God’s Great Gifts

(This Week at The Gathering - August 2013)

On Tuesday, July 30^th, the Ohio River Valley Mission Foundation contacted Pastor Carrie to let her know that they had purchased a piece of property adjacent to their building in an auction for $1 for the future expansion of The Gathering. Members of The Gathering leadership team along with Mike McNamara’s fund-raising team and Diana Caldwell of our newly formed advisory board gathered in the empty lot to lift up prayers of thanksgiving and praise to God for this generous gift. We thank all of the members of the mission foundation who worked together to make this acquisition possible.

On Saturday, August 10^th, Brandon Rogers and his team from the Middletown Art Central Foundation began work on a mural facing the Reynolds Street side of The Gathering building. This beautiful mural will feature our community garden with pictures of hands holding seeds that produce fruits and vegetables and celebrate God’s bounty.
The front wall of the building (facing N. Verity Parkway) will feature faces of the people of The Gathering congregation. This mural project is the third mural done by this artist and serves to connect the downtown community together with similar style of artwork. 

On Saturday, August 8^th, Digital Visual company of Middletown completed the signs on the front column of The Gathering (visible to traffic on N. Verity Pkwy), on the Reynolds street side of the building and in the rear of the building facing the community garden. These signs have greatly improved the visibility of The Gathering from all directions in the downtown area.

On Friday, August 2^nd, Mike Rundle, a member of The Gathering since June of 2012 and his friend Alan Fugate began a trip to upstate New York to pick up Mike’s wife and their four children between the ages of 5 and 11 and bring them back to Middletown to be re-united with him. Mike was formerly homeless before coming to The Gathering and was baptized and joined The Gathering in August of last year. As a result of joining The Band of Brothers men’s group and engaging in weekly Bible study and worship, Mike’s life changed dramatically leading to reconciliation with his wife and children. 

On Saturday, August 3^rd, Pastor Carrie was in Cleveland to perform a wedding of her nephew and received a text that Mike, his wife and children were stranded on the highway because the friend’s van broke down. Immediately, Pastor Carrie and various members of The Gathering began praying for Mike’s family to be rescued. At 8pm, Pastor Carrie began driving home and received a text that the family was still stranded about 90 miles north of Columbus. After talking with Mike, Pastor Carrie realized that she was only two exits away from the stranded family. Within minutes, she located the broken down van, loaded Mike, his wife and their children in her car and got them safely home three hours later. Mike and his entire family were in church the next morning. Since them, Mike and his wife have been attending Celebrate Recovery and have started marital counseling together. Mike’s children are now enrolled in Highview Elementary School in Middletown and start school August 14^th. Praise God! 

On Sunday evening, August 11^th, The Gathering had its largest attendance at our monthly Wesley Love Feast. This worship service consists of informal testimonies, prayer, music and an offering for the poor. With 23 people sitting in a circle, we lifted up prayers and praise to God for his grace in our lives and told the stories of God sightings from the past week. Roger Bush shared that he was celebrating one year of coming to The Gathering for the first time. Formerly homeless, Roger wandered in to the Gathering because he heard there was free lunch. He said, “I didn’t expect to be met with loving people who greeted me and found me a place to sit. Then, the band started playing music that didn’t sound “churchy”. The message seemed like it was speaking right to me. After the message, I was invited to stay for the Bible study. During the study, Pastor Carrie asked me what I thought about the scripture that we were studying. Nobody had ever asked me what I thought. After that, I knew that I had found my church.”  Since then, Roger has been clean and sober for one year, serves on our hospitality team, and as a member of the Band of Brothers. Roger will be giving his testimony at Celebrate Recovery this Monday night. 

On Monday August 12, The Gathering celebrated our largest attendance at Celebrate Recovery with over 80 adults in attendance and 26 children!  Thanks to our children’s leaders, we were able to offer free child care for these children which allowed 23 women from the Women’s Center of Hope (homeless shelter) to attend the program for the first time. There were 6 women’s small groups and 4 men’s small groups. We thank Pastor Mike Bailey from Faith United in Middletown for offering his church to handle the overflow and for Grace Point Nazarene Church for providing transportation. 

We continue to be amazed at the movement of the Spirit of God and are extremely grateful for people like you who are making it possible for lives to be changed through the ministries of The Gathering.