Read this post from monday about Garrett if you haven’t yet.
Hello church!
Thank you so much for your prayer and encouragement these past few days. It is incredible to know that I have such a great church family joining me in this experience. Firstly, my surgery is scheduled for Tuesday the 17th at Noon. It will be at St. David’s downtown Austin off of 32nd street and I35. Today my mom and I went to the ENT doctor, Dr. Leeman, to talk to him about his role in the surgery. He will be teaming up with the neurosurgeon navigating his way through my nose and into my skull through a thin bone and then from there, my neurosurgeon, Dr. Kim, will take over and handle removing the tumor. During my appointment with Dr. Leeman today, he walked my mom and I into a TV room to show us just exactly what he will do and where they are going into my head. In the room, we found out that the tumor is deeper into my head than we had originally thought which means that the surgery will take longer than what was originally told to us. Right now we’re looking at a 4 hour surgery that could turn into a 7 hour surgery. Dr. Leeman is an incredible doctor and was very supportive and put Mom at ease during the time we were there. Tuesday morning I will go in for a pre-surgery MRI to make sure that nothing has changed since the last scan. I will be in the ICU all day tuesday and then wednesday is when we do the victory MRI making sure that everything is gone. Please continue to pray for healing and peace within me as God prepares me for Tuesday. Pray for my mother as well. She is taking this the most rough out of all my family which is what mommies do and I love her for it all the more. Pray that her faith can grow through this and her testimony can point towards God’s glory. My main fear is my eyesight. With this surgery there is a risk I could lose more sight than I already have and that is extremely scary to me. Please pray that my faith can grow in this area as well. God’s power and strength is made perfect in our weakness and I pray that it is evident through surgery and recovery.
Love you all,
Garrett
Please continue to pray for Garrett, his family, and the team of doctors. We will keep you posted via facebook, twitter, and this blog.
Garrett
Posted: January 9, 2012 in UncategorizedTags: Garrett Moore, pituitary tumor, psalm 112, River Stone Church
Yesterday was an incredibly powerful day with the River Stone family. As many know, our intern, Garrett, has discovered a pituitary tumor that is also touching his brain. He will be having surgery this week to remove the tumor. The plan for the surgery is to go through his nose, grab the tumor and be done. There is a slight chance that the tumor will be of such a nature that they’ll have to do a more substantial surgery. The best thing that could happen would be for the tumor to be solid. Or, if you would like to join the kids of River Stone, you can choose to believe that the tumor would disintegrate into thin air – which would be even better!
Sunday morning Garrett, led us in a song called “Always” by Kristian Stanfill. He (and we along with him) boldly declared these lyrics as he faces a tremendous trial this week…
My foes are many, they rise against me
But I will hold my ground
I will not fear the war, I will not fear the storm
My help is on the way, my help is on the way
Oh, my God, He will not delay
My refuge and strength always
I will not fear, His promise is true
My God will come through always, always
Troubles surround me, chaos abounding
My soul will rest in You
I will not fear the war, I will not fear the storm
My help is on the way, my help is on the way
Oh, my God, He will not delay
My refuge and strength always
I will not fear, His promise is true
My God will come through always, always
I lift my eyes up, my help comes from the Lord
I lift my eyes up, my help comes from the Lord
I lift my eyes up, my help comes from the Lord
I lift my eyes up, my help comes from the Lord
From You Lord, from You Lord
Oh, my God, He will not delay
My refuge and strength always
I will not fear, His promise is true
My God will come through always, always
Oh, my God, He will not delay
My refuge and strength always, always
A lot of the idea of this song comes from Psalm 40 and we also find a beautiful Psalm of not fearing in Psalm 112 (especially verses 7-8). We read both of those as we prayed for the Lord’s complete and total healing of Garrett.
We would like to ask you to join us in praying for Garrett this week. The surgery could happen at any time, but it will likely be scheduled for later in the week. We believe this is an opportunity for all of our faith to grow, and we are proud of Garrett as he stands strong in the face of adversity. Let’s stand with him. Let’s go hard after God for his healing. Thank you for your prayers and support of our brother. Also, feel free to drop him a note of encouragement/prayer at his Facebook page.
We will be sending out more information about the surgery when we get it. If you’re not currently receiving River Stone update e-mails, please fill out an online blue card here. Also, you can follow us on twitter or find us (and like us) on Facebook.
Church,
Over the past month, we’ve developed a beautiful relationship with the folks at Travis Elementary. God has done some amazing things through this relationship already which resulted in helping almost 20 families with food over the Christmas break. I’ve written you a letter that tells you where we are with it now. It is important, and I would like to ask all of our church family to read it through. It’s too long for a blog, so here’s a link to the shared Google doc.
jason
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hyEcLPduRoMLV__LXlq7K-zUiS42c23ZxwdBxgNz364/edit
A few years ago, I sat and listened to a good friend talk about how much he had grown from consistently reading all the way through the Scriptures. He talked about how much easier it was to renew his mind as he had been fervently filling his mind with the very Word of God repeatedly. Somewhere around that time I attended a conference for church planters. The keynotes at gatherings like that usually are rich times of theology, devotion, and a lot of practical wisdom. I’ll never forget Wayne Cordeiro taking the stage and telling a couple thousand church planters to read their bibles. He talked extensively how everything he did that was good was an Overflow of time well spent with the Lord in the Scriptures. Furthermore, he designed this reading plan for his church called the “Life Journal.” I got home, ordered one, and have been a faithful student of the Scriptures through the “Life Journal” ever since.
I would like to challenge you with the same thing that challenged me. If you’ve not read through the Bible before, do it. Even though I had previously read cover to cover through scripture, the yearly discipline of trekking through the beauty of God’s revelation has enriched my Christ-following life immeasurably. It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord’s timing is perfect. I even found God that the Lord was sovereign when I would fall behind on my daily readings. The point is not to rely on self-discipline to win the Lord’s approval. The point is that there is nothing more valuable than what the Lord has said, and we should make it the highest priority in our day to day life.
Technology makes reading the bible incredible easy. And though we offer Life Journal resources at River Stone, there are many good reading plans. If you would like to utilize the Life Journal plan, you can learn more and order resources here: http://www.lifejournal.cc/ . There is also an amazing app called “You Version” that you can download to your iPhone, iPad, Droid, or computer. You can find it here: http://www.youversion.com/ . You Version has a breakdown of different reading plans here: http://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/all . Accountability works well when you do the same plan as friends and covenant together to talk about what you have read and learned. My prayer for the people of River Stone is that we would be people deeply devoted to God’s Word. Let’s commit to reading the Bible this year. Please let us know if you have any questions or if we can help you as you look for the best way to study the Bible.
Happy New Year!
jason
New Year Worship Gathering
Posted: December 29, 2011 in UncategorizedTags: New Braunfels, New Year, san marcos, The Stone Coffee, worship
Our Worship Gathering this Sunday is going to come a little early. We’re going to start Saturday night at 8:30pm and bring in the New Year with worship. Before we worship together, we will enjoy some original live music from Garrett Moore and the Bollinger’s. We’re also having an Open Mic segment, so if you would like to share a song, poem, or other artistic expression, contact Garrett (garrett@river-stone.org) to get on the list. The Stone will be serving their full menu. Feel free to bring games/activities for the kids. The worship time will begin at 11:15pm. Let us know if you have any questions. Hope to see you Saturday, and of course you’re welcome to bring friends, family, or whomever. See you then…
River Stone in Haiti
Posted: December 22, 2011 in Missions, UncategorizedTags: haiti, missions, River Stone Community Church
A River Stone team is returning from about a week in Haiti. This team led a women’s conference (which is very rare in Haiti) and worked with an orphanage we’ve been investing in for about a year and a half. They trained workers, counseled children, added on to the orphanage, organized supplies, and did whatever was needed. Here is some video footage from the women’s conference. Thank you for your prayers for the team. We look forward to hearing more in coming weeks.
I am Free (River Stone in Haiti) from River Stone Community Church on Vimeo.
Dear Church Family,
An amazing opportunity has fallen into our laps. I mentioned Sunday that we would have a meeting with the folks at Travis to learn more about how we could serve families in need. We thought we were meeting to plot a course for the future. With tears in their eyes, they told us of the kids who only eat at school. They were broken over the fact that for two weeks many of their kids are going to have very little to eat. We left very confident that we are being called to intervene. This e-mail is filled with details, so please read carefully.
So, here’s the plan. We are going to feed 20 families for the next 2 weeks. For this initial drive, we are going to be making two deliveries to each of the 20 families. The first will be on Tuesday the 20th, and the next on the 27th. The Lord has opened up provision in the form of a grant from the Food Bank in cooperation with HEB. We will be picking up a lot of food from them that will go to these families, and we will supplement that food with groceries that are fresh (eggs, milk, bread, etc.).
I know this is last minute, but over the years we’ve experienced River Stone to be a place of quick response when people are in need or hurting. We have a team going to Haiti on Saturday where you expect to find extreme poverty. Just as we are called there, we are now being invited to serve a similar type of poverty in our own backyard. How cool is it that we are going to be the hands in feet of Jesus internationally and locally at the same time. We need everyone in on this.
Here’s what we need – money and manpower (of course we also need womanpower). We’re estimating that we will need between $2,000-$2,500 to supplement the food we’re going to be purchasing. Can you please give to this cause? $5, $50, $500, or the whole $2,500… whatever you can do is great. I know many of you are already on the road or out of town. You can give on our website: https://www.eservicepayments.com/cgi-bin/Vanco_ver3.vps?appver3=tCa6TZIkmVMK9bkK7-sJKS_ECO3tWMRvZpcIZoZHSLYxeXoa7baF9qjVm7nUuKLv5GZ5xD_k-p3M5B-gom6Xw0k3yI1co3iRl8FlImNzPgSYHpv3zDUTRs4v_wB2CxCA9dVC9ChQHhfICqgzM06VaT_mTPbc71Ym64tztmFziyA=&ver=3. Please put your donations for this in the Turkeys Tackling Hunger line item. You can give there with your credit/debit card, or a direct draft. Remember that if you run it as debit/credit, 2-3% of that goes to the bank. A bank draft gets your full donation to the cause. I know money is tight for most people this time of year, but we’re not talking about Christmas gifts this time, we’re talking about kids not eating. We’re serious that anything you can give is helpful. HEB or Sam’s giftcards could also be helpful, but the cash will be easiest. You can also give toward this on Sunday morning at the Rec Center.
OK, for manpower, we need volunteers for various things mostly Monday and Tuesday this week and next week. We need 1 or 2 people (Spanish speaking) who can make an initial phone call to the families we’re helping to arrange some details for delivery. We need some trucks to pick up food from HEB on Monday and take it to The Master’s School (which will be our war room). We need folks to organize the food we get from HEB and box/bag it. We also need folks to shop for fresh items and deliver. We are looking to not just drop and run but build relationships. We are praying about how to stay involved in these families over the course of the school year. Like I said, we will repeat a similar process the following week. We will likely learn a lot from this first week and be able to stream line the next week, but we will still need help. We appreciate your flexibility as we don’t know exactly what we’ll need. We would ask that if you sign up for one particular thing but are needed somewhere else that you be flexible. This is a big task for us, but we’re confident we can do it.
John McGlothlin and I are working together on this, and he is organizing the details. If you would like to volunteer, e-mail him directly at forthecity@river-stone.org . You can also hit him up with questions. We have also brought OverFlow leaders into the loop on this, so you can talk to them about how your group can be involved. “Should” we got too much money (or should I say “when” we get too much money), we will do one of two things. Earmark the money for future help for Travis families or reimburse the Food Bank the amount of the grant. They have not asked for this, but we want to continue to bless them as they feed the hungry.
Finally, I would like to ask you to pray that the Lord would give us a bigger role to play in holding up the arms of those who are helping the least of these in our city. There is much work to be done. We have the heart, but we need the resources and the availability of workers to bring it all together. I can’t emphasize how excited we are about this opportunity that the Lord has given us.
Thank you for allowing us to bring this to you. Please jump in on this some way, somehow.
Love you,
Jason
Christmas Eve 2011
Posted: December 15, 2011 in UncategorizedTags: 2011, Christmas Eve, River Stone Community Church, San Marcos Texas
We would like to invite everyone to our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at the City Park Rec Center. The Rec Center is the new facility behind where the Lions Club rents tubes in the summer. It is a beautiful facility right on on the San Marcos River. Our service will start at 6:30pm, and we look forward to celebrating the Light of the World together. This will be a family friendly service as there will be no childcare provided. Thank you for helping us spread the word to your OverFlow groups, friends, and family.
Songs we sang:
- Mighty Breath of God – Jesus Culture
- Rain Down – Jeremy Riddle version (Delirious?)
- Manifesto – The City Harmonic
- Blessed Assurance – Third Day version (Fanny J. Crosby)
- In Christ Alone – Stuart Townend
- With Everything – Hillsong
- He is Greater – Hillsong London
Scripture from the sermon:
- Isaiah 7:10-17
- Matthew 1:21-23
- Isaiah 9:1-7
- Matthew 4:12-17
- Matthew 28:16-2
2 photos referenced in the sermon: (They are both from my (Billy Wells) trip to Africa in November) One is Links CEO Andy Read testing out a makeshift hands-free hand washing station we built for the people of Mygera. The second is a Links Micro-Enterprise loan recipient, Evelyn, who worked up to owning 5 cows, some pigs, chickens, and goats, and a plantain plantation, all from a loan of $40 – which enables her to care for her 5 children and the 15 orphans that call her house their home.
Make sure and CLICK HERE to see River Stone’s Holiday Gathering schedule. You can meet with us if you can find us!
