Another Story Of God's Providence

Praise God that he provides for even our most basic needs!  We have experienced God's providence over and over again, especially needing to rely on Him as support raising missionaries.  He has used many people like you and sometimes even uses people that we don't know.  We are excited about how God just provided us with a washing machine and dryer!

Our house came with a washer and dryer and we were hoping they would work well so we wouldn't have to buy new ones.  Unfortunately that wasn't the case, so we started looking on Craigslist and prayed for God to lead us to the right ones.

We saw many sets that were nice but too expensive, and if we saw a set that was well priced it was usually gone before we could act.  Sunday Rebecca saw a new post for a set of Bosch machines which were priced very well.  They are about 10 years old but they are top of the line and originally were very expensive.  We inquired and there was already someone else interested!  We shared with the sellers that we are urban missionaries and that we have been looking for something like this for a while, so they said that whoever got there first could buy them (a very fair way to do it).  We raced to find a vehicle to haul them with (thanks Pastor Dave!) and headed out to Byron Center.

When we arrived they were still there, we made it!  We talked for a little while with the couple selling them.  They asked us about what we are doing as urban missionaries and we shared about our work in Grand Rapids and previously in Romania. They shared that both of their parents had been missionaries in the middle east and that they grew up there.  Then they told us they would like to give the washer and dryer to us for free!  Praise God!

We are so filled with thanks and praise!  Would you please continue to pray for providence in our daily lives and our ministry as we ask God to raise up more supporters?  Thank you for your prayers!

Fall Update

Mark & Rebecca Essenburg Fall Update

Family and Friends, We hope that this update finds you well!  It is has been a little over a year since we returned home from being on the mission field in Romania for five years.  Oh how time flies!  God has led us and richly blessed us in so many ways, we basically had to start over from scratch and let God put the pieces together for us.  These are just some of the ways he blessed and provided: We were able to live with different family and friends for the whole year God provided a very reliable car which was all paid for by generous gifts God led us to a new ministry, making the first connections within a month of being home God provided a great old house which we have been able to restore to beauty with lots of help and hardly any outside labor God has given us many new friends and a wonderful new church family God has provided support that has kept us and our ministry going We could go on and on, praise God for taking care of us and for unfolding his plan for us over this past year.  We are really thankful for all of you as well, we have felt overwhelming love and support that has made what could have been a very hard transition go very smoothly.  Not to say that it's always been easy and that we don't miss our kids in Romania, but we know we are where God wants us to be.  Now we would like to share just a few stories that highlight where God has been at work recently.  Thanks for reading and we hope that you enjoy this update!   God is at work here!   Working at Gold Avenue Church in Grand Rapids has helped us find the answer to a very interesting question: is West Michigan a mission field similar to any other place (like Romania for instance)?  After all, there are so many churches, Christian Schools and religious organizations in the area and many people consider this Michigan’s Bible Belt.  The answer is a resounding YES!  It has been really exciting to see and be a part of how God is working here at Gold Avenue Church!  Here are some examples: We have had around 15-20 neighborhood kids coming to our middle school youth group called GoldRush.  This week we learned about the Old Testament Law and how Jesus came to fulfill the law and give us a new covenant.  We shared the gospel of repentance, forgiveness and salvation (through grace by faith).  When asked if they had heard this before only around half raised their hands!  Then at the end when asked if anyone wanted to help close in prayer, Kayla volunteered (she was one that hadn’t raised her hand).  She began: “Dear God - wait do we say God or Lord?" …then she proceeded to pray. What a beautiful thing, one of God's children learning who he is and how to pray!    As we have been praying for revival and transformation of our neighborhood we have seen God working in amazing ways.  One Sunday morning our pastors felt an overwhelming sense that many people in the church were facing despair in their lives.  So instead of preaching the planned sermon they preached about how deep God’s love is for us, especially when we are hurting.  When they asked the congregation if anyone was feeling despair in their lives, a half dozen people raised their hands and we had an extended prayer time for them.  One of them later shared that they had been contemplating suicide the night before, and barely made it to church, but in coming had been very blessed.   We are so thankful that we have the privilege to be a part of this ministry and that we have opportunities to help and learn even beyond our children and youth sphere.  We have come to realize that the need is great and the workers are few.  Would you please pray that God would raise up more people to help in ministry here, we need help in just about any area that you can think of!

Support Update: God has richly blessed us as we took a step of faith to be support raising missionaries working at Gold Avenue Church.  Through many generous gifts we are nearly fully funded through the end of this year, praise God.  Looking forward however, we only have commitments for 67% of our budget for next year, so we would like to ask that you prayerfully consider how you might be led to partner with us. Follow this link for details, thanks! After months of work we finally completed enough work on our house to be able to move in!  We still have lots of projects which we are chipping away at but it feels so good to have a place of our own again.  We are so thankful for everyone who has helped with our house and for all those that helped us move! Prayer Points:    Pray for God’s blessings on the kids and youth involved in our current ministries -  Children’s Worship and GoldRush Pray for continued leading and guidance for new ministry possibilities - High School Youth Group and Reading Program are a couple on our radar Pray for God’s continued providence in our lives and for more support partnerships Pray for more workers not only at our church but at all churches Pray against spiritual attacks may that come as we advance God's Kingdom

August & September Highlights - We Are Still Here!

Ever since we got the keys to our house we have been really busy.  It seems like all we have been doing is working on ministry at church and then working on the house to get it ready to move into.  This has led to our lack of updates and for that we apologize!  In reality, we have actually done some fun things along the way, it's just been a couple of months since our last post.  So here is a mega recap of what we've been up to!

In early August we traveled to Denver, Colorado, to visit our friend Dorothy.  Dorothy was an intern with us in Romania and we have been able to stay in touch.

We walked around the city a lot, averaging nearly 10 miles each day!  

We toured the state capital building...

...went to a really beautiful botanical garden...

...and enjoyed many nice meals as we explored.  One night we ate a five course meal at this jazz club.

Here we are with Dorothy's husband Andy.  

We ventured out of town on Sunday to go visit the Garden of the Gods.

We love being out in nature and I love a great macro shot, especially of a bee on a flower!

We enjoyed wonderful weather for our hike and couldn't get enough of the stunning views.

On our last night in Denver, we went out for ice cream, waited in line for 30 min in the express line, and then walked back to our overlook for a cool night shot.

Fast forward to Labor Day weekend, we traveled up to Leelenau State Park for some tent camping.

  Love camp food, here I took Rebecca's knife so she used the massive one out of the grill kit!

We enjoyed more beautiful weather and being on the beach and watching sunsets.

Here is the old lighthouse.

We enjoyed hiking and sight seeing while we were there and also went to the beach a couple times.  

We didn't expect to find this many Petoskey Stones, and these are just the ones we found the first day.  

An anchor from a shipwreck in the bay.

In mid September came our move in day - finally!  Nearly one full year after returning from Romania, we now have a place to call our own.  We were thankful for all the help we had moving.  You can see that our dads love their toys!

Part of the moving crew helping unload things from Rebecca's parents place...

...and picking up a gorgeous china hutch from church.  We were able to do the whole move in one day thanks to all of our helpers.  We even started to unpack a bit, and have been working on that since.  There are still many projects to be completed but we got enough done that we could comfortably move in, and we are thankful for that!

We hosted our small group from church in our house, this time with actual furniture!

Then a couple of weekends ago we babysat our friends' kids for the weekend while they were gone for their anniversary.  One of the highlights of the weekend was going to the zoo!

Everyone especially loved the petting zoo!

Hey, they actually like to have their hair brushed!

Here Sam seems to be contemplating something with his flock.

We even got to pet the stingrays!

It was a fun weekend, except for the part where we accidentally went to the Pagan Pride festival, but that's a whole other story! (ask if you want to hear it)  Now we are settling in to our house and hoping that things return to a more normal level of busyness.

We praise God for his faithfulness and for his provision of our family and friends, and for our beautiful old house.  Would you please pray for us as we transition to living on the West Side and continue working on our house?  Please also pray for God's leading, wisdom and empowering in leading ministries at church, we recognize that we can't do this on our own and rely on Him!

Middle School Ministry

God is so great!  He deserves all the glory!  When God called us to minister at Gold Avenue Church we really didn't know what he had in store for us and what ministries would be started.  After much prayer and searching for where God was leading, it became apparent that there was one group of kids in the neighborhood who really didn't have anything going on for them - middle schoolers.  They are at a critical time when they are forming views and opinions that will affect how they live the rest of their lives, yet no local organizations had a specific ministry for them.  We felt like God was really leading us to focus on them for our newest ministry.

First we were able to partner with The Bridge Street House Of Prayer to host an arts camp at our church.  This was specifically for middle school youth since many of the other VBS programs of the summer were only for elementary kids.

We started with a group teaching, speaking about how God created each one of us with a purpose, with unique gifts, talents, and abilities.

Then we broke into smaller groups - the most sought after one was cooking.

There was also an "Art Around the World" class, where we got to learn about other culture's art and make some of it.

One day we made Ukrainian dyed eggs.  It was a fun process and it was neat to see how these are made, especially because we found them in Romania each year around Easter.

Another project was painting Henna, an art form from India.

There was a dance class too where they got to learn multiple types of dancing.  Arts Camp was really fun and we hope to do it again next year.  We are praying that more youth will come as it is a great entry point into other ministries.

Two weeks ago we had the privilege to start a middle school youth group.  Our first meeting we had 13 kids and last week we had 16, with more potentially signing up in the weeks leading up to school starting.  With a great team of volunteers we planned what it would look like to really focus in on creating a safe place for the kids to grow in their relationships with Jesus.

We first pick the kids up from around the neighborhood.  Only a small number of them go to our church, some others have been referred to us by The Other Way Ministries or BSHOP, and a few others from Arts Camp.

We play some games, then transition to worship.  After that we have dinner and then the lesson.  After the lesson we split up into small groups to discuss the lesson and share prayer requests.

We are so blessed to be able to minister to these kids at such a critical time for in their lives.  Many of them come from broken homes and live in situations that are hard to imagine.  Some of them shared about the racism that they face on a daily basis.  They are being bombarded with messages everyday that tell them to live for themselves and that God doesn't exist.  We are inviting our Lord Jesus to come and intervene in their lives, to heal their hurts and to be their comforter.  We can't do any of that on our own, but we can point them to the one who can.

In order for this ministry to be successful we need a lot of prayer.  We would like to form a prayer team that covers the youth, their families, the volunteers, and this neighborhood in prayer.  If you are feeling a tug to do this on a regular basis please let us know.  We appreciate your prayers and your support and are excited about how God will work in this ministry!