March came in like a lion and looks to go out like a bigger lion @MFCJAX! We had many personal landmarks in March, including our 26^th Wedding Anniversary, Luke’s 24^th Birthday and Luke and Callie’s first Wedding Anniversary. We are also preparing for the Birth of Abraham, our first grandson in June of this year.

At the Center we also experienced several landmarks. Brian, Ryan, Michael, Jayson and Oscar left on deployments to Japan, Norway, Spain, and the Middle East. Ezekiel finished his time with the Corps and went home to Colorado (He plans to enroll in Bible College this fall). Wesley got married and brought his bride Ashton home to Jacksonville to begin their life together. Micah and Paul left for Arizona for few months of training. Throughout it all though, God keeps sending us new Marines. Hardly a week passes that we don’t have a new visitor to the Center.

On March 3 we were blessed to visit and preach at our home church, New Life Baptist in White Marsh MD. The next week a missions group from Word of Life Chapel in Bainbridge, PA came to the Center and installed new doors, edged our lawns, and fixed and cleaned up one of our storage sheds. They were a great blessing. Thank you Word of Life! After that we traveled to Calvary Baptist in Denton, MD where Pastor Don Reynolds was hosting a pastors conference and he allowed us to present our ministry.

There were two important meetings with the City of Jacksonville this month regarding our building project. First the city planning and zoning board met and voted unanimously to forward our application for rezoning to the city council. The next week the city council voted unanimously to allow the rezoning and building permits so we can move forward with the project. We have one contractor seriously looking at the project and hope to have a firm yes from him in the next few weeks. Please pray that next month I can write and give you a start date for the building expansion.

On the last day of the month we had the awesome privilege of baptizing one of our own. Jayson came to Christ just a few weeks ago after coming to the Center for over 6 months. He is deploying soon and wanted to be baptized before he deployed. We baptized at the church he is attending, Brookwood Baptist in Jacksonville. Thank you to Pastor Ryan Hearn and the congregation for allowing me to be the one to baptize Jayson.

Here is a sneak peek at our next project. We are currently operating on only 70% of the support we need on a monthly basis. We are putting out the call for new supporters. 300 new supporters. Back in the 70’s our deputation director Dr. Donald Dibble started “The 100 Club” – looking for 100 people to give $10 per month. Recently we were contacted by one of the original “100” and told of what a blessing it was to be part of the ministry. So we are relaunching this program for a new century. Just as 300 Spartans held off the Persian Army ( a battle every Marine studies) and like the 300 brave souls God left Gideon, we are looking for 300 soldiers for Christ to commit to supporting Military Evangelism at $10 or $20 per month. Thats $120 or $240 per year. Will you be one of the 300?