February 06, 2017
HAPPY 2017 EVERYONE!!! We are so thankful for all that God has done in 2016! Thank you again to all of you that have supported us and continued to believe God on our behalf so that His Kingdom would flow through us and be advanced in the world! We hosted over 50 different events this last year and thankfulness wells up inside of us when we think about all the new friendships, kingdom connections, and of course wonderful memories with our Camp Barkeley family here in Abilene.
We have started off this year with a bang! We have already had the opportunity to host around 55 people from numerous events out at the base. One of the groups we had the privilege of hosting is the leadership team from Big Country Walk to Emmaus. Vision casting, worship, prayer, and fellowship were all tangled into one incredible weekend!! One of the desires of our hearts here at Iris Abilene, is to see the Body of Christ unified as a body with the purpose of loving Jesus, loving people, and advancing the Kingdom of Heaven. We have had so much joy watching this desire unfold already this year!
Our hearts are not just looking for unity in God’s vison only with the Body of Christ in the physical church building, but also outside of the four walls. We take great joy in having the honor to be part of such an amazing community in Abilene Texas! We received much encouragement this month when we joined The Supernatural School of Ministry (TSSM for short) for a teaching by Love and Care Ministries’, Mark Hewitt. He did a phenomenal job of sharing the Father’s heart for evangelism… Loving God and truly loving people. Not just looking at them, but SEEING people. Without the desire to love, evangelism becomes a religious duty, something we have to do. It all starts in our hearts!! Compassion and empathy were modeled perfectly by Jesus Himself. JOHN 17
A community that fights, laughs, prays, cries, and dreams together, THRIVES TOGETHER.
This month we joined in with two city-wide events that are truly groundbreaking to our community! On Sunday January 29th, Beltway Park Baptist church facilitated a city-wide prayer gathering. Groups of pastors and believers met on the corners of schools, businesses, Abilene city hall, the police department downtown, news stations, college campuses and many more locations to intercede and bless the influence of that location. We prayed for the Kingdom of Heaven to come in a way that has never come in our city! A move of God so grand, that there would be not one person without salvation in the Big Country. Immediately following this prayer walk, a local non-profit by the name of “1-Kingdom” held a city-wide worship night to lift high the name of Jesus! Pastors and city leaders from all different backgrounds, belief systems, and denominations came together to exalt the name of Jesus and worship Him! THAT IS TRUE UNITY! When we can lay down our own agendas and for the sake of the gospel, meet in one accord the kingdom is released. (Just as the church met in Acts 2.)
LOCAL INFLUENCE- GLOBAL IMPACT
We have not just seen God’s goodness unfold in our city, but also on a global scale! At the beginning of the month, the Poormans and a small team went to Catch the Fire Leaders Conference in Toronto, Canada. It was such a refreshing time for the team!
Prior to the conference, we linked arms with one of our ministry partners, Digital Bible Society, to help facilitate distribution of 500 digital bibles on SD cards in Kenya, Africa that were recorded in the language of Swahili. Now the locals in Kenya, can listen to the word of God, throughout the day and encounter the creator, the one who made each of them! Nothing is too big for God.
We thank you for your prayers and for staying up to date with us! We believe God is doing a new thing not just in us at Camp Barkeley, and in our community, (although He is) but also in our nation. God is stirring things up here in America, and in the World. We trust Him, for He is our sustainer and our hope! May we release hope everywhere our foot treads, and faith with the words we speak.
Psalms 119:90 “Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast.”
Deuteronomy 7:9 “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.”