Great Meetings, Bad Roads

Thanks again for your interest in our ministry and for taking the time to catch up on what we're doing. It means a lot when we get on here and realize that people have been visiting our site to catch up on the news. Please continue to visit the site and pray. We need it! We have had a few great weekends of ministry these past two weeks. On the 15th we were way up north in Wisconsin at a small church in Hannibal. Even though this church was small, it was filled with people that seemed to really love God and missions. We had an excellent time ministering there in the morning. In the evening we had opportunity to minister in New Lisbon, WI. We were nervous going in since the Packers had just finished up losing when the service was starting, but the people proved to be pleasant and the service went well. We enjoyed finding connections we had with several of the people. Speaking of connections, this Sunday we were in two churches a little closer to home. In the morning we were in a church that is pastored by the father of one of the college guys we met at the Four Day Focus last summer. We were excited to meet his family. The meeting was great. We were so blessed again to enjoy finding these odd connections that we have with some of these pastors and church members that we never knew we had. We also enjoyed the schedule on Sunday. We are finding that many of the rural churches that we find are going to the AM service, lunch, then afternoon service. We enjoy this because we get to sit down with the church people over lunch and get to know them better. After the afternoon service in Warren, IL, we made the two hour trip on icy roads to Silver Lake, WI. The pastor at Silver Lake is a great guy that generally is challenging the norm. For instance, the past few weeks he has brought the kids Sunday School into the adult Sunday School class so the adults can see what their kids are learning and also to get the adults participating. We enjoyed being with this church and ministering with the people there. A quick personal story and I'll be done. Sometimes as a red-blooded Midwestern boy, I feel sorry for myself on Sundays because I never get to watch any football. I was feeling this way on Sunday as I listened to the first of the two NFL games on the radio on the two hour trip between churches. I knew that the timing of when the evening service started to the time that we were to arrive home that I wouldn't get to see any of the second game either. As we arrived at the church, one of the first things the pastor asked us was if we would stay after the service for some pizza with him and his family. After the service we went over to the pastor's house and Pastor Cliff turned the game on! I was so excited. Not only did we sit and talk for a while after we finished eating, but we were able to see the exciting ending to the overtime game! I had resigned myself to the fact that I just wouldn't see the game, which was fine. As we left the pastor's house that night, having seen a good portion of the game, the Lord reminded me of the verse in Psalm 37 that promises that those that delight themselves in the Lord, will be given the desires of their hearts. It was a nice surprise to be given the desire of my heart, even if it was just a silly football game. God cares, even about the little things. Thanks again for the prayers and encouragement. Continue to pray for the process of getting our paperwork in order for Ukraine. We did find that if worst comes to worst, we can hire an agency that will take care of getting these things for us. However, they charge double or triple for everything, so we're still trying to navigate this alone. Pray that the Lord would bless our efforts.

A good weekend back in ministry

Just a quick update on our first weekend back in ministry. After the nice break for the Holidays, we were anxious to get back into ministry. I learned something very important about myself this weekend. I really love what I do. I never really thought I liked preaching (I did it because I had to). After the long day of ministry last Sunday, I was refreshed. I enjoyed myself and found fulfillment in what I was doing. I guess I just needed to go without it for a few weeks to realize how much I loved ministry. I don't plan to find fulfillment in ministry, because only Christ can bring that, but it is nice to be doing something that I enjoy. We were able to visit two churches in the Champaign, IL area this weekend. When we arrived at the first church on Sunday evening (about 30 minutes outside of Champaign) we quickly realized that there was no internet access at the prophet's chamber, nor was there much cell service. Leah was so happy because this meant she would have an entire evening of quiet reading (which she didn't mind since she received a new book for Christmas). I, however, am not a quiet reader, especially on Saturday nights! I was extremely restless and just wanted to DO something. This is when the Lord gently reminded me that quiet is sometimes good. I settled down and went over my messages for the morning and did some extra curricular Bible reading. The Lord quieted my spirit and it put me in a great frame of mind to enter back into ministry the next morning. It was a great lesson in settling down and listening, rather than always having to be DOING something. All that to say, the meetings went great on Sunday. The church in the morning was great. We found out that the pastor has been studying Israel- past, present, and future, and though he wasn't directly teaching on it, it was coloring his teaching and preaching. The people there were prepared and ate up everything we said. They were very excited to have us there and let us know by their excitement and generosity. In the evening service we were able to minister to a church right in Champaign which also went great. The long time pastor of the church leads that church in a great direction and they are a great testimony in their community. We enjoyed getting to meet several people who had connections with people we know from Maranatha, including my oldest brother's college roommate, who is now the assistant pastor of that church. We had a great time of ministry this weekend and the Lord taught us how enjoyable ministry really can be. Please pray for two things if you think of it. First, Leah and I have a few pretty cool opportunities outside of regular ministry coming up. We have been asked to speak at a Valentine's Banquet and a Sports Banquet in the next few months. We are honored to be able to do this, but would also like to have an impact on the people we have been afforded the privilege to minister to. The big prayer request at this time is our invitation to come to Ukraine. Everything takes so long to get done, especially when trying to communicate with anyone in the Ukraine means either staying up until 3AM or waking up at 6AM to talk to anyone (it was both one night this week). Please pray that there would be ease and speed in this process of getting all of our paperwork done and turned in so we can get our papers in order to be in the Ukraine this summer. Thanks again for your interest and prayers!

The Holidays!

We are happy to be home and humbled at the opportunities to serve the Messiah over the month of December. I feel terrible that I haven't updated since the middle of November. The website that I have to go to to write these posts doesn't work right on iOS 5, so needless to say, this gets neglected when we are on the road. I just wanted to take a few minutes to update you on the wonderful month that was December.

The week after Thanksgiving, Leah and I took off for New York City. We had scheduled the first Sunday in December to be in a church in CT in the morning and PA in the evening. What a wonderful Sunday of service. I wish I could tell you more about that day, but I fear I'll lose you by the end of this long update if I don't hurry on. That next week was a busy week of activity and ministry, as well as some great fellowship with our teammates in NYC, the Gibsons. Brother John had printed out 10,000 flyers advertising the Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations that Shalom Baptist Church was having. In the one week while Leah and I were there, we helped to pass out almost half of those flyers (they really go quick with so many people). We were also able to help in several areas of ministry. We helped in the Saturday Morning Art Program, where John and Joy are seeing many new kids introduced to Shalom. I was also able to preach in the Sunday morning service at Shalom and had an opportunity to present the Gospel to the unsaved in attendance. I also challenged those who had accepted Messiah to be bold in their witness for Him. After the service, Leah and I had the opportunity to go to lunch with a couple that have been attending Shalom that we have been building a relationship with. They are a couple our age that seem to enjoy the fellowship of Christians their age. Please pray for us and them as we attempt to show them Christ through our lives.

In addition to helping with Shalom Baptist Church, we were also introduced to a ministry called New York Gospel Mission. We had been wanting to meet Bill Jones, the head of ministry, for several months and took the opportunity one of the mornings to go meet him. Silly us, we thought we were going to have a tour of the facility and look around. When we arrived, Pastor Jones said hello immediately followed by, "Could you help put some food in these carts." Three hours later after filling over 100 carts with thousands of pounds of food, we got our tour. You can see the picture of me lowering down the food on a pretty cool contraption they built to help get the carts down the stairs (only in New York). This ended up being a great visit with a new friend in ministry in NYC. If you want to check out this ministry visit nygm.org. After spending a few days at home after our NY trip, we headed off to my grandparents for our Christmas celebration with my side of the family. We had a great time with my family.

You may ask, why is he boring us with the details of his family Christmas? While there with my family, I was able to teach my nephews (and the rest of my family) about the story of Hanukkah. We were able to celebrate Hanukkah every night by lighting the candles, playing the dradle game with my nephews, and we even cooked latkes (potato pancakes) for my family one of the nights. We were privileged to be the avenue that God used to teach my family a little bit about Jewish culture.

Birthdays and Bein' Busy

What a wild ride the last few weeks. We have been in several missions conferences and had the opportunity to serve with a wide variety of people. We started in a church in Northern Wisconsin last Sunday where we met a pastor that knew more of my family than I did. He and his wife both went to Pillsbury (which is where my parents and other family members went). Not only did they go there, but some of his children went there as well. He told me that the first person they met when dropping their daughter off to school was my second cousin (whom I've never met). What a small world. We had a great time ministering with them on what they called "Harvest Sunday." This is a church that normally runs in the 30's and with all of the hard work that they put in inviting people from the community, we saw 55 people in the service that morning. Not only were there many people at church, but all but a few of them stayed that afternoon for lunch. We were so excited to get to meet and talk to many of the visitors that came that day. After a great day in Wisconsin, we came back home that night so we could take off the next day for Charleston, IL. This was a church that we had the opportunity to visit this Summer and were honored to be invited back for a few nights of their missions conference. I was able to do a Passover demonstration for them and it seemed that it was well received. After the Tuesday evening meeting, we made the three and a half hour drive back to Rockford, in order to be home to go to a church across town for their Wednesday evening service as part of their missions conference. We were shocked and a little bit surprised when the pastor said right from the pulpit that he was hoping for a good response from the faith promise giving so they could take on the Clapps for financial support. How awesome! We are also praying for these church's faith promise giving, not just so that we can be supported, but as Paul says in II Corinthians 8, so that they can enjoy the extra blessing that comes from this special kind of grace giving. We had a few nights off Thursday and Friday to celebrate my birthday. Thursday, Leah's grandparents took me and the rest of Leah's family out for steak. Friday we were able to have several friends over to the house to celebrate again. It was fun to be able to see some of the people that we miss the most while out on the road. After a few nights of celebration we were off to West Salem, WI for another missions conference, yesterday I was able to present Jewish evangelism to a packed house in Sunday school and also challenge the Sunday evening crowd through the preaching of God's Word. We are looking forward to a special treat this week at West Salem. He could not be here yesterday or tonight, but Tuesday night and Wednesday night we will be ministering with my missions teacher from Maranatha, Ted Daub. He is now back in Kenya and will be presenting his ministry tomorrow night. How surreal that the man who once had to put up with wading through the fluff in my research papers is now ministering with me at a missions conference. What an amazing plan God had for us all! We are looking forward to one more local missions conference at the end of this week in Pecatonica, IL and then a break for Thanksgiving. Thanks again for your interest in our ministry. If you have any questions, or would like to talk to me personally, I'm always available, joeyclapp@yahoo.com. Keep us in your prayers as we encounter the next few weeks of ministry.

Missions Conferences and New Support

God has been good since we last talked. We have started into the Fall Missions Conference "season" and so far the Lord has been very good to us. Last week we had the opportunity to be a part of a home missions conference at a church in Madison, WI. We started the festivities on Saturday night with a Fall Festival at the Pastor's Farm. We had a great time on the hay ride, sampling the different chili's for the chili cookoff, and sitting around the huge campfire that I'm sure was visible from the space station! We even had the opportunity to go to a corn maze after the church activity with the college and career class. The next morning the conference started. This was unique in the fact that it focused on home missions. Maranatha was highlighted Sunday morning, Leah and I were able to present Sunday evening, along with other home missions programs in the Madison area, such as a women's center and a youth Bible camp in Wisconsin. All in all the conference was a great success, made so by the hard work of the pastor and his family. As for this past Sunday, the 30th, we originally thought we were going to have a Sunday off. For a missionary on deputation, this is not generally good news. We received a call just a week and a half before our meeting that they would have to reschedule to another time. There obviously would not be enough time to obtain another meeting, so we started to look forward to our first Sunday at our home church in quite some time. On Tuesday of last week we received a call from a pastor in the Indianapolis area wondering if we could come that night for his missions conference. We were in the middle of the missions conference in Madison, and we did have a family get together on Friday night, but I told him I would be more than happy to go down Saturday and Sunday to catch the end of the conference. The pastor explained to me that his father had come to visit, and while at lunch, the pastor was excitedly telling his father about their missions conference that was starting that week. The pastor's father queried how many missionaries his church had going to God's chosen people, the Jews. The pastor said that he was so convicted that he immediately called IBJM to find out if there was a missionary on deputation that could join his missions conference. Consequently, we got the call because of the cancellation that we had. It was a great conference with a great group of people. What a blessing to serve a God that knows all of our needs. We did get a call this week that one new church has decided to take us on for support. Adding that to the other church that called two weeks ago, we are now up to 26.5%. Praise God! We are excited to see the Lord slowly but surely keep that support rising. Please pray as we have really started to make preparations for language training. We have consulted with our contact there in Kharkov and now I am in the process of contacting the university there in Kharkov to be accepted into their language program. We are not waiting for an email back. Thanks again for your love and prayers. We can't wait to see what God has for us in our future!

Missions Conference Season

What a great couple of weeks we've had on deputation. Last time we talked we were in the middle of a small break in our schedule. We have definitely passed that phase of the Fall. We have been blessed, however, with several meetings pretty close to home. The past three weeks have been filled with three meetings within an hour of Rockford. We had a great time with an old college friend's dad in Beloit, and enjoyed a couple nights of a great missions conference in Creston. Both meetings were blessed of God and offered many opportunities to encourage God's people in the area of evangelism, and more specifically, Jewish evangelism. Last week we were invited by IBJM to attend a church planting conference in Springfield, MO. Leah and I did not know what to expect since we had not set up the meeting and really weren't sure what we were in for. The conference ended up being a picture of biblical generosity to those doing the vital work of planting churches right here in America. Over $45,000 was given to these different men of God over the three day conference. What an amazing opportunity to watch, and even get involved a little. At first I was hesitant to give since we are the "poor missionaries." As I watched the generosity of those around me, Leah mentioned to me that we literally survive on the generosity of God's people. Leave it to my wife to have the right perspective. We were able to get involved and support a few of the church planters! What an amazing blessing to give back after we have been blessed so much! The conference was also a blessing for some reasons we were not expecting. While at the conference we stayed with some church members, who our mission board described to us as "retired IBJM missionaries." When we finally met them, we found out there was much more to that story. Richard and Melinda Krecl are some of the most amazing examples of God's grace we have ever seen. The Krecls met in Bible college while they were both in their 40's. They fell in love and were soon married. Richard grew up in Brooklyn, so he obviously was aware of Jewish people. Melinda was exposed to Jewish evangelism because of a term paper she did about Dr. Gartenhaus in Bible college. After a few years of marriage, these newlyweds surrendered to the call of God on their lives to go to Israel! They put in over 3 years of deputation and were hit with the surprise of a lifetime. Richard, who was in his early 50's, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. They were at 87% of their support and making plans to leave in the next few months for Israel. They decided to stay in America and work through this situation. When we met the Krecls last week they were so excited to be able to help with the food cleanup at the conference we were attending. This couple is not content to sit and be bitter. They told us several times that they are looking for their niche as they endeavor to be servants of God in their new situation. What an example of God giving grace for any situation! We were also able to meet an old college friend of Leah's mom. Her house was destroyed in the Joplin tornado this summer while she and her husband were in it. We were blessed to be able to hear her story and how God absolutely spared their lives. Her perspective on life was amazing to see. The opportunities God has given us on deputation extend to so many areas of life. This was just another example of God allowing us to meet people that will help us to shape our worldview! Praise God for His love and His love for his people. Thanks again for your love and prayers. In case you missed it, or if you don't get our prayer letter, we announced this week that we are officially making plans to leave for Kharkov, Ukraine in July 2012. Pray for us as we start this process. If you would like to receive our prayer letter on a bi-monthly basis, please email me at joeyclapp@yahoo.com. Thanks again for your support.

Family Time

Since the last time we talked our days have been filled with a lot of family time. We were able to be at a missions conference at Calvary Baptist Church in Jefferson, WI. This conference was extra special for two reasons. First, this is my brother Jon's sending church, and second, he and his family were there. It was so fun to be ministering with my older brother at a missions conference. Not only did we have a good time spending time and ministering with our family, but the missions conference was great! Jon and I were joined by a friend of Jon's named Louis Nunez. The conference was blessed by God and we were told by many of the members of the church that they would be faithful in praying for us every day. Many of the members told us that they had memorized the missionary list alphabetically and they can pray for us without ever having to look at a list. Two such members were the founding pastor of the church. Pastor and Mrs. Shafer are 97 and 98 respectively, and will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary next year, Lord willing. These Christians are giants of the faith and we were lucky to get to meet them. Mrs. Shafer said that they met an older Jewish missionary 70 years ago! She said that he died shortly after they met him and that they had always had a burden for Jewish people since that meeting. They were so excited that other than that man, we were the only missionaries that they knew personally working with the Jewish people. They were overjoyed to be signed up on our update list so they can now keep up with our ministry in their remaining years. What an amazing blessing. This week we had a cancellation so we were able to spend a few more days with Jon and Heather and our crazy nephews. God knew exactly what we needed and when. If you check out our calendar, you will see that we have been very busy with many long trips leading up to this week, and are about to have missions conferences galore! Look in the first two full weeks in November. We will be in a meeting every day for two solid weeks! Praise God for His provision of meetings. We are excited to unveil some big news in this month's prayer letter. If you don't receive our prayer letter and would like to be privy to this news. Feel free to email me at joeyclapp@yahoo.com and we can get you signed up to receive updates from us. Thank you again for your interest in our ministry. We continue to beg you to pray for us and our ministry. We couldn't do it without you.