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.