Team Clapp

Great Meetings, Bad Roads

2012-01-25T11:08:00.001-06:00

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

2012-01-12T11:36:00.000-06:00

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!

2012-01-03T16:41:00.000-06:00

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

2011-11-14T11:25:00.001-06:00

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

2011-11-03T10:08:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-23T00:20:00.002-05:00

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

2011-10-05T12:51:00.001-05:00

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.

So much to tell

2011-09-23T15:06:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I feel the need to apologize for having long posts, but there is much to tell, so I'm just warning you, it's going to be a few paragraphs at least.My last post ended with a plea to pray for us and the students at North Love Christian School during school camp last week. We had a great time with fun activities and time together. More importantly, God blessed abundantly in the spiritual aspects of the week. I was able to preach two messages, one about Peter, the typical Christian school student, and the other about living the victorious Christian life. At the end of the second message I showed a video entitled "The Gospel" by Eric Ludy. Please take the time to watch this 11 minute video. It totally crystallized the concepts of Galatians 2:20 which I preached on Wednesday night of camp. I was also able to encourage the students in the morning sessions about Jewish evangelism and missions in general. After of the sessions on Jewish evangelism, I gave the opportunity for the students to take a day to go up to Milwaukee to help Tom Ebert, a church planter with IBJM who is planting a church in Mequon, WI. I was overwhelmed as over 30 students and adults committed to taking a day to hand out flyers with the Eberts in Milwaukee! Please pray for us and the students as we go next Friday, September 30 and hand out several thousand flyers in the Jewish communities around Mequon. When the students left Chetek, WI to go home on Friday morning, Leah and I travelled the two hours over to Minneapolis to visit my grandparents. We were so excited to be able to see them and spend a few hours learning about our godly heritage. Grandma told us about my great, great, great grandfather, who was a "Jew of the tribe of Benjamin." This man was a circuit riding preacher! What an awesome discovery to find that I not only have a Jew in my heritage, but that he was a completed Jew, introducing others to his Messiah.From Minneapolis, we took the short trip across the river to River Falls, WI. There we were blessed to be able to present our ministry in the church there in River Falls all day on Sunday. We were also able to be a small help in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Baptist Churches meeting on Monday. Leah was able to help in the nursery and with the food, and we were both able to help with the children's program during the evening service on Monday night. One of the advantages of staying to help in the meetings was that Leah and I were able to meet many pastors who we had been trying to contact, as well as some pastors who we had already had meetings with. This was an extra special blessing of the weekend.In keeping with the theme of the weekend, we were also able to learn a little more about our heritage while in River Falls. Pastor and Mrs. Bushy were good friends of my parents while they were both in seminary in Minneapolis. I made the remark to Pastor Bushy that since my parents died while I was young, I have always wondered what they would have been like as adults rather than mom and dad. Pastor and Mrs. Bushy were able to bless us with many stories of how principled my parents were, as well as some stories about Dad pulling Chinese fire drills in a bus in downtown Minneapolis. It was great to learn about my parents through the eyes of someone else. Pastor made a comment that has stuck with me throughout this week that, "Your parents were two of the most in love people I've ever met." He said it wasn't an immature, gushy kind of love, but a quiet confidence that they had in each other. This weekend I was reminded again about the wonderful heritage God has chosen to bless us with. We are humbled and amazed at how good God is to us, even in the things we can't control. We are reminded in the New Testament to take heed lest we fall. We praise God for allowing us to have a tiny part of accomplishing His purposes here on earth! Watch for our October prayer letter where we will be announcing so pretty awesome news.

The craziness continues

2011-09-07T11:13:00.001-05:00

First, I'd like to apologize for not updating you in the past few weeks. That is our fault. Leah and I had a slight miscommunication. I thought Leah was updating the blog and she thought I was, but in reality, no one was updating the blog. We are so blessed to have you along for the ride and hope you will continue following the blessings God continually brings our way. Since we last talked we were able to attend the IBJM missionary enrichment conference at our mission board. This was the week after Mike and Lauren's wedding, so we were dead tired. Honestly, we wanted to pull the shades and curl up in bed for a few days, but we woke up early to drive to Chattanooga instead. Our hearts were not in it. When we arrived, the first session was on brokenness in revival. Wow! The Lord had been working in my heart about those very same issues for the past few weeks. My emphasis on myself in my walk with God was only leading to frustration. It is not until we give up our self reliance that we will truly be able to live a fulfilled victorious Christian life. And that was just the beginning. The week turned out to be a week of recharging spiritually (as for physically, we can sleep some other time). We did in fact get to rest after our Sunday meeting in Northern Wisconsin the next day after returning home. As for ministry, the past month has been one of the most eclectic months in our schedule. We have been to small towns and huge cities, in big churches and small churches, with old pastors and young pastors. Every church in July presented a new dynamic. What a wonderful bond Christ produces between all these different situations! The one thing we all had in common was Christ. God challenged us with new ideas and old truths. We were blessed to meet a pastor that had some fresh insights that I needed at that time. We were also blessed by an assistant pastor whose dad just passed away. Pastor Matt's dad was the head of a ministry that educated churches about Jewish culture and evangelism. His dad had a huge library of literature by and about Jewish people. When we arrived, Pastor Matt had already picked out three boxes of books specifically for our ministry. We were honored that we could be a small part of continuing this man's love and desire to see Jewish people introduced to their Messiah. God has a way of using different avenues to bless his servants. If you do pray for us regularly, thank you. I would ask you to pray for a few new requests. I have spent the last few weeks developing a few sermons for North Love Christian School's spiritual emphasis week at Camp Chetek next week. Since this is the school I graduated from, and also taught at, I have a strong desire to see these students figure out how to live the Christian life successfully. In my own life and many of my friends, it seemed that our Christian walk was only skin deep. We put on a good show for our teachers and parents, but when it came to living it for ourselves after high school, many fell quickly because they possessed no depth to their walk with God. I have prayed these past few weeks that my opportunities to speak would in a small way develop a deeper walk with God and that God would help the decisions that the students make to be more than your typical camp decisions. Anyone who has been to camp has observed this phenomenon. On the last night of camp everyone cries and professes that they are going to sell out for God and never ______________ (fill in the blank with your favorite sin) again. Then you see that same kid two, maybe three weeks later, even deeper into the sin that they professed they would never do again. I have prayed and tried to develop sermons that would go a little deeper than the skin deep, "try harder" Christianity that many Christian school kids display. Please pray with me about this important week for the students at North Love Christian School. Thanks again for your interest in our ministry. Again, I would like to apologize for our absence on our blog. If you don't receive our prayer letters and would like to, please let me know. They go out every other month and are a little more formal than our blog updates. We also send out an email update on the off months just to keep you informed of what is going on. If you would like to join either or both of these lists, please email me at joeyclapp@yahoo.com. Thanks again for your interest in our ministry.

Slow few weeks

2011-07-28T14:45:00.001-05:00

In an effort to stick to my resolution to update you every week, I am updating, even though there is not much exciting news. Since my last post, we were supposed to have two meetings. The first one was a four hour trip for an evening service. We made the trek on Sunday afternoon, got all they way there and found out that there was a special speaker for the night... and it wasn't me! The pastor had forgotten about scheduling me, and when I called to confirm the meeting, he was not at home because he was on a trip to Alaska! The Lord worked it out though, and we were still able to present our ministry before the special speaker spoke. God is good in spite of us! We knew this would happen at one point during deputation, and this was a great church for it to happen with. The people were so gracious. We had three or four invitations to spend the night and one man even gave us a gift card for dinner on the way home.
The next Sunday was supposed to be another meeting. I obviously called early to confirm that we were on given our experience the Sunday before. When I called to confirm our meeting, the pastor told me that his wife has recently had major surgery, and that this was not a good time for us to come. The Lord had other plans for us as we were able to teach one of the adult Sunday School classes at our home church last Sunday. We are blessed to serve a God who has a plan for us. Praise Him for the changes in our plan, so we could be perfectly within His plan.
The next few weeks will be busy as we prepare for the wedding of Leah's cousin. Leah is the matron of honor and I am the best man, so there is much to do here in the Clapp household in the next few weeks. After the wedding we are heading back down to IBJM for the bi-annual missionary enrichment conference. It will be good to see the Gibsons, as well as our friends that work in the home office at IBJM. We are also looking forward to meeting many of the US missionaries, as well as missionaries on furlough that work with our board. Please pray for us as we endeavor to serve Him better each day.

Home again

2011-07-19T11:15:00.002-05:00

Thank you to those of you who have patiently waited as we have been busy on the road. Leah was able to update a few weeks ago on our travels (the reason we have been less frequent with the blog updates). We are back home now and immensely enjoying sleeping in our own bed! Now that we are back home, updating should become more frequent.
As Leah mentioned in our last post, we were able to schedule some meetings around Michigan while we were there spending time with my brother and his family. The meetings were great and truly blessed of God. One of our meetings was with a familiar friend from our days growing up in Michigan. Pastor Tanner worked maintenance with my dad at the school we grew up at, and Mrs. Tanner was a teacher's aide at the same school. We had a great time catching up with them and they seemed to be excited to hear about our family as well, not to mention we had a great meeting at their church in Harrison, MI.
One lesson I was eager to share with you was the lesson of prayer that I learned while in Michigan. The last day we were in Michigan we had a meeting in Gaylord, which is about two and a half hours from the place we were staying. Leah came down with a pretty nasty cold and was not able to make the trip. This was the first time Leah has not accompanied me on a deputation trip (it made me very thankful for the wonderful help meet she is to me). As I made the long trip alone, the Lord began to work in my heart about getting into a rut. On deputation it seems that you end up doing the same things over and over every Sunday. You give the same information about the same people, you many times will preach the same sermons, Leah sings the same songs and everything becomes quite professional. If you're not careful, you can fall into the trap of doing it without God's help since you've done it so many times. As the Lord started to speak to me on that lonely trip north, I turned off the radio and began to speak with the Lord. I threw myself at His mercy and realized that there was nothing I could do in my own strength. The Lord taught me a huge lesson that night. The meeting went great. There were times during the presentation as well as the sermon where I literally thought, "I wonder where that came from." The Lord was giving me the words to say! As I look back on the presentation/lesson/questions from the congregation, I am positive that this was the best it has ever gone. I was so excited to jump back in the car after the meeting to thank God for everything He had done for me last night. What an opportunity to serve a God who is just waiting for us to rely on Him so He can heap his blessings on us.
For those of you curious about my checkup at St. Jude, it went great. The doctors are pleased with how well I am doing and do not see any problems for the future. They did find that my body was not immune to pneumococcal and measles, so I had to be immunized again for those, just as if I were a baby. Other than that, all the blood work and tests came out fine. Praise Jehovah-Rapha (God our healer), for His healing work in my life and for His allowing me to continue in the work he has called me to. Thank you again for your interest in our ministry. We could not do what we do without the prayers and support of people like you.

Summer Travels

2011-06-25T16:26:00.001-05:00

Joey convinced me to update the blog this time around. I want to share just a few big events that have taken place since we started our summer travels. For those of you who don't know, we left home the end of May and won't return home until July 14th. It's been a lot of miles on the road, but God has been greatly blessing in many ways.

Part I: Clapp Family Reunion

Luke, Elizabeth, and Jon

Joey's brother Jon and his family returned to the states on furlough at the beginning of June. We were all pretty excited to greet them at the airport and give them a proper welcome and Joey and I were able to spend a couple of nights with them in Michigan at the mission house they are staying at while in the states. It was amazing to have the Clapp siblings all together again! We are also looking forward to a family campout pretty soon!

Part II: NYC!!

Joey and I are always pretty excited when we are able to spend time in Queens with the Gibsons and this trip was not any different. The plan was to meet up with an IBJM missions team in New York after they had already spent a week ministering in Boston. The Gibson's church, Shalom Baptist, has a Thank God for Israel weekend once a year and typically they are able to have a group in to help hand out invitation flyers. This year IBJM sent a group of volunteers led by our General Director, Ed Frampton, and his family. We were able to hand out about 15,000 flyers and help the Gibsons get the word out about Shalom Baptist Church. We had about 20 new visitors between the Friday night service and Sunday morning service. Overall, it was a great weekend with many new visitors that were truly searching for answers and wanting to read the Bible to see what it has to offer. Please pray for the church and the Gibsons as the continue to follow up with the visitors and continue to serve the Queens area.

Part III: IBJM Four Day Focus

Every year our mission board has a 4 day conference about Jewish evangelism. We went last year and through that conference God showed us his will for us to join the mission board. Last year, Joey and I were very new to Jewish culture and customs and pretty much every session was full of new information for us. Now that we have had a little more experience and exposure to Jewish culture, this year was even more enjoyable as we were able to soak up a little more of the teaching. We were also excited to see old friends and meet many new.

One of the highlights was seeing two familiar faces from one of our supporting churches. Two ladies had been stirred toward Jewish evangelism through our presentation and started praying about attending the Focus. We were excited to see them grow in excitement throughout the week and we are eager to see what God has for them in the future.

Part IV: Michigan

Currently, we are enjoying some time with Joey's brother Jon and his family in Michigan. Joey was able to schedule some meetings up here so we could have an "excuse" to spend more time with family. We are looking forward to a 4th of July camping trip and also a brief stop in Rockford for me while Joey heads to St. Jude for a regular check-up.

Thank you for all of your prayers!! We have seen God work in some very mighty ways during our travel adventures and we are looking forward to whatever he has for us throughout the rest of the summer.

God bless you!

Leah

Great weekend

2011-05-17T10:51:00.005-05:00

For you regular followers, I know you're shocked that I've now updated two weeks in a row.
What an encouraging weekend Leah and I have had! We started at SM Davis' church in Lincoln, IL. They were having their missions conference to which we got a last minute invite about two weeks before they had it. We were so blessed to be able to stay with Pastor and Mrs. Davis in their home, and get to know them much better. I was able to present our ministry twice in two nights and on the second night field a few questions from both Pastor Davis and some of the people. We also had the opportunity to stop by some historical sites in Lincoln that were directly related to one of my favorite presidents, Abraham Lincoln.
On our way from our meeting in Lincoln to Peoria, our car reached a milestone. Hi ho Silver turned over 100,000 miles on 474 outside of Peoria. We were thankful for the reliability of the car (especially when we realized we've put over 25,000 miles on it in the past 12 months), as well as for the people who have helped us to maintain it over the past year.
We stopped at El Vista Baptist Church for the Sunday morning service. We were honored to be the guest speaker at their Honor Israel Sunday. What a huge blessing and privilege to be invited to speak at such an event. In spite of our prayer, there were no Jewish people there, but it is always good for Jewish evangelism to be put before churches. We are so appreciative of Pastor Watt and his heart for Jewish evangelism.
We then had a job in front of us. In accepting the invitation to speak in Peoria, that left a 5 1/2 hour trip to our evening meeting. The Lord sped us along and we were able to arrive in plenty of time. We were excited about being in Plymouth, WI, since that is my little sister's extension church with Maranatha. The people of that church love Elizabeth. Apparently she has been on her best behavior since she's been attending and serving there. We were excited to see Elizabeth, as well as a few other familiar faces there. We were able to present and preach there in Plymouth, but I was especially pleased during the question and answer time. The people of that church had great, insightful questions and seemed genuinely interested in our ministry and what we were doing. We were able to spend a bit of time with Pastor Kimmel and some of our friends that attend there after the evening service. We left there very encouraged about our ministry and about deputation in general. What a great weekend the Lord had in store for us. We look forward to a busy week this week and another good weekend next weekend. Thanks again for all your prayers and support.
"There is no greater accomplishment in life than the will of God" Bruce Rice, Veteran Missionary to the Philippines

Passover and Planes

2011-05-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

What a great two weeks the Lord has given us. To you who faithfully follow our blog (and by extension, our ministry), thank you. Your prayer is vital to what we have been doing the last few weeks. The weekend of May 1, we were able to minister at Maranatha Baptist Church in Phillips, WI. For those of you who have a hard time with Wisconsin geography, it's waaaay up there. In fact Sunday morning May 1, we had snow. We were able to present our ministry in Sunday School that morning. Then came the most terrifying "opportunity" we have had thus far on deputation. Pastor Markle had me do a Passover demonstration, displaying the Seder meal. This would have been easy had I not known that this church had a Passover demonstration just two years earlier, by a man that has spent many years in Israel. It dawned on me that they had already seen the "real thing" and I was going to be challenged to improve on what this other missionary did. I threw myself at the mercy of God and went into it with fear and trepidation. I did the best I knew how and left the results up to God. What I did not realize, was the other missionary had simply shown how to do a Jewish Passover. While I was not as thorough in my Passover demonstration, I did try to bring out the parts of the Passover meal that point directly to the Jew's Messiah, Jesus Christ. After the morning service, several of the church people commented that my demonstration built very well on what the other missionary had done. Wow, my little demonstration was exactly what God wanted the people of that church to have. That is nothing short of God! I am continually humbled by the opportunities God gives us to minister and by the people we have to minister to. Praise God!
This weekend we were at a church in Bartonville, IL near Peoria. They had a weekend missions conference (Friday through Sunday) which we were able to take part in. We had a great time getting to know the pastor and people of this church. We were especially excited to see Coach's parents. For any of you that know me well, you know that Tony Cotelleso, my high school coach/teacher, is one of the most influential men in my life. Coach's parents are long time members of the church there in Bartonville. accommodationsWe enjoyed getting to know them better this weekend. The conference was great! It really seemed like God was in all of the sermons and missionary presentations. We finished the conference on Sunday afternoon with a tour of a C130 aircraft, provided by the Air Force Colonel that attends the church. Not only did we get to see a pretty awesome aircraft up close, but we also were educated by someone who has flown and been around these things for almost 25 years. We had a great time at the Air Force Base as well as in the conference.
We covet your prayers as we head into the next weekend of ministry. We had a cancelation and a host of late meetings pop up on our calendar. We will be in Lincoln, IL this Thursday and Friday for a missions conference, we will be in Peoria for El Vista Baptist Church's Honor Israel Sunday in the morning and in Plymouth, WI for the evening service at the church were my little sister goes on extension with Maranatha during the school year. We are excited about the opportunities to minister this weekend, and would ask you to keep us in your prayers.

Complete!

2011-04-27T13:04:00.002-05:00

Wow, the past two months have been a blur! As I said before, we have been all around the Midwest and as busy as we've ever been on deputation. Since the last time we talked, we were able to present and preach at Lancaster Baptist Tabernacle in Lancaster, KY. We had a great time at the meeting and we were also able to see our good friends Mike and Karie Lerch. The Lerchs live way up in the hills and we had a great time feeding calves, chickens, and goats, riding sheep (pictured) as well as romping around the mountain that the Lerchs own. We had a great time with Pastor Wheeler and his wife, Hannah, as well as with the Lerchs. From Kentucky, we came home for a few days.
After a three day "rest" we headed to Spencer, OH (near Cleveland), for Good Shepherd Baptist Mission's Missionary Training School. This is a requirement for our mission board, so we went into the week tired and not really looking forward to it. We were just there to fulfill a requirement. We were surprised at how helpful and in depth the teaching was. We ended up getting so much out of it. Good Shepherd is a ministry help agency that provides things such as MTS to give ideas and insights to missionaries like me. The teaching on the Holy Spirit alone was worth the drive to Ohio. One of the biggest things that MTS pushes is the necessity of letting churches see your burden when you present your ministry. People that have gone through MTS claim that their deputation was cut in half because of what they learned there. We had a great time not only learning from the instructors that were there, but also the other missionaries that had ideas and advice. We were also blessed to stay with a couple about our age and make some great new friends. The schedule for the week was grueling, but we ended up staying up late every night just talking to our new friends. The Lord took something that we weren't really looking forward to and turned it into something that will be invaluable for our ministry.
This Sunday we were back in Rockford for Easter Sunday. It was great to be back at North Love at least for the morning service and Sunday school. It's always great to see everyone we haven't seen for weeks or even months. We have a great support/prayer base at North Love. It's always great to see everyone and give updates. For the evening service we stayed right in Rockford for a meeting at a church across town. Unfortunately, the pastor had to be away, but we had a great time of fellowship with the pastor emeritus as well as the family that took us out to eat afterwards.
Tonight (Wednesday) we will be in towards Chicago in a large church. Please pray for our meeting and for the church as it is without a pastor right now. I also need prayer for our meeting this Sunday. We will be in a church in Northern Wisconsin. Not only will there be a lot of travel, but I am also doing my first Passover demonstration. Pray that I will not only be clear and informative, but also that I can bring out the obvious things that the Jews miss that point straight to their Messiah, Jesus Christ.
We plan to be "home" until the end of the month, excluding weekends, so the updates should be coming with a little more regularity. Thanks again for your prayer. "Pray like your life depends on it, because it does." -Jerry Mulendore

Missions Conferences

2011-04-07T10:32:00.002-05:00

I told you in our last post that we were going to be busy over the next few weeks, and have we ever been busy. It is missions conference season and we have been blessed by having some great conferences. We started in Lupton, Michigan, a small town in the northern part of the lower peninsula. We were able to spend three days at their conference. One downside was the 14 inches of snow that we got while there. Apparently no one told Northern Michigan that it doesn't snow in late March. One highlight of that conference was speaking in chapel one of the days. I spoke about the little girl that told Naaman's wife about the prophet in Israel, the point being that even kids can tell others about God. One of the boys that was in chapel that day, came to me at the meeting that night to tell me that he was able to give a tract to two people at the restaurant he ate dinner at before the meeting. What a humbling experience to see God work through our ministry. I hope that feeling never wears off.
Our next conference was at our home church, North Love Baptist Church here in Rockford. We were so excited to share our burden and the excitement of deputation with all our friends here at home. We had a very busy conference in which we were able to speak to my favorite people in the world (the students at North Love Christian School) every morning. They also had activities for us in the afternoons and of course the meetings in the evenings. The conference was without exception, the best we've been to, but all that stuff kept us running.
We had a couple of days to recover from the fast pace before we were drove down to Benton, Illinois (near Carbondale in Southern Illinois). This was also a great conference that we were supposed to be at from Monday until this Friday. Unfortunately, Leah and I both came down with the stomach flu on Tuesday morning. We laid in bed all day and I was able to go into church that night to present. After I presented I immediately went back to bed. Showering made me tired, so needless to say, presenting finished me off for the day. Pastor Flach in Benton graciously allowed us to come home to recover on Wednesday. He also extended an invitation to come back at some point to give us another shot at presenting. We were grateful for the opportunity to recover in our own home.
We are now at home eating a BRAT diet and trying our hardest to get better in time to be able to go to our friend's church in Lancaster, KY. It will be great to see the Lerchs again as well as be able to present our burden to their church for the Russian speaking Jews in New York City. Thanks again for your prayers and care for our ministry!

Time flies when you're having fun!

2011-03-15T11:22:00.003-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since we last updated you on our adventure in missions. We have had some fun things happen to us in the past few weeks. We were able to go to Lighthouse Baptist Church in Antigo, WI on March 6. This is the first time I have ever preached/taught three times in one day. Needless to say, that is exhausting. I'm not sure how our pastors do it. We had a great time and were able to meet many people who were excited about missions. We stayed with the pastor who told us that the church building and parsonage were both built in the early 1900's. We had a great time exploring the old buildings and were excited about the new life that Lighthouse brought to these ancient halls.

Last week I (Joey) was able to substitute teach at North Love Christian School. I've decided that I don't miss teaching one bit, but I do miss being with the teens every day. We had a great time together and even learned a few things while we were at it. This is the reason that i wasn't able to update last week as most of my work was done in my "free hour" in the morning.

This week we are driving back and forth to Union Grove, WI for a missions conference at Union Grove Baptist Church. This is exciting for several reasons. 1) Missions conferences are the highlight of any missionary's calendar. This missions conference has proved to be no exception. We've been transported to Germany, Japan, Haiti, Jamaica, Egypt, and Jordan in the course of two days. Tonight I will have an opportunity to present our work in New York City and Wednesday night I will have the opportunity to preach. 2) Union Grove, Wisconsin is where Shepherd's Ministries is. My grandmother, who is now with the Lord, spend many summers at Shepherd's home. This is a unique ministry that helps mentally disabled people get the most out of their life. They have done a great job with their residents and have helped to maximize the potential of each resident. We are excited to tour the facility tomorrow. If you are curious about Shepherd's, check out shepherdsministries.org. 3) Last but not least, this missions conference starts the busiest part of deputation we've had yet. In the next four weeks we are going to be able to be in four states, participating in four missions conferences, five regular Sunday meetings, and also an Illinois Baptist Church association conference. The highlight of our Spring conference "season" will be our home church's missions conference March 27-30. We will do our best to keep you updated on what is happening as we go. Thank you again for your prayers and support. We could not do this without the Holy Spirit enabling us, as well as your prayers and support upholding us.

A nice break from the norm

2011-03-01T16:24:00.003-06:00

This weekend found us in familiar territory. Our friend from high school, Andrew Whittenburg, is a youth pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Geneva, IL, which is where we found ourselves ministering this weekend. The Lord in His providence knew that we would need a refresher before our schedule started to ramp up for the Spring. Since Andrew and Kathy are only about an hour away, we have visited them and the church several times before. We were also able to help with their VBS program last July, so we already knew several people in the church. We were so blessed by their heart for us and for Jewish evangelism. They are not too far from Chicago, so many of them had many insightful questions and could tell us of their encounters with the Jewish population of Chicago. I was able to teach Sunday School before the morning service. I was so blessed to have several people be very interested and many of them had some very good questions. Leah and I were also able to be in Jr. Church during the morning service. This was a small group, but very intelligent and spiritually minded group. We were also able to present in the evening service and I was able to preach. We were also able to catch up with our friends and their two year old twin girls, Macy and Myla, as well as baby Molly. It was great to also catch up with some of the kids that we knew from VBS that are still faithful to church. God is so good! This week will be a busy week of calling pastors and still more Russian. Praise the Lord for weekends like the last one where we get a break from the usual and get to spend some much needed time with old friends. Thanks again for your prayers.

Divinely ordained appointments

2011-02-24T11:30:00.002-06:00

This week has been a week full of divinely ordained appointments. We have learned a few important lessons this past week about being where you are supposed to be.

Lesson 1: God provides for his own. I'm not sure why, but I was worrying again about finances and money again. Leah has just started making fun of me when I worry about money, because God has provided in so many ridiculous ways that we couldn't possibly see them coming. As if on cue we received a huge gift from someone we hadn't seen in years. God is so good to us even in spite of our (my) lack of faith. How great is the God that we serve!

Lesson 2: Last Sunday we had an evening service meeting at a church here in Illinois. It was close enough that we were able to attend North Love for the morning service and Sunday school, come home for lunch, and even get in a little bit of a nap before we left for the evening service. It was one of those Sunday afternoons that was dreary and gray and it would have been so nice to stay in bed and relax. Fortunately, we got up and headed to our evening meeting. Leah was able to sing, we were able to present our ministry, and I was also allowed to preach. We were so encouraged after the service when one of the members came up to us told us that he had gotten some things right in his life that night. We were floored that God would us two sinners like us to draw someone closer to himself! God is so good.

I (Joey) was also able to attend and speak at an Everlasting Nation Fellowship at El Vista Baptist Church in Peoria on Monday night. We had been to this church's missions conference last October, and their pastor is a big proponent for Jewish evangelism. It was great to not only see 15 people come to a meeting about Jewish evangelism on a cold, damp Monday night, but they were actually interested in what was going on. After my lesson they had tons of questions and were so excited to have this time to focus on Jewish evangelism. We are continually amazed at what God is doing in the area of Jewish missions. We are so humbled and honored to have just a small part in the work He is doing. Thanks again for your prayers! With prayerlessness comes powerlessness.

Yet another great week!

2011-02-14T18:23:00.002-06:00

Since our last post much has happened. I'm sorry that it has been so long, but the internet was sketchy at our missions conference and I had two basketball games in as many nights with the Jr. High team that I am helping with here at North Love. We started off last Saturday in a tiny town called Fosterburg, IL. We were just across the river from St. Louis. We were able to catch the championship game at Mississippi Valley Christian School's invitational tournament on Saturday night and then started what turned out to be a great week the next morning. At First Baptist Church Fosterburg, Pastor Troy Crane has in the past two years that he's been there, encouraged and spurred this 150 year old church to be missions minded. His enthusiasm was evident as everyone took such great care of our every need and loved us with Christ's love. We were able to spend Saturday through Thursday morning with this great church during their missions conference. I was able to teach the adult Sunday School class on Sunday (which is always fun to do) as well as help Leah to do the Jr. Church on Sunday morning. Steve Folks, director of advancement at Baptist Mid Missions, was the keynote speaker. It was great to be able to sit under some great preaching throughout the week. We also had opportunity to present our ministry on Wednesday night. One special blessing from Fosterburg, was a family who had recently adopted three sisters from and orphanage in Russia. These girls had a tough life and were enjoying being taken care of by parents who loved them with Christ's love! What a great picture of salvation.

Because of the missions conference, Fosterburg had a Sunday afternoon service with the missionaries. After the afternoon service, Leah and I made the trek up to Washington, IL for their evening service. Even though it was Super Bowl Sunday night, they still had around 200 people there. I was blessed with the opportunity to preach to this church. We had a great time with Pastor Thibo at Bay View Baptist Church and were also able to catch up with some old friends from North Love, Charles and Heidi Rodburg.

We returned home on Thursday evening in time for me to scoot downtown Rockford to coach the Jr. High team from North Love. The next day, after catching up on a lot of work I was behind on, I headed out to East Moline, IL for the Jr. High team's last game. Though I had a great time coaching them this year, it will be nice to have most afternoons free now.

Yesterday we were able to visit Calvary Baptist Church in Urbana, IL. Pastor Gritton was gracious in allowing us an hour extra sleep on Sunday morning. Instead of making the three hour trip before Sunday School, he allowed us to get there during Sunday School and then we were able to help with the Jr. Church during the morning service. After lunch and a restful afternoon, Leah was able to sing and I was able to present and preach on Sunday night. The people of Calvary really seemed to be interested in Jewish evangelism. One special note was the couple that came to us after church and wondered if we had ever heard of Morningstar Baptist Church. We have come to love this church across town here in Rockford, because of their strong advocation of adoption. Several families of the church have adopted, including the pastor and the assistant pastor. It turned out that the Fosters (who took us out for dinner) were from Morningstar. They were living in Urbana while Joel was finishing his Physics degree from the University of Illinois. We had a great time fellowshipping with them and laughing about all of the funny Rockford connections we had.

Thank you again for the love and interest you have for us and our ministry. If you are not signed up for our prayer letter that comes out bi-monthly, please feel free to email me so I can get you on the list. joeyclapp@yahoo.com There is a new edition coming out in the next few days!

Super Awesome Weekend

2011-01-24T13:45:00.002-06:00

This weekend was great! We spent Saturday night and Sunday with Pastor Adcock and the people of Bible Baptist Church in Knox, IN. When we arrived Saturday night we went to a ministry called Youth of Integrity. A local businessman in Knox had a burden for the youth of his city. Instead of sitting by and complaining about how bad these whippersnappers have become, he decided to do something about it! He bought a building and redid the inside of it so it is a top notch youth hangout. It is complete with a room to meet with leather chairs and a projector, offices on the top floor and an amazing space to eat and play games (basketball, volleyball, carpetball, ping pong, air hockey, etc). Every Saturday night, Pastor Adcock, Pastor Andy (the youth pastor) and several other adults make it possible for tons of teens to come and hang out and learn more about their God. This Saturday they had about half of the usual crowd due to a cross town rivalry high school basketball game, but we still saw about 30 teens there. Most of the teens are public school kids who have gotten saved over the past few years through this ministry. And the coolest part was... all the kids wanted to be there. I didn't know that was possible in youth ministry. And the kids didn't just come to eat and play, they got some awesome preaching and there were several kids at the altar making decisions. We were super impressed with this awesome ministry. The church was equally exciting. We were able to help out with a Jr. Church in the morning service, Leah was able to sing in both services, and I was able to preach in the evening service. Not to mention we stayed with the church secretary (who made everything very comfortable for us) and we were able to watch the big Packer/Bear game in the afternoon. My favorite part of the entire weekend was at the very end. All the churches we've gone to up to this point have sent us away with a generous love offering and said that they would be praying for us. I'm sure they do pray for us, but we don't know if they do or not. Pastor Adcock and the people of Bible Baptist took this to the next level. At the end of the evening service, the entire church gathered around Leah and I and prayed for us right there. We are so blessed to be prayed for by so many.

Just a reminder that our meeting for next Sunday has been rescheduled, so if you don't hear from me for a while, that is why. Thanks again for your prayers and interest in our ministry.

Exciting Happenings!

2011-01-20T10:53:00.002-06:00

I just looked at the blog and realized that when I updated last week, nothing posted. I thought I would just repost the draft that was sitting there, but there was nothing in it, so I guess I have a lot to tell you about. I realize your time is important, so I'll try to be as concise as possible. We had a very refreshing time over Christmas and New Years. More refreshing than we had originally hoped/planned. Our last meeting before the Christmas break was cancelled because of a blizzard here in the Midwest. Our first meeting after Christmas was also cancelled due to some extenuating circumstances, so we ended up having a full month off from meetings. Needless to say, we were very happy to be back on the road again January 9, in Waupaca, WI. Last week we were able to spend the day with Calvary Baptist Church in Gays, IL. The pastor (Lane Lashley) and his family took such great care of us while we were there with them. We had the opportunity to teach the teen Sunday School class as well as the Jr. Church during the morning service. We were then able to present our ministry and hear a great message from Pastor Lashley about missions during the evening service. This week we were privileged to be able to attend a Christians Unite for Israel event here in Belvedere, IL. The speaker was intelligent and knowledgeable as he had spent several missions in Israel with the Marine Corps, and goes back at least once a year now. Leah was very excited as Mr. Somerville (pictured top) was a personal friend of Corrie Ten Boom. Leah teaches the story of Corrie when we are on the road and do a Jr. Church. We were able to spend a few minutes talking to him about Israel and Corrie Ten Boom after the presentation. Last night we were also able to teach in two separate AWANA groups at North Love. It is always good to be able to minister at our home church! I was able to teach the Sparkys (K-2nd grade) and Leah did the 3rd-6th grade girls. She was able to teach about Corrie Ten Boom with some new insights from Mr. Sommerville. Thank you so much for praying. We covet your prayers every day. Pray for our spiritual walk, as well as for the Lord's provision of meetings. We will be in Knox, IN this weekend. Please pray for safe travels and a God honoring meeting.

I also wanted to add that we'd love for you to receive our bi-monthly prayer letters and more frequent email updates. We can email or "snail mail" the prayer letters. Unfortunately, the email updates are only available via email, hence the name "email" updates ;) If you don't receive one or both of these, please feel free to email me and let me know. My email address is joeyclapp@yahoo.com. I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for your prayers and interest in our ministry!

Humiliation and the holidays

2010-11-30T00:51:00.003-06:00

If you've been following our calendar, you know that the Sunday before Thanksgiving we had a great meeting with Faith Baptist Church in Oconomowok, WI. Probably the most embarrassing deputation story up to this point happened here. Oconomowok is about an hour and a half from Rockford. We woke up early and left our house in plenty of time to arrive before Sunday School. About 45 minutes into the trip it dawned on me that I had forgotten my Bible! I was mortified. I'm a missionary. Missionaries don't forget their Bibles. I have to preach this morning! I told Leah and thought, "It's ok, I'll just use her's to preach out of." After I told her that I had forgotten my Bible, she realized that she had forgotten her's as well. Nice, two missionaries, zero Bibles. The only Bible we had in our possession at that time was a Russian/Hebrew New Testament that we put on our display table for people to look at. Two problems, I don't know Russian or Hebrew and my message that morning was out of Malachi. Ugh. So we did what any good missionary would do... cover up operation. We arrived at the church more than a half hour early and no one was around yet, so we darted to the nearest store that sold Bibles and bought ourselves two generic black Bibles. Crisis averted, right? Wrong. I was told about 30 seconds before Sunday School started that I was teaching. No problem, I have a lesson prepared for times like these. The lesson is based on finding 30-40 different passages in my Bible. I now stood with a brand new Bible in which the pages were still stuck together and had never been opened or broken in before. It was bad. I was looking up wrong passages, I couldn't find I Peter for the longest time and with every mistake I got more and more nervous. I asked Leah if it was as bad as I thought it was on the way home. My wife is great, she can always find something good about most things that I do. All she could say was, "Yes, it was really that bad." Oh well, the Lord blessed the day and we had a great time getting to know the pastor and people. Our favorite part was when the pastor invited us to his house for Sunday afternoon. We have done these dinners before and they are usually a pretty formal type thing. This was hilarious. Not only were all 6 of his kids and their wifes/husbands and kids there, but also several of the young families in the church that drive a distance to get to church. Apparently this is an every Sunday thing and everyone just pitches in to help. We had a great time. It was especially good to catch up with several people that I knew from Maranatha.

We also had a great time over the Thanksgiving break. This is Leah and my year to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and sister at my grandparent's in Minneapolis. Never a dull moment with the Clapps though. We discovered at about 7:15 the first morning we were there, that the main pipe that drains all the water in the house clogged and the basement where we were all sleeping flooded. We waded around in the laundry room in ankle deep water, but after several hours of all working together, we had sopped up pretty much all the water and the only thing that still needed to dry was the huge rug they have in their rec room downstairs. It felt good to all work together to get that huge amount of work done in such a short amount of time. I have become a bit verbose here so I will make sure that I don't wait so long before updating again. Thanks again for your interest in us and the work we are doing.

Who I want to be when I grow up.

2010-11-18T10:43:00.002-06:00

Yesterday we had a great time meeting two new pastors and presenting our ministry to the 58th Avenue Baptist Church in Cicero, IL. We had lunch with a pastor named Vernon Lyons who started Ashburn Baptist Church in Chicago SIXTY years ago! In their sixty year existence they have planted thirty-eight different churches mostly in the Chicago area. I was so impressed with this pastor's balance and practices. If you've known me for any amount of time you've probably heard me rant about the broken system that is deputation. Don't get me wrong, we LOVE meeting all these new pastors and people in their churches and LOVE having a chance to minister with these people in all these churches, however, I'm not sure how biblical the process is. Pastor Lyons not only shares my philosophy in this area, but has been able to do something about it. This huge church has only a handful of missionaries that are fully supported by Ashburn Baptist. This is the biblical model in Acts and the epistles. Local churches fully supporting the missionaries as they go. Instead of Ashburn Baptist having 100 missionaries that they support for a mere pittance, they only have a few that they support 100%. What a great philosophy. Their people obviously know and pray for each missionary and are fully invested in what they are doing. One adult Sunday School class fully supports one missionary. How awesome! Now, I know what you're thinking, of coarse he wants to be this guy when he grows up because he just wants to be fully supported by one church. However, I was so impressed with this pastor, who was obviously an octogenarian, who embraced technology and new ideas in church. Most pastors who have been at a church for 60 years (if there are any) have completely bored the church into a mere shadow of what it once was. By being open to innovative ideas for evangelism and outreach his church is booming... not to mention still planting churches. Praise the Lord for great men of God!

We also were able to present our ministry to the 58th Avenue Baptist Church in Cicero, IL. Cicero is just outside the city limits of Chicago and is definitely a city church. Pastor Karrow has been at 58th Avenue for thirty-three years and continues to be faithful in the post that God has put him at! Another great testimony of faithfulness! Two in one day! The people there seemed so interested in what we were doing. It was neat to see these "city people" get behind what we are doing because they have such an understanding of how diverse and needy major cities really are. We felt so comfortable there in Cicero. It reminded us so much of New York in so many ways. We long for the day when we finally end up in New York ministering to the people God has called us to. Thanks again for your prayers. Please pray as we have a few more meetings before the "Christmas break."

In Town

2010-11-15T19:28:00.002-06:00

Last time we talked we were at Rock Lake Baptist Church. We were overwhelmed at their passion for missions and supporting missions. I commonly complain to Leah that I hate always being on the receiving end of the giving when we go to churches. We do our best to serve and help, but it just seems like we never do enough to deserve the rich blessings that these churches lavish on us. While at Rock Lake we were finally able to really get in and help the church out with some cleaning things that were not addressed during their fall workday. I was able to clean the carpets in the downstair and Leah was able to clean cobwebs, dust, and vacuum. It was good to be able to get right in and serve as well as be on the giving end of the blessing for once. We had a great time. We also were able to share our presentation on the last night of the conference. Leah sung and I preached. The people seemed to really be interested in what we were doing and showed it by giving us the best love offering we've had yet (excluding our home church). Praise the Lord for His goodness to us.

We also enjoyed the opportunity to stay in Rockford on a Sunday! Yesterday we were at Morningstar Baptist Church here in Rockford. We were so excited to see many good friends there and the meeting seemed to go great. It was also nice to sleep in our own bed Saturday night and even come home on Sunday afternoon for a few minutes to catch our breath. God is good... all the time!

Awesome Meetings

2010-11-08T22:53:00.003-06:00

Sorry it's been a few days since the last post. We have greatly enjoyed being home and getting some work in. It was also great to be able to see several of our church friends that we haven't seen for quite some time because of the funeral for Steve Curington. The circumstances weren't the greatest but it was good to see everyone again. We were able to spend Wednesday at Fellowship Baptist Church in South Beloit. This was nice for a few reasons. Since it was so close, we were able to do our regular dinner that we used to do with Leah's mom and Aunt Shirley before the service. It kinda felt like old times. It was interesting though since the pastor wasn't at the church that night. He and his wife got some well deserved time off at a couples retreat at Camp Joy. We are still looking forward to getting together with Pastor Jossund after we get back to Rockford. On Saturday and Sunday we were able to go down to Tremont, IL (south of Peoria) to Grace Baptist Church for their missions conference. The pastor at Grace is a younger guy that started the church three years ago. After only three years they have already outgrown a building and had to move once. The new building that they bought is huge, but they have already outgrown the room they have been meeting in, so they are now remodeling another part of the building to accommodate the crowds they are having every week. Even though this is a new church they already have several missionaries and are very excited about taking on new ones. We were very fortunate to be a part of a new, exciting, and growing ministry. We unfortunately missed the Sunday meetings here at Rock Lake Baptist Church in Lake Mills, WI (just down the road from Maranatha). We were able to attend the Monday evening meeting tonight and will have a chance to present our ministry on Wednesday night. I have enjoyed being introduced here as "Jon Clapp's little brother," since they already support Jon. Thank you for your prayers. The Lord is taking such good care of us. We are constantly dumbfounded at how undeserving we are of His blessings, yet he is always faithful to us. We are striving to delight ourselves in the Lord and he has definitely been giving us the desires of our hearts. We have been so fulfilled and satisfied in this ministry and I can't imagine doing anything else with our lives. Please pray that we will leave a lasting impact on each church that visit. Thanks again for your prayers. Keep 'em comin!

time with friends

2010-11-02T22:53:00.002-05:00

Windsor's conference was great! We enjoyed all of the services and the final night was a highlight for both of us. Joey was able to participate in a panel discussion and I enjoyed helping the other two missionary wives with the children's program.

On Sunday we were in Oregon, IL with Pastor and Mrs. Clark. Joey and I were able to teach Jr. Church together in the morning service after Joey taught S.S. and I sang the special music. It was a highlight of our weekend to be able to catch up with Ken and Alysha Clark (friends from college) during Sunday afternoon lunch. The evening service was a blessing as well. We had a potluck and Joey preached a great message.

After the evening service, we drove to Geneva for some much needed time with our friends, the Whittenburgs. Joey had fun playing roller-hockey with the youth group and Pastor Whitt, and I greatly enjoyed catching up with Kathy while spoiling baby Molly.

Please pray for our home church family at North Love. A leader in our church (who was a father of five younger children) passed away this past weekend and our church is going through a difficult time. The funeral and visitation is this Thursday and Friday. Many prayers will be needed and greatly appreciated.

Thank you for you interest in our life!

Leah

Home sweet home... ish.

2010-10-26T10:55:00.002-05:00

We had a great time in Peoria and even made some new friends. We really enjoyed being in a church that was so interested in Jewish missions. Now we are home. It has been so nice to be at our own house sleeping in our own bed. I told Leah that my favorite part of this week has been getting my clothes out of my drawer rather than digging through a bag to get them. This week we do have a missions conference, it is just a lot closer than usual. Windsor Baptist Church is about 10 minutes from our house, so we've been enjoying having somewhat of a normal life this week. It hasn't been completely normal since we still are going to church every night, but the conference has been great. I guess I never knew all the work Windsor does in the area of missions. We have greatly enjoyed meeting the other missionaries at these conferences and this conference has been no exception. We have also enjoyed being with a lot of people that we have known and grown up with. Thanks for your prayers.

On the road again...

2010-10-18T15:29:00.002-05:00

After a few wonderful days in the comfort of our own home... we're on the road again. We are having a great time at El Vista Baptist Church here in Peoria, IL. Pastor Watt and the church here have been fully exposed and are very supportive of Jewish missions. There was an elderly lady here who attended a Four Day Focus at IBJM (which is June 20-23 next year), and really caught the burden for Jewish evangelism. She was key in getting the church not only interested but involved in Jewish missions. We are having a great time. Leah and I were able to "do the tour" of Jr. Churches yesterday. We visited three and taught lessons in two. They have had wonderful meals and fellowships after all the services. Dr. James Ray, the former president of BIMI, is the keynote speaker and we have enjoyed hearing him preach. I was also able to speak to the school in chapel this morning. This has turned out to be my favorite part of deputation. Not that I have anything special, but being able to help Christian school kids avoid the same "Christian School" mistakes I made is a huge blessing. I pray that they actually latch on to a few of the ideas and avoid my mistakes. We have a services here until Wednesday night. Please pray that we can be a blessing to the church.

Check Out Our Calendar!!

2010-10-14T15:11:00.001-05:00

I don't want to be annoying with the posts here, but we're home!! It was so great to sleep in our own bed last night. We'll be home for a few days and then in Peoria for a few days.

I just wanted to let you know to check our calendar on the blog. Just click on the agenda button and rejoice with us that the Lord just keeps providing meetings, in spite of us. We're so excited to minister in and with all these churches. Pray that the Lord will work in our hearts as we minister, as well as the hearts of those we have the privilege of ministering to.

Fun times and sad goodbyes

2010-10-12T21:23:00.002-05:00

I know you are probably sick of me saying this at the beginning of every post, but I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated. I used to chuckle at missionaries that would say that at the beginning of prayer letters and think to myself, "You're a missionary, you have all the time in the world." I'm learning different.

We had a great time at All Nations last weekend. For the first time in my life I preached on a Sunday morning. I have to tell you, that is an awesome experience. Wow, it just seemed to fit. All Nations is a great church and had almost 200 people in a church service on a Sunday in New York City. Now that is an accomplishment! Leah did the Corrie Ten Boom story for the kids (which went very well) and I was able to speak to the teens. They have a great group of teens. Very different from teens in other places of the world. When I walked in I thought that these were rough kids, but after teaching them for an hour, their love for God was obvious. Most seemed very excited about God and His Word, in spite of living in the mecca of the flesh.

We also had a meeting in Connecticut on Wednesday evening. Emmanuel Baptist has recently had a pretty rough go of it lately, but they also seemed very eager to receive the Word. It was pretty entertaining to see Pastor Pitts without his wife. He was fine, but it made me very thankful for all that Leah does to keep my life together.

The highlight of the trip was the missions conference at our future place of ministry, Shalom Baptist Church. Joy's dad, Dr. Mike Patterson, a long, long time missionary in Mexico was the speaker. We were very impressed with the number of people that attended services on a Friday and Saturday night. We had a great time. The Gibsons worked tirelessly, and their hard work was evident when the whole thing went off like a hitch. The people seemed excited to see that we were willing to come and work through their church to reach the Russian speaking Jews in their neighborhood. As we stayed with the Gibsons, we were able to see the "real" side of them which was quite refreshing. You can't live in the same house with someone for almost three weeks and fool them on how you really act. Their heart for God and Jewish people was obvious. Pastor Gibson turns out to be one of the hardest working missionaries I've ever seen. He is relentless in ministry. No wonder God has blessed them with as many people as they have in their services.

We sadly said goodbye to our MOST GRACIOUS hosts with tears in our eyes. We had a great time celebrating Valerie's (their youngest) birthday and then hit the road. We are excited about the prospect of serving there full time and it seems like forever until we will be back. The blow was eased, however, by a stop off to see the Big House in Ann Arbor on the way through as well as the best part of our trip home, Maxwell David. Max is our 9 day old nephew that is awesome! We are only staying with Josh and Julie tonight, though, because they have had a constant stream of visitors the past week and are anxious to get back to "real life." That means we'll be home, sleeping in our own bed, TOMORROW!!! We are so excited to unpack our bags and be home for a few days. On our way we are planning to see the other new addition, Molly Anne, Andrew and Kathy Whittenburg's baby. We're calling it... "The Baby Tour." We are so excited to be home at our own church for service tomorrow night! Thanks for your prayer. Continue to keep up with us as we have a bunch of meetings coming up. El Vista Baptist in Peoria, IL Sunday through Wednesday.

New York City

2010-10-01T10:20:00.000-05:00

It has been great to minister here in New York City with the Gibsons. They have been gracious enough to let us stay with them in their house while we are here. This not only saves hundreds on a hotel, but provides a great way for us to get to know John and Joy and the kids better. We have had a great time and are looking forward to another week of ministry here.
Since we arrived from Maine, we were able to visit Heritage Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan. The pastor of Heritage is Matt Recker. Pastor Recker was instrumental in developing my burden for New York City. He came to Maranatha when Leah and I were considering what mission field God would want for us. We were able to give a short testimony about our ministry as well as sit in on their midweek Bible study. On Wednesday, Shalom Baptist has an afternoon Bible study which we were able to attend. I was amazed not only at the number of people that were there in the afternoon (12), but also how many unbelieving Jews attended. It was so amazing to hear one lady practically stop Brother John during his Bible study to ask questions about spiritual matters. Pray for Brother John and Joy as they minister to these unbelieving Jews. Winning a Jew to Christ is sometimes a long process and requires much patience. Speaking of which, after Bible study Wednesday afternoon we went out passing out invitations to the church. I especially enjoyed this because Brother John took us to the neighborhood where we would eventually like to live and minister. Most of the people we saw there were Russian speaking Jewish people. It was like heaven. We were able to go to a park there where I watched several old men play (and mostly argue) a type of domino game. You always see those pictures of the old men in the park playing chess, but I got to see it first hand. It was especially entertaining to listen to them yell at each other and call each other cheats and thieves. It was hilarious that there was one very old fat man that was keeping score. He was like the "Godfather" of the game. We were also exposed to our first taste of opposition as well. As we passed out invitations on the "main drag" of the Russian Jewish neighborhood, a few people told us that Christians don't belong in this neighborhood and that we should leave. Praise God for the mission field coming to America so we can freely be there and pass out tracts and invitations. As we politely moved on I was thankful that for the first time I was able to see the animosity between the Jews and Christ. I am so excited to get back here and build relationships with these people to show them that Jesus is the Messiah and loves them so much. If only they knew how much the Messiah wants His chosen people to come back to the God of Israel and His Son, Messiah Jesus. This weekend will be a busy one as I will speak at a men's prayer breakfast at All Nations Baptist Church tomorrow morning, present our ministry and teach Sunday School on Sunday as well as preach in the morning service at All Nations. Leah will be singing as well as teaching the children's Sunday school class Sunday. Pray for us as we minister to and with All Nations Baptist Church this weekend.

Our first deputation stop

2010-09-25T22:39:00.000-05:00

The missions conference at Bible Baptist in Wiscasset, Maine has been a blast. Not only have we been able to catch up with our friends, Nathan and Kristen, but we've also been able to make some pretty awesome new ones. They have definitely kept me busy here as I have been able to preach in Bible Study Wednesday night, school chapel Thursday morning, and at the missions banquet tonight. Leah was also able to teach the kids club on Wednesday and sing in the service tonight after the meal. We have fallen in love with the people and leadership here. Pastor Martin wanted the church people to have a potluck where everyone brought foreign dishes. He wanted everyone to "think outside the box" and go past the normal ideas of nachos or something that we always have. Tonight I had Vietnamese spring rolls, bear meat, some Greek thing that was super good, and of course a chocolate eclair to name a few. The people really went all out.
Our host, Nathan Bodwell, is the principal of the Christian school they have here at the church. He keeps telling me how frustrated he is with me because in chapel I taught the students the "Baby Shark" song. Most of the kids had never heard it and they all thought it was hilarious! Nathan says that all he hears in the halls is... "Baby shark, du, du, du, du, du..." I will forever be known as the "Baby Shark guy" here in Wiscasset.
Today, the church received a shipment of new pews for the church. The three missionaries, as well as almost every man that attends the church here, were able to help them take out the old pews and put in the new ones. This was extremely hard work to carry all of the old ones out and put the new ones in, but the news pews are beautiful, not to mention extremely comfortable. The work was made easier since there were so many men willing to give up their Saturday to help out at church. What an awesome opportunity to serve the church, as well as get to know some pretty awesome new men.
Please continue to pray for us as we present our DVD tomorrow in Sunday school. So far this has been a wonderful tool for people to get to know us. Also pray for us as we finish up this missions conference and head back down to New York City to work for a few weeks with the Gibsons. The Lord has blessed us so much and we're so excited to see what He has in store for us next!

A Brief Update

2010-09-23T08:01:00.000-05:00

Hello Friends,
Joey and I have been traveling quite a bit and spending time with some fun people. Joey already updated about the Durhams and their gracious generosity. After a week in Tennessee, we headed to Queens, NY. The Gibsons were gracious hosts as well and we were able to be with them for their wonderful charter service. We spent Saturday night through Monday morning at the Gibsons home and then headed up to Nathan and Kristen Bodwell's house in Wiscassett, ME. We will be in their missions conference Friday through Sunday and we have already had opportunities to serve in their church.

Yesterday, Nathan and Kristen took us out for a day of sightseeing. Joey and I had never been to Maine and we were in awe of the beautiful coastline! Overall, we are enjoying our time here as we catch up with old friends and we are looking forward to what God is going to do in the missions conference this weekend.

The Clapps

Please excuse the delay!

2010-09-21T22:49:00.000-05:00

First of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in posts! We have had quite the busy weekend as I will explain in this post.
Next, I miss June Bug Lane (words I wasn't ever planning on uttering in my life). We loved our time in the mountains of Tennessee with Steve and Beth Durham during our New missionary training at IBJM. The time spent on the porch with our feet up was amazing. Leah especially loved the little tiny kittens that loved to play with anything that moved. Our fellowship with Steve and Beth was top notch. Some people can go a whole lifetime without meeting people as great and as sweet as them, and we not only met them, but got to stay with them and get to know them. We thank God for those he has already brought across our way. Our training at the mission was also pretty great. It got extremely long at times, but the information we were getting was as good as it gets. They were very thorough in making sure we were as prepared as possible before sending us out on this wonderful life they call "Pre-field Ministry." One concept solidified for me this week was that deputation really is ministry. Sometimes I get discouraged when I think about how long it will be until we actually get to New York, but I have to remember that right now, God has a ministry with several churches and pastors that He wants me to do. I just have to be willing enough to do it.
From IBJM, we made our way to Calvary Baptist Church in Timberville, VA to spend the night. Pastor Sawyer and his wife stayed up late in spite of their weariness to meet us and give us the tour of their four bedroom "Prophet's Chamber." It was more like an amazing house than a prophet's chamber.
On Saturday we made it to Philadelphia to a Slavic Baptist Churches of America church planting conference. We were able to hear a Russian speaking Jew speak about Anti-semitism in the Russian speaking churches. We were reminded of the very real problem as a small argument broke out among the brothers right during the session. Cooler heads prevailed, but we are learning just what we will be dealing with.
That night we made it to our teammates in New York City, John and Joy Gibson. We were able to observe and participate in the formal charter service for the new church plant called Shalom Baptist Church (shalombaptistqueens.org). Leah was literally asked to sing while she was eating breakfast. It was tricky with no pianist, but she did great as always. Shalom Baptist was chartered with seven members who all signed the charter after giving testimony of their salvation and baptism. There were almost sixty people packed into the space they are renting. There are several couples Brother John and or Joy are discipling, but they were not quite ready to make the commitment to join yet. Praise the Lord for a great day in His house worshiping with Jews and Gentiles! There were many unbelievers in the service as well. Sunday was a great day for Shalom Baptist Church and John and Joy Gibson. God was honored and people were blessed.
As I type (Tuesday night) we are blessed to be with our friends, Nathan and Kristen Bodwell, in Wiscasset, Maine. Our meeting at Calvary Baptist Church here in Wiscasset will be our first official deputation meeting. I will be broken in immediately though. I will be preaching in Bible Study tomorrow night, high school chapel Thursday morning, I am the speaker at the missions banquet on Saturday night, and we will be presenting our ministry in Sunday school on Sunday, and Pastor Martin wasn't quite sure if he wanted me to teach Sunday school on Sunday as well. I am very excited to have our first meeting and "get this show on the road--- literally."
Thank you to everyone that has been praying. Please continue to pray. We need safety on the roads as well as God's power on our ministry in these different churches.

Chattanooga and the Great Outdoors

2010-09-12T21:41:00.000-05:00

We're here! We have safely arrived at our first stop on deputation. We are in Chattanooga, TN at our mission board, IBJM, for Pre-field Ministry Seminar. We are looking forward to learning how to do our job more effectively. We were nervous about our housing arrangements when the pre-field director at IBJM told us that a family in his church volunteered to house us for the week. Our eyebrows were raised when the address was on June Bug Lane in Soddy Daisy, TN right next to Sale Creek. We live in the country in Illinois, but not that far out in the country. We finally arrived at our destination last night, after getting lost on Hottentot Road (I can't make this stuff up!), only to find that this is the best place ever. If every place we stay on deputation is as cool as this place, I may want to do deputation forever! We are staying with Steve and Beth Durham from Community Baptist Church in Hixson, TN. Steve is a former Marine (21 years served), and Beth, who works in logistics for a trucking company, is currently doing chemo for melanoma. We're swapping chemo stories all the time! Not only are our hosts awesome, but they live on a ton of land that reminds us how good God was to create all of this for us. We are sharing this land with one 110 pound dog, two horses, four barn cats (two of which Leah wants to bring home), and a plethora of ridiculously huge insects and arachnids. The Lord has been gracious to us at every stop, why would he stop now!
We also had a great time worshipping with the believers today at Community Baptist in Hixson. One cool story about Community and I'll bring this not so short essay to a close. One of the missionary families that we will be doing our training this week is from Community Baptist in Hixson. They are looking to minister to the Jews in Lyon, France. In the 45 year history of the church this is the first missionary to ever be called from the believers there at Community! Praise the Lord. The services were great and we even got to give a testimony at the end about our burden for the Russian speaking Jews in New York City. The Lord continues to be gracious and uphold us at every step of the way! God is good... all the time.

Preparing for Deputation

2010-09-08T10:15:00.000-05:00

We are planning to leave this Saturday for IBJM and our new missionary training. It will be nice to see our friends at the board and prepare ourselves for deputation. When we finish at our board we will be setting off on our first leg of deputation.

Please pray for Joey this week as he prepares his sermons and continues to schedule meetings.
Leah

North Love

2010-08-29T22:44:00.001-05:00

We were able to present our ministry tonight at North Love. Personally, the highlight of my evening was seeing the group of over 10 of our Russian speaking friends walk in!! Joey (through our language teacher Alina) made an announcement today at Russian church that everyone was welcome to attend NL for our presentation this evening. We were so excited to see them!!

Don't forget to check out our presentation video!

Leah

One Busy Week!

2010-08-27T12:24:00.002-05:00

Joey and I have been preparing to present our ministry at North Love this week! We are very excited to have everything finished. We also received our prayer cards this week! Please pray for us as we make the final preparations for our first deputation trip.

Our Presentation

2010-08-27T12:12:00.003-05:00

Check our presentation!! Joey just finished it and it's GREAT! Just click on the presentation page above to see it!!

Thanks!!

Leah for "Team Clapp"

Calendar

2010-08-12T22:57:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to let you all know I recently updated our blog to include a calendar. If you go to the calendar tab you can see when all of our meetings are.

Joey is still calling Pastors and we are working on our presentation. Please continue to pray for churches to support us!

Thank you for your time!

Leah for the NY Clapps

Blessings!

2010-07-27T11:44:00.000-05:00

We just wanted to share how good God has been to us. We were in need of a new computer (our old one is barely hanging on) and also a projector (for deputation). We've been praying and relying on God for His perfect timing. As you may be able to guess, we received a call last week letting us know that our computer and projector will be covered. A generous couple is going to pay for whatever we don't have saved up!!

Слава Богу!! (Praise God)

Joey's full time job right now is to call Pastors right now. We have meetings starting in September and going until November. He's working on the later months, but for now that's what we have booked.

Thank you for your prayers!

Leah for the Clapps

VBS- Geneva, IL

2010-07-12T22:18:00.000-05:00

Joey and I are helping our friends, the Whittenburgs, at Calvary Baptist Church in Geneva, IL this week. Their VBS is during the morning for 3 year olds thru 6th graders. In the evening, they have teen revival and Joey is speaking for two more nights in that. We are really enjoying our time here with friends and the awesome people of Calvary. Today we were able to go out and canvas at a large apartment complex. We're praying that we will see some of those chidlren tomorrow at VBS. Please pray for Joey as he speaks and also for both of us to be blessings to the people here. We are very grateful for this opportunity!

Thank you for your prayers!
Leah for the Clapps

It's almost official!

2010-06-29T00:45:00.000-05:00

(Joey writing)
We visited BIEM after the end of the conference at IBJM, even though we felt strongly that the Lord was leading us to IBJM. The director of BIEM in Indianapolis asked about what the Lord had done in the past few months. We told him about our trip to New York last fall and deciding to work with the Gibsons. Then we told him about the conference at IBJM and what the Lord did for us there. The director of the mission (who is supposed to be "selling" his mission to us) told us that we needed to go with IBJM because it was obvious that the Lord was leading us in that direction. How great it is that God, in spite of our faithlessness, supplies all of our needs, no matter how pathetic our faith is. We came home early from Indianapolis and were able to be at North Love on Sunday. They voted Sunday night to be our sending church and we were unanimously approved! *Whew!* That is what the mission board was waiting for. Today we sent off the form that said that NL would be our sending church and I got a flurry of emails back about prayer cards, ministry brochures, deputation videos, display boards, finances, etc, etc. Wow, I guess we knew all this stuff from watching Jon do it, but I guess I didn't think about it all happening at once. The reason we are not officially approved yet, is that we have provisional approval from the leaders at the mission, but the board has not officially voted yet, so for now we are just provisionally approved to be missionaries with IBJM. We feel on top of the world. This moment that we have been waiting for for years and years and years is finally here (please remind me of this feeling a year or two down the road when deputation hits its "dog days." Thank you all for praying, we need as much prayer at this time as possible.

IBJM

2010-06-21T19:06:00.000-05:00

I definitely should have updated you all sooner, but I got caught up in the excitement of everything and neglected my blogging. Currently, Joey and I are in Chattanooga for IBJM's (International Board of Jewish Missions) four day focus. The focus is not just for those called into missions, but also for Christians who want to be better witnesses to God's chosen people.

We arrived on Thursday night and Friday we met with all of the "heads" of IBJM. I have to say personally, I was impressed by the godly men in leadership here. Joey was able to ask some potentially awkward questions about the boards stand on a few issues and we agree wholeheartedly with the spiritual and practical direction of this mission. We are still praying and taking the rest of the time we are here to make a final decision, but as of right now we are feeling quite at home here. Please pray for the mountains of wisdom that we need. We both feel nervous making such a "grown-up" decision, but God is able and we are trusting in him.

Thank you to those who are already praying. God is moving in amazing ways. The people we have met here in Chattanooga have been amazing and made us feel right at home. Also, God has been moving our hearts toward Jewish missions. We have been reminded of God's love for the Jewish people and the new testament command to reach the Jew first and also the gentile. Anyway, just a little bit about what God is doing for us.

Thank you again for your prayers!
Leah for the Clapps

2010-06-08T16:14:00.002-05:00

Selling Cars
Joey and I agreed that we should sell our car and truck to buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle. It took a few weeks to get both vehicles sold, but eventually we had the money (less that we expected) to buy a deputation vehicle.

God knows what is best
We were both disappointed in how much profit we made from our cars. I have to admit we were wondering how we were going to get a reliable vehicle with what we had left. Joey started searching for cars and we finally decided to go to Milwaukee to look at a few cars Joey found online. We just had to trust that God always knows best.

Car Hunting
We looked at a few cars and found a couple that would suffice. We both agreed that we may not be in love with our deputation car we just had to find one that would get the job done. At our third or fourth stop we ended up at a dealership that seemed a bit above our price limit. When we drove up we saw this:

I asked Joey, "Are you sure we are at the right place?" We were. They received a 2003 Civic as a trade-in and decided to go ahead and sell it themselves. The salesman was extremely kind and not at all what we had been dealing with all day. He let us test drive the Civic and as soon as we got in we knew it was "the one." It literally had everything we had both been looking for. One thing stood in our way: the price. I stayed in our loner car (thank you Mrs. Smith) and prayed while Joey went in to make our offer. We needed them to come down about $700 for us to be able to buy it. Joey came out with a HUGE smile on his face. I knew God had done it. We had agreed to sleep on any car decisions so we went home anticipating a return visit the next day. On the way home Joey and I agreed that we should just look online to see if anything looked better and then call that night to let the dealer know our answer.

8 minutes
Joey called that night after looking through all our options to let them know we would be back the next day to purchase the car (paid in full thanks to our new financial practices). When we arrived the next day the owner and our salesman both told us that a man came in 8 minutes after we called with cash to buy "our" car! They denied him because they had given us their word!! We didn't put any cash down or sign anything the day before. They said we looked trustworthy and they weren't the type to go back on their word. I guess the man was livid, but they stuck to their word. Praise the Lord for how he looks out for us.
We are now the proud owners of this 2003 Honda Civic:

Here's a list of what it has that we had desired it to have:
1. Alloy Wheels
2. Lower miles
3. MP3 hook up (the previous owner had put an after-market stereo in)
4. Amazing gas mileage (it's a manual)
5. Sun-roof
Praise the Lord for giving us the desires of our heart and also meeting our needs! What an awesome God we serve!!

New York in the Fall

2010-04-29T14:25:00.001-05:00

Joey recently talked to John Gibson regarding visiting them when we are out east this fall. John was very excited about having us and after the two men planned for a while we will probably end up being out there for several weeks. Our goal is to spend at least one week with the Gibson's church and be there for their missions conference and then head out to more area churches. We would probably go back to NYC for a bit and then head out again. It's all pretty up in the air right now, but I am writing this to ask for prayer in booking churches when we are out there. We know we serve a God of miracles so we are praying for a miraculously quick first deputation.

Thank you for your interest and for praying for us (I have faith that you will)!

Leah for the NY Clapps

Update on Grandpa Harmon

2010-04-12T13:46:00.002-05:00

Grandpa Harmon had his triple bypass surgery and is still in the hospital recovering. Joey describes it as a roller coaster. Grandpa will be walking laps and joking around in the AM and then we get a call that he is struggling and not wanting to fight anymore and then another call saying he's doing better again. Joey says it's harder when you are there seeing all of the ups and downs. It can be pretty scary. Joey is back home now and today was the first day back to school from spring break.

Please pray for us as we are already making contacts for potential churches and also mission conferences. God is showing us His care and provision even before we start the big push for deputation. We are still preparing details for our trips this summer and praying that everything will be clear and that we are open and ready for what God has.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and please don't forget us in your prayers.

Leah

Grandpa Harmon

2010-03-31T11:19:00.002-05:00

Please pray for Joey's family (Harmon Side) and especially for Joey's grandpa Harmon. Grandpa Harmon is having heart problems again and they are still trying to figure out the exact cause. Sunday night after church he collapsed due to overexertion on his heart. The neighbor lady (a hospice nurse) was able to perform CPR and revive him until the paramedics arrived.

Joey is going to Minnesota today after school to stay with his grandma until next Thursday. Because everything was rushed, his aunt and uncle Harmon need to go back to Iowa to their church and make preparations for a possibly long term situation.

I'm so thankful for a husband who does what is right even what it's not the "most fun." He is willingly giving up his spring break because he loves his grandparents and knows that it's what is needed.

Thank you for your prayers and support!
Leah for the Clapps

Mission Boards

2010-03-22T15:13:00.002-05:00

We are busily trying to complete applications to 3 mission boards. Our plans right now are to go visit the mission board in Indiana sometime in April and then this summer take a trip down south to visit the other 2 boards.
We are also trying to figure out insurance issues. Because of Joey's "pre-existing condition," we are pretty limited in our options for insurance. Thankfully, until now Joey hasn't had to change insurances (so to speak) because he's always been under the church. Now we are in a rough spot, but God knows all about it so I'm not very worried. Please pray for us as we try to choose a mission board. I know Joey is really wishing he could talk to his dad about all of this and it's also pretty hard to have his oldest brother half way across the world. We really want to get this right so we're taking our time and studying out our options for now. Thank you for all of your support and prayers!
Leah

Just an update

2010-03-12T21:51:00.001-06:00

As my Uncle so kindly mentioned, I don't update this very much. I wanted to make a blog to keep everyone up to date on our life as missionaries. We haven't had many changes on the mission field front until recently.

Lately, God has blessed us financially. When I lost my job, we were not sure how we were going to make it. I really should have known how we would make it, but my faith is so small sometimes. We had a little bit of debt from an unfortunate circumstance. Before applying to mission boards, Joey and I agreed that we should get the debt paid off. Through a misc. donor, God paid our debt and gave us enough to visit one (and possibly another) mission board.

Joey and I have applied to three different mission boards. Two of them are quite a distance away, but the one we are planning to visit in April is in Indiana. Currently, we are praying for leading in which board to choose, but we want to visit them all before making a final decision.

I'm not sure who will read this, but I thought I would just bring everyone up to date. We would really covet your prayers in the decision of a mission board. It seems way over our heads, but I know that God will guide us as long as we are willing to be lead.

Prayer Requests:
Mission board decision
finances and time off to visit the mission boards

the latest

2009-06-18T23:56:00.001-05:00

God has been revealing some of our future to us lately and it's looking pretty exciting! A few options have opened up to us and we are eagerly anticipating what is to come. I have a few updates to share with you.

First, Joey graduated!!!!!!!!!! A huge step for our little family, we are glad graduation has come and gone. We had a fun graduation weekend with Josh, Julie, and Elizabeth. Joey's grandparents were able to come down for the ceremony and lunch with "the kids." It was an appropriate weekend of celebrating for the beginning of a new era for us.

Second, Joey and I are leaving for Palau the end of July!! We were able to purchase the tickets and schedule a flight mostly with Josh and Julie. As it draws closer, we are becoming increasingly excited! We are both extremely excited to see Jon, Heather, and the boys! We are also excited to see the family together again! It's going to be SO MUCH FUN!! Joey and I are also keeping our hearts open while we are there to see if God would have us serve with Jon and Heather and minister to the youth of Palau.

Lastly, Joey and I are considering adoption options. We know that having children naturally is not a viable option because of Joey's cancer treatments. We have accepted what God has given us and are looking forward to see His better plan! I know God is working in a miraculous way! We are actually seeing some options coming to the forefront that we never would have imagined! I'm sure we will update as soon as the time is appropriate! Please pray for wisdom in this area as well. Personally, I really want to wait on God to open very OBVIOUS doors. I don't want to push and push until we make something happen. God has the best timing and I've seen that waiting on that timing is the only way. Please pray for my patience!

Thank you for taking the time to show interest in our lives!

Seeking the next right thing!!
Leah

2009-01-30T09:01:00.000-06:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

First Blog

2009-01-27T13:59:00.000-06:00

Since we are going to be going on the mission field, I decided I should start a habit of blogging. By blogging, I think I can keep more people up to date at the same time. I want to stay close to those at home. I want people to feel like they are involved in our ministry even though they are miles away.

work

Currently, Joey is teaching PE and Consumer Math on Tuesday and Thursday at NL. He's enjoying what he does, but is eager to move on to the next phase.

I am working for the Doc approximately forty hours a week. Good times. I enjoy a majority of my work. Sometimes it can be stressful in an office of women, but bills are being paid so "it's all good."

school

Yay, graduation!!! It's finally here! Joey will graduate this May. We are BOTH so very ecstatic. Joey is able to take ALL of his classes this semester at HOME! What an answer to prayer. It definitely cut down on gas expense and Joey's hectic schedule. He only has to go up to Maranatha every once in a while to take quizzes or tests and to check in with his teachers. We both love telling people Joey is homeschooling this semester.

future

We know that God is sending us away from our hometown, but other than that we are not sure what is coming. Really, no one can be sure of what is to come. We are planning and waiting at the same time. It's a very strange place to be. God is in control, and that is what gives me peace right now. I'm daily preparing my heart to leave what I've always known and go to what is completely different. I can't say it's an easy thing to leave those I love and feel an obligation to. It's VERY difficult. I know it's going to be fine though. God has placed this in my heart and not following it would be harder than leaving my "home."

team clapp?

I know. It sounds corny. It started as an inside joke. Whenever we are getting ready to start a task we talk about what needs to be done and then say, "go team Clapp!" As corny as it sounds, it's true. We have to be a team in ministry and in the home. I'm seeing that if our relationship is not in harmony, everything else seems even more daunting. So now we have "Team Clapp."