ever (thanks to Cliff Glenn) and Haleigh played in th...

It is no secret that we are looking for people to join us in Hawaii to start this church in Kapolei. I am still stuck on the struggle of people saying yes. For many years I would tell God yes, but then wait for Him to do certain things before I obeyed. Many times, I did not even check with Him before doing ministry. I now realize how easy it is not to be intimate with Christ and still do ministry. For many years I lived this way, not relying on what He was doing in me, but relying on what I knew to minister. At first, it was hard to go back to intimacy with Christ. I had become so reliant on me that I forgot what it was to rely on Him. Now, I cannot go a day without His work in my life. Many times I have realized that I have not enjoyed God's provision when I was not where God wanted me. How could I rely on Him, when I was not being obedient? I did not rely on Him because I was not where He wanted me to be. Intimacy brings us to that place where He pours out His Spirit and shows ...

As I sit here in Memphis, I realized that it has been a month and a half since I had written. Tons of things have happened since my last writing. First, we have decided to move our area in which we are planting. We are moving to a town called Kapolei. Kapolei did not exist 10 years ago. Today, well over 30,000 people live in this area. In the next 10 years, 12,000 more houses will go in and the University of Hawaii is moving half of their current campus to this area. The state and local governments are also moving their offices to Kapolei. Because of all the movement, they call Kapolei "The Second City". This area is growing with all ethnicities and is growing rapidly. We are going to plant a church right in the middle of it. We feel very confident about this being the area where God wants us. We had felt a wall in Kaneohe and could never find peace about going there. But now that we have turned to this area, a greater excitement has come into our lives. We are currently wa...

It has been 7 months since Michelle and I surrendered to the Lord's invitation to Hawaii. Wow, time has flown and we see more and more how God is stretching us. Right now it feels like the quiet before the storm. I feel twice as busy, with tons of things to do. However, it still feels like we are not into the big things yet. Before I know it, I will be packing this house up (when it sells), taking my children to Memphis for the last time in a long time and putting my family on a plane to begin our lives in Hawaii. Although the time is flying, there have been times where I have been tempted to be discouraged. There is so much uncertainty around us and it seems that our move is still far off. This can be discouraging, especially since my role at the church is lessen incredibly since Judgement House is over. It is tempting to get in a lull and mope about waiting on the Lord to move in mighty ways to sell our house, raise our funding and get us debt free. But I also see that this is a ...

Thank you for everyone who has been praying for us. The last few weeks have been incredibly busy. We have just finished with Judgement House at Urbancrest and saw 114 people turn to Jesus for the first time. Michelle and I are working through Launch to get ready. This week and next we will begin to send out letters to those we are connected with to raise prayer support and financial support. Michelle and I head to Lynchburg Va in November to hopefully be approved for funding through Liberty Baptist Church Planting Network. We seemed to be approved through NAMB and are waiting on the figure they are going to support us with. We are also waiting for Urbancrest to work through their 2012 budget. In the next few weeks I will be meeting with Pastors that might lead their churches to support us financially. I have been praying for 10 churches giving an average of $400 each. I have had some great opportunities to share our vision with several different churches and have seen several of these ...