Welcome to Pennsylvania
Dear Family of Faith and Eternal Friends,
It’s difficult to imagine now that just six weeks ago, the moving van your kind gifts made possible for our family to hire pulled away from the home where we lived in Audubon, Iowa, to make the 1,073 mile trip to the apartment our new church is providing for us in Lime Ridge, Pennsylvania. Much has happened in those 6 weeks. Here’s a few of the most FUN & EDIFYING bullet point highlights—
Josh, Jacob, & Fred were the guys we hired from a local Iowa company to help us load the moving van. Your contributions allowed us to pay for their services, buy them pizza for lunch, tip well, & in the process, speak about Jesus & how we’re spending our lives aiming to please Him (2 Corinthians 5:9). Josh & Fred were polite, but showed little interest. Jacob wanted to talk more, though. At the end of the day, he unzipped his coat (it was below freezing that day) & wanted to share that he was wearing his concert shirt from the Newsboys (a Christian band). He said he was surprised to hear people talking about Jesus as openly as we were, thanked us, & said “God bless you” as he left. Pray that the Lord will use that divine appointment to deepen Jacob’s faith & be a bold witness for Christ.
As we left Audubon, we visited those who had helped & befriended us. Those unexpected car repairs we mentioned in our last update were taken care of by our friends at Clark’s Automotive. The folks at Landman’s Bank had been especially kind, too, & the Nielson’s body shop replaced our front windshield that cracked from side to side! The Audubon Vet Center was a huge help & comfort, too, as they guided us through how to take care of one of our 11 year old dogs, Molly, who is now blind & diabetic. I (Dave) had begun meeting with a man named Dave W. who had visited our church in Iowa, to study the Bible & pray together & encourage each other. What’s super exciting is that Dave W. & I (Dave) get to continue doing that together long-distance. Please pray the Lord will continue to use our time devoted to living for Him in Iowa to not only point souls to Christ, but that they would love Him with all of their hearts, minds, souls, & strength, too!
The 3-day drive to our new ministry in Pennsylvania included overnight stops in Syracuse, Indiana, & Youngstown, Ohio. In Syracuse, Brittney was the hostess attending to the hotel’s continental breakfast. She took an interest in us, talked for a long while, accepted a good tip that your gifts made possible, & heard the Gospel. She was attentive, thankful, genuinely interested, & willing to take a tract. Please pray that Brittney will come to know the Lord if she doesn’t & walk more closely with Him if she does. The next day, we pulled into Youngstown, Ohio long after sunset, tired & very ready to turn in for the night. There was no one else in the lobby & the clerk introduced himself as David. David asked why were in town & after a short explanation that we were on our way to our new home & the work of being a missionary shepherd, he enthusiastically began telling me (Dave) the story of his devout Roman Catholic faith, how he got to meet Pope John Paul II & even kiss his ring! We spent nearly an hour in a quiet lobby speaking of Jesus, faith, asking questions of each other, & so on before the hotel’s phone rang & we parted ways. David is very ecumenically minded & sees little difference between his faith & Biblical Christianity. As we were leaving, he wrote his email address on a piece of paper & asked me to keep in touch! Wow. Please pray that the Lord would use me to point David to a faith that saves & that God will make his heart would be Mark 4 “good soil” as I witness to him.
After meeting with a few people from our new church to visit, pray, & get the keys to the apartment they’ve rented for us, our friends, Dale & Mary Rudkin from Kalamazoo, who happened to be in Philadelphia visiting others, came to visit & share a meal & see the church building. What a first day in Pennsylvania! That was a real gift from the Lord to get to be encouraged by eternal friends we’ve known for years & those we’ve known for less than one day at the same time! Praise God. He’s so GOOD to us in so many ways!
The story about the guys who came to help us unload the truck—Kareem, Chalil (pronounced Ka-leel), & Tony—is much the same as the story about the guys loading in Iowa. Pizza, tips, & kindness, but this time it hadn’t come up what we do or why we’d moved. After lunch, Chalil (middle), smiled big with a sparkle in his eye as he wiped his mouth with a napkin & asked me (Dave), “Are you a man of God?” Smiling big, I asked him why he thought I might be, & he said, “I just don’t meet people who are happy & wanting to help us like you are.” I shared right there that all the good is Jesus & the rest is me, that I’m getting to freely give what so many others have given me freely (that’s YOU & Jesus—peek at Matthew 10:8c), & that joy even when you’re moving & hurting, is possible with God. After the crew finished up, Chalil asked if I’d pray with him, we exchanged phone numbers, & we have been texting about how best to connect again. He’s expressed interest in reading the Bible with me, as well as coming to church! Pray that the Lord will use Dave to encourage Chalil to live a life that pleases God & that Chalil will follow Jesus!
I (Dave) delivered my second sermon in Pennsylvania during the church’s Christmas Eve candlelight service. One of the visitors approached me after the service, smiled, shook my hand, leaned in & quietly said, “I just want to thank you. We come to this thing every year & it’s always boring, but not this year!” With a smiling wink, I thanked him for staying awake & encouraging me, & then asked if he’d join me for lunch in a few days. He did & it turns out, he’s a Richard Dawkins type of atheist—one who doesn’t believe the Bible is compatible with science & quite openly accuses the God of the Bible of being “mean” for wanting to punish sinners forever. God loves this man, led this man to the Christmas Eve service, led him to come talk to me there, led me to invite him to lunch, where he clearly heard the Gospel for the second time in a week’s time. Please pray with me the Lord will use His Word to open this man’s eyes, turn him from darkness to light, & from the power of Satan to God, so he can receive forgiveness of his sins & an eternal inheritance (Acts 26:18).
We’ve already had dozens of WONDERFUL interactions & encounters & divine appointments with 4 our neighbors, our landlord, the folks at the bank, the folks who manage the storage rental we need for at least a while, & the 30 or so souls that faithfully attend our church in Mainville every Sunday. Just this week, we heard from one of the women at the storage rental office asking for the details of the Sunday service because she & her husband & their three daughters are planning to visit tomorrow! So exciting & encouraging. Please pray for our daily divine appointments (& we’d LOVE to hear about & pray for yours)—that we’ll be joyfully faithful & the Lord will give the gift of faith to those who know the Scotts but not Jesus.
DIRECTLY FROM SHANNON’S HEART
I really struggled with this move, partly because it feels like we’ve been in the process of moving and living out of boxes for a year now. Also, not knowing where the Lord was sending us, I secretly hoped that it would be anywhere except the northeast where homeschooling is highly regulated. When we heard we were being sent to Pennsylvania, I started looking closely at the requirements for homeschooling. I joined a state-wide homeschooling Facebook group and read about other moms’ experiences. I panicked! There is NO WAY I can keep up with all of that and our family ministry. I was up all night, worrying and crying and begging God not to send us there. The next morning I told Dave that I just can’t go to Pennsylvania, but after praying (from a right heart) and talking with Dave, I went back to the Facebook group and put a feeler out to see if maybe I could find any support groups in our area. I received 3 responses. Two local moms reached out to me who have children John’s age! The third response was a total God-thing. In my initial research, I learned that we would have to go through an end-of-year evaluation with a qualified evaluator. Through an internet rabbit trail, I found an evaluator in our county named Dr. Patti. I read her information on her website and thought, “Wow! She and I think a lot alike!” I knew she would be a good resource, but I hated to bug her until I knew for sure we would be in Pennsylvania. Well, the third response I got to my Facebook post was Dr. Patti! She gave me her personal contact information and said I could call and talk anytime. AND…she lives right outside of the tiny town of Mainville where our new church is! AND…she is a like-minded Believer who has been praying with and for us and for our church! Patti and I chatted back and forth online for weeks before we moved, and God calmed my anxious heart. This is just ONE example of the MANY ways we’ve seen how God goes before us and paves the way for the work He wants us to do. There is absolutely no way I could do this in my own strength, BUT GOD is making it happen and even more abundantly than I imagined!
DIRECTLY FROM JOHN’S HEART
Hello! Pennsylvania Is Great! No tornadoes, 2 Friends in 4 days and McDonalds And Arbys are only 1 Mile Away! Its So Good here in PA! Also Awanna Is Really Cool! i Get To Learn New Verses And Hang Out With Other Kids!! I met 2 friends on January 13th 2020 Conner (11) And Evan (10). They are Really cool kids! AND On January 20th 2020 It was PIE NIGHT so i got to throw a pie in the leaders face XD it was so fun!! Overall Pennsylvania is a 10/10! John A. Scott
A LITTLE ABOUT WHERE THE SCOTT FAMILY NOW LIVES & WORKS FOR CHRIST—
As Missionaries to the Post-Christian Northeastern United States:
While it’s not news that most of America is moving away from Christ, that process is happening faster & has been happening longer in some regions more than others.
The most advanced stages of the cancer of atheistic & agnostic secular humanism in the United States fester deepest in the Northeast. Just last year, Barna identified the Northeastern-most states as the ones most densely saturated by this spiritual disease.
It still seems strange to many Americans that we are in need of supported, Gospel-centered missionaries doing the work of church revitalization within our own borders. Don’t we send missionaries to the lost wherever they are? Yes!
God’s Word leaves no room for doubt that we are to reach the nations, all people, with the message of the cross—certainly to those who are unreached & unengaged, but also to others—to those we’ve come to speak about as being “formerly reached.”
Much like Europe was once “reached,” home to giants of the Reformation like Martin Luther & John Knox, & as recently as 40-130 years ago, the likes of Charles Spurgeon, J.C. Ryle, A.W. Pink, & Martyn Lloyd-Jones—whose collective usefulness to God in reaching Europe cannot be overstated—but the times have changed in Europe. Followers of Jesus these days are rare gems in that land.
Now sending missionaries to Spurgeon’s England or Luther’s Germany is a no-brainer, & the trends seen in Europe’s faith-life are present here at home & deeply embedded in the Northeastern USA.
Our sending partners, Village Missions (VillageMissions.org), have assigned us to the Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania area. We live in Lime Ridge, the church we attend is in Mainville, but both are located in the Bloomsburg area (zip code 17815) where 53% of residents identify themselves as not being religious. Another 34% identify as either Roman Catholic, part of a liberal, Gospel-denying denomination, or a cult (like the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses).
In addition to preaching & ministering to the saints of Emanuel’s Reformed Church in Mainville (a non-denominational church that subscribes to the Village Missions statement of faith), Dave has partnered with the local AGAPE ministry group (AgapeLoveFromAbove.org) as a way to spend time directly evangelizing & ministering to the neediest in the area. Too, Dave is already connected with & discipling several young men, & pursuing ministry to college students attending Bloomsburg University. Shannon & John have already begun the work of engaging the local homeschool community, much of which is not of the “Christian” variety. We can see there will be many Gospel opportunities & divine appointments in this circle of influence. Please pray with us that the Lord will by grace exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that works in, around, & through us—bring Himself glory by Christ Jesus to all generations living here in Pennsylvania (Ephesians 3:20-21).
We want to dedicate some space here to deeply thank those of you have committed to exercise the spiritual gift of generous giving to support His work in the people & places you believe He’s working—including our family & those here with us in Pennsylvania.
We shared several very specific financial needs last month. In the past 6 weeks, in addition to all we’ve mentioned above & more that space & time keep us from including here, EVERY SPECIFIC FINANCIAL NEED WE LISTED LAST MONTH WAS MET—ALMOST TO THE DOLLAR!!!! Wow.
The Lord is currently providing 76% of our needed monthly financial support, which represents a remaining monthly need of $1,307. A specific prayer request in that area is that every dollar of that represents individuals & families supporting us. Officially, we have no “home church,” as most missionaries do. That makes us “free agents,” so to speak. While we have several churches that hold a special place in our hearts, our family doesn’t have a church family to report to, to invest in, or be accountable to as missionaries. We’re praying that the Lord will provide that gift for us, trusting He will in His time & way. Would you pray for that gift from Him with us? If you believe your church may have the heart & desire to support missionaries doing what we’re doing, would you please pray about introducing us to that church’s leadership? Thank you so much!
If the Lord’s leading you to join our ministry’s work through giving as well as prayer, you can do that by visiting give.villagemissions.org, clicking on “Find a Missionary” & searching for us by our last names or by finding us under “Pennsylvania.”
“Wow” & “thank you” aren’t nearly enough to express how we feel, so we just rejoice with you, love you from afar, admire the Spirit’s work in, around, & through you from a distance when you share what’s happening in your lives (we LOVE when you do), & trust Him all the more deeply with you as we continue to say “Wow” & “thank you!”
We want to express, too, just how much we deeply miss those souls who have so deeply invested in us over the years. I (Dave) was in Hungary a couple of years ago at a missions conference talking with a teenager from a missionary family who had lived in no less than half a dozen places in his lifetime. He said, “Wherever I live from now on, I’ll be missing someone for the rest of my life.” He shared how everywhere he’d lived, the Lord had provided eternal friends—the kind Proverbs 18 describes “closer than a brother.” The way he expressed his joyful sacrifice has stuck with me & become even more meaningful as the Lord has launched us into working for Him as supported missionaries. It’s very much a life that fits into the Romans 12:1-2 “living sacrifice” category. We count our sacrifices & yours as JOY knowing that Romans 8’s closing words are true—there is no separation in Christ! Amen?
We are with you in spirit in a Colossians 2:5 way, living the Colossians 2:6-7 life for Jesus with you!
Dave, Shannon, & John