For those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you no doubt been inundated with information about the recent flooding in Pike County. What follows is a timeline of “tweets” that I sent out during our response effort. It’s so interesting to see how information was spread quickly, by so many, and with such astounding support. These tweets, for the most part, follow the efforts of one group to play a small part in a massive effort. We learned a lot…. learned how to lead, organize and handle wave after wave of both generosity and extreme shock-poverty. I learned how to communicate any need or request or update in EXACTLY 140 characters. 
Enjoy the read, and note that the proper way to follow the timeline would be to read from the bottom, up.
Where Social Networking Meets National Disaster
08.11
A Very Special (and Somewhat Urgent) Prayer Request!
04.07
Hey everyone!
If you’ve been following these posts, you know how excited we are about the progress being made on our Lifetree Cafe location. I’ll post some more (hopefully very exciting) details tomorrow, but I have a prayer request for you all this evening.
In the morning at 9:30, Chris and I will be meeting with the Dean of Students at Pikeville College. This will be my second meeting with him, and so far I’ve been very encouraged by our discussion. I have no doubt that God has been putting all this together for much longer than I’ve even known, and we’re beginning to see the fruits from those sown seeds.
The purpose of our meeting will be to look at multiple locations on the college campus, one of which could become the site of our Lifetree Cafe. We are all on the same page as far as our desire to house the cafe on-campus, but we have to find a space that is suitable given the requirements for size and location. In short, we need God’s guidance to lead us to the place He’s already selected.
If you don’t mind to offer up a prayer for this ministry, we would greatly appreciate it. Our prayer is that above all, God’s will be done with this ministry. Not only in the conversations we will foster, but even in the planning and building of the physical space. We want to seek His wisdom even in decisions about where this ministry will happen. So, as we go into this meeting, please ask God to put His Fingerprints all over this project. It is for His glory and His message that we want to see this place become a reality.
Thanks in advance for your faith in Him, and your support of what He is doing through this team.
Blessings,
J.
A Budding Seedling – Our Lifetree Progress
04.05
I wasn’t here this morning when the UPS driver came with our latest shipment of Lifetree materials, but I’m told he understands how excited I am. ”Jeremy’s going to be happy to see these”, he told our church administrator. I don’t know if that’s really cool, or really sad.
Either way, he was right. Four boxes today, all containing signage and marketing materials for Lifetree. There were two I was especially excited for. One was our lighted window sign. (See pictures below.) The other was our custom-designed stand-up display that will be used to advertise Lifetree in our church. This isn’t an item on any Lifetree materials order form. I saw one of these displays at the Lifetree offices in Colorado, and begged until they sent me the artwork. Better than that, Brandon, Lifetree’s art designer, customized the artwork for us. And he did a great job!
Fun packages aside, this is a very exciting week for the Lifetree Cafe project in Pikeville. Exciting, and crucial. That’s why I’m asking for some very specific prayer from anyone who happens to come across this post this week.
Our First Lifetree “Stuff” Shipment!
03.30
So, what started out as a boring Tuesday is now SUPER EXCITING!
This morning, the UPS driver brought our first shipment of Lifetree materials! We now have our experience kits for May, which means I know what the weekly topics are going to be. Stay tuned in the weeks ahead as we preview these topics.
We also got *some* of our materials for the cafe. Our table organizers, pens, cups, nametags, and donation jars arrived. There’s still lots to come, which means I’ll be looking for the UPS driver like a kid looks for reindeer on Christmas Eve. :-)
To share the fun with you all, I’ve added some pictures of the shipment. You know, in case you haven’t seen cardboard boxes before.
Lifetree Update – Contracts, Marketing, Planning!
03.23
I know it’s been a few weeks since the last Lifetree Cafe update. I thought I’d take just a minute and catch everyone up on our progress.
We’re very excited to now be official! Our franchise documents have been signed, sealed and delivered, and we are now officially one of the first Lifetree Cafes in the nation! The process and the paperwork are lengthy, but well worth the effort.
The next step for us has been the development of an initial marketing plan. For the past couple of weeks, our communications team has been working on collecting demographic data about the Pikeville area in general, and the campus community of Pikeville College specifically. This information was a great help in figuring out how to best get the word out about Lifetree in the area.
Jesus and the Five Thousand (40 Days With the Orthodox Heretic – Day 2)
02.18
A couple of stories come to mind as I reflect on this parable.
The first was shared with me by my mother nearly two years ago, when she returned from her first mission trip to Venezuela. She shared many details of the trip, of how she was impacted by the people and the ministry. But one story that remains fresh in my mind was of a trash pile. Not like we would see on a street corner, but like the size of a small village. Mountains of trash, or as the Venezuelans knew it, their lifeblood. From these piles came their homes, their clothes, and their meals.
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