Packed, Wrapped, and Delivered!!

It was a beautiful Christmas Eve as we loaded up the bus with presents and people to deliver the shoe boxes that were donated. What an amazing experience!! We made children smile and made some moms cry- - -all with JOY!! What a blessing it was to be the hands and feet of Jesus and to give these gifts to needy families. We had a group of kids with us helping and it was neat to talk with them that night about what we had done and why we had done it. We explained to them how we wanted to do what Jesus would have done if he had physically been here. So since he was not physically here, we had the privilege to be his hands and feet. Some of these kids were from our group who are themselves needy in some ways. They were so excited to be able to give these gifts to other families. It blessed us to hear some them saying "God Bless You and Merry Christmas!" to the families who were receiving.

We were able to deliver a total of 112 shoe boxes!! Praise God!! Thank you to all who participated and thank you Grace Community Church for arranging this within our church!

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Jerrell with the Shoe Boxes in the Background

Brookhaven Delivery

We couldn't fit all the gifts and people on the bus, so Jude followed behind in his truck

AMAZING SUPPORT

A HUGE THANK YOU to all those who came to the shoe box wrapping extravaganza. We thought it might take three hours, but because of the overwhelming amount of people that showed up, we were finished in ONE hour!!!!

What a huge blessing. After most people had left, we had a small group that spent time praying over the boxes and the families that would be receiving them. It was a blessing to us to see the support!!

THANK YOU!! WE LOVE YOU!! AND GOD LOVES YOU!!

Gift Wrapping Night

• We will be having an evening of gift wrapping at the Vision Onward building located at 301 Quapaw (on intersection of Tuxedo) on Tuesday, December 18th from 6 - 9 pm. We have between 75-100 donated shoe boxes that need to be wrapped for children. If you have some free time on this evening, we would appreciate any help we could get.

We will supply all the paper, tape etc so bring the family and join us for a gift wrapping extravaganza!!

Thank you to all of those who donated shoe boxes!

Any questions, please call Jeff at 350-0205

We are gearing up for the Christmas season as this is the time of year when families in need seem to struggle most. There is not a more perfect time to show the love of Christ than the Christmas season. We pray that as people are giving and serving, that those being served will get a glimpse of Jesus.

Grace Community has offered to fill 100 shoe boxes for Vision Onward this year to distribute to families here in Bartlesville. There have also been many people who have wanted to deliver their gifts and/or meals to the families personally and hopefully get to know and build relationships with these families. This has been a prayer of ours. Our vision is for those who are giving to actually meet the family they are helping. It means a lot more to meet someone personally than to drop off a gift and have it funnelled through an organization. There is a disconnect between the givers and the receivers. We pray that through this process, many relationships can be built and carried out throughout the years.

We did not have the building completed before Thanksgiving so we were unable to serve a meal there this year, but we were able to deliver some meals to families in need. So, in saying that, it is obvious our building is still "under construction". Progress is coming along and we hope to be able to post some pictures soon. We have had a generous offer from Terry Melton Construction to bring their crew in for an entire day and knock out as much as they can. This will be a huge blessing in the process of completion.

Deeds 4 Needs is continuing to strive. Jeff was invited to speak on November 17 at Eastern Heights Baptist Church and they were excited about their church being involved. We have other churches getting involved in fulfilling needs as well as local businesses. This is the kind of unity we were hoping for and we pray that it continues to grow. Vision Onward is a parachurch organization and we would love to see more and more involvement from many other churches and businesses.

Here are some updates on a few other items:

• Ya'Way - Jeff realized after going to Denver and meeting with the owner of The Big Red Bus, that we really need to have a diesel engine bus to make the conversion. It is an expensive conversion and a gas engine will just not last long enough for it to be worth the money. So we are currently trying to figure out how to switch out the gas engine bus we have for a diesel engine bus.
• Transitional Housing - - We currently have one house that a family is living in as transitional housing. He is able to work and save money while he gets on his feet so he can move out on his own at the end of 6 months.
• Sunay and Wednesday Group - We have a FULL bus. Marci and the kids have officially been kicked off because there is not enough room for them. This is good and bad!! It is good that we have so many coming, but we really need a larger bus. The current one is only a 13 passenger and we would really like to have a 28 passenger. We do not want to get any larger than 28 without having a separate bus with an entire different group of volunteers who would like to be involved on a regular basis in the lives of those they are picking up. We realize that we are at our limit with being effective with the amount we currently have. This makes it very hard because we have more kids that could be picked up, but we have no more room. If anyone would like to be involved on Wednesdays or Sundays, please contact Jeff at 350-0205.

We would just like to end with a quote that we took from the Love Is an Action website:

"Sometimes, people will do something that will make your heart understand a bit more about why we are alive and what to do with that life. Love is an Action has many teams all over nation that are serving people where they are in the love of Jesus and with their lives, giving hope to those who have no hope and letting hearts know with their actions that they are worthwhile."

Outpouring of Love

It has been exciting to watch God move in our community and see people responding and reaching out to those who are in need. We launched Deeds 4 Needs a couple months ago and things moved pretty slowly until the past couple weeks. We have received numerous needs- - -which we expected- - - and we have also had a lot of people volunteering to fill needs!! It is so neat to see the two come together. We are so very grateful to all of the people who are showing Christ's love by helping those in need! A few examples of needs that have been filled are:

1. A man getting his house cleaned out to avoid evictions
2. Disabled woman getting her house unpacked
3. Numerous furniture items donated
4. Services for an autistic child
5. Numerous financial donations for Boys & Girls Club & West Side Community Center

We are excited to enroll 11 children into Kumon, who otherwise would not have been able to afford it. A big thanks to Sung Park and Kumon who gave us a reduced rate and also to the West Side Community Center for paying for half the tuition for all kids enrolled. It is awesome to see people and organizations partnering together for the benefit of families and children.

We are also very grateful for our home church, Grace Community, and all of the support that they have provided to us. Our desire is to partner with more and more churches in the community in order to multiply the effect by uniting numerous churches under one cause - - -helping those in need and making a lasting impact in the lives of those we serve. All of this done for the glory of God and for growing His Kingdom!!

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has partnered with us!! We thank God for you!!

Happy Birthday Chris!!

Wednesday was Chris's birthday- - -one of the kids we have been meeting with on Wednesdays and Sundays. He is also one of the boys we took with us to Branson. He seems like one of our own now and he is so special!! He told us on Sunday that Wednesday was his birthday. He also told us that his mom was not going to be able to get him anything. Soooooo that was all we needed to hear. We had a special birthday night for him at Jude's with cupcakes and hot chocolate. As you can tell from the picture at the top- - -he is too cool to smile while we were singing him Happy Birthday, but it was obvious to us that he felt very special. We had asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said, "A Bible". Wow, how can you turn that down?!?! So we purchased him a Boy's Devotional Bible- - -his face was priceless when he opened it. Here is the picture:

He wasn't cool enough to hold that smile back!!

Here are some more pictures:

The Whole Gang

Kayla H., Kayla G, Trinity, Briana, Trey, Raina, Camryn

Darius, Chris, Jalen, and Jerrell (love his new glasses)

Trinity and Rob

Thanks to the staff at Jude's for letting us invade the store while trying to clean up and close!! We appreciate you!!!

What's Next????

We have had a lot of people asking us, "So, what's the next thing that Vision Onward will be doing?" It is kind of hard for us to answer that question. We do not want our ministry to be about the NEXT BIG thing that we are doing. We want it to be about being a part of the lives of the people we are serving and showing them we TRULY care about them. It isn't the BIG events that make a difference. . . .it is the small acts of love that attract people to Christ. We will occassionally have some bigger events, but if we allow that to be our focus, we will not have the time or money to serve individual families as we feel called to do. We have been focusing a lot of our time with 2-4 particular families and really trying to serve them in different areas of their lives. And because of the time we are pouring into the lives of these few families, we have had more and more interest from other families who are wanting to be involved with what we are doing. It is truly growing organically rather than from anything major we are doing.

We have noticed that there are MANY single moms raising kids with NO father figures in the picture. We have a small group of men that have been spending some time with these kids (especially the boys) and trying to give them some positive male role models. There is such a HUGE need for more men and families to serve and disciple single parent families. We are praying for more and more individuals and families to be called into this area of ministry. It is such a huge blessing to help others. . .we have experienced it first hand. The children in the families we have been serving almost feel like our own now.

So, as far as what we are currently doing. . . .we have been meeting with a group of kids every Wednesday night at Douglas Park and doing devotions and praying with them. We have also been picking this same group up on Sundays and taking them to church.

We are also working on the building so we can hopefully get it functional enough to serve a Thanksgiving Dinner. We may be partnering with Agape for Thanksgiving since they do not have enough room where they are at. Our building still needs lots of work though.

We have also launched Deeds 4 Needs and pray to see the community and churches get involved with serving. Whether as individuals, small groups, families, Sunday school classes or as a church, we pray people will get involved in meeting the needs of those in our community. Steve Sjogren said in Conspiracy of Kindness, “It seems people don’t necessarily remember what they are told of God’s love, but they never forget what they have experienced of God’s love.” It is our prayer that Deeds 4 Needs will allow the body of Christ to make an impact on our community…one family at a time.

Please visit http://www.deeds4needs.org/ for a listing of the current needs we have. The website is updated frequently as new needs arrive, so if you would like to be on our mailing list to receive updates, please email marci@visiononward.org.

Here are some pictures of the building:

301 Quapaw - The outside of the building with the walls we tore out.

The future site of our kitchen.

The BIG community room - -one of the rooms we are trying to get finished for Thanksgiving.

Hallway leading to office space.

As you can see, LOTS of work to do!! :>)

Garage Sale / Work Day Success

It was a long day yesterday, but much was accomplished. We sold tons of stuff at the garage sale and there was a lot of work on the building completed.

There are 3 rooms we want to get completed in the building as soon as possible so we can start using it. Although we did not complete all the work we had hoped to, we did raise enough money from the garage sale to cover the costs for all the supplies that were purchased for these 3 rooms.

We are very grateful for all the donations from people in the community for the garage sale! We had a ton of stuff to sell.

We are also thankful to all of our friends who showed up to pitch in with the garage sale and the construction on the building. There are so many to name and I will try to cover them all- - -Jude, Mindi & Lake Henry, Kipplyn, RandiKate & Chandler Summers, Frank & Shonna Dickinson, Laura Jones, Derrick Royer, Rob Nyoff, Henry, Rainbow, Johno, Chelsey, Daniel Walker, Alex, Rachel, & Dominique Feria, Mike & Kara Howze, Kristin Girard, Jim & Laura Robertson, Seth, and John. I hope that covered everyone- - -sorry if I missed someone!

We still have a lot of stuff left over and we are considering holding another sale next month!

We also want to give a HUGE thank you to the Nyoff family- - -especially Jim and Rob! They are a new family in Bartlesville and they have been such a huge blessing to us and to Vision Onward. They have jumped right in and have been able to help us with lots of "construction" things that we would have NEVER been able to do on our own. It has been so neat watching how God continues to place exactly the right people in our paths in order to accomplish His plans. It is also neat to watch how God is using other people, who are willing to serve, to advance His kingdom. The Nyoff's are an awesome example of servants of God and we are so very thankful for them!!!

Here are some pictures from yesterday:

GARAGE SALE / WORK DAY Saturday, October 20th

We will be having our garage sale / work day this Saturday from 7 am - 4 pm at the new Vision Onward building located at 301 Tuxedo. We will serve donuts for breakfast and have hamburgers & hot dogs for lunch. We will also have the blow ups out for the kids to play!! Come on out and enjoy the day with us while we work on the building and have our garage sale! If you have anything you would like to donate for the garage sell, contact Jeff at 350-0205!

Update and Upcoming

One of the most exciting things happening right now with Vision Onward is witnessing the people we have made contacts with coming to church. Although, coming to church is NOT the ultimate goal. . . .developing a relationship with Christ is. . . .it is an exciting first step toward that process. This past Sunday we were able to pick up 4 boys to bring to church and one of the mothers plans on attending with us in a couple of weeks. One of the boys we took this wanted to light a candle during worship for an answered prayer. Jeff asked him what prayer had been answered and he said, "That you would pick me up for church." Wow, talk about a goose bump moment. It brought tears to my eyes when Jeff told me.

We also saw another woman with her children that we met at the Walk This Way event attend this past Sunday. Many people at the Walk This Way event were asking us what church we attended and it seems to have sparked their interest in checking out our church. We pray that they will feel welcomed and loved at Grace and continue pursuing a relationship with Christ.

Jeff has been brainstorming about what steps to take next with Vision Onward and he has decided that we should always have 2 short term goals and 1 long term goal that we are working toward. Our two current short term goals include :

1. Ya'Way / Vision Onward Building- Jeff is going to be going out to Colorado to attend an event that The Big Red Bus is having in order to get a feel for how they utilize their bus for ministry. Also, to see some technical issues of bus design, set up, and tearing down type stuff. We have a lot of work ahead of us in reconstructing the bus. There is also a lot of work to do on the building to get it in good enough condition to use.

2. Deeds 4 Needs - -We are working on finishing up the "real" Deeds 4 Needs website that will hopefully be much more user friendly for everyone with much more information on it as well. Jeff's vision is to make this website a nationwide website that can be utilized anywhere in the country as long as there is an administrator in the area.

Our long term goal at this point is working on an apartment complex that we can begin to use for transitional housing for struggling families. While the families are staying in the transitional housing, we want to be able to have mentors teaching them important life skills and helping them learn how to handle their finances. We would allow the families to live there for 6 months as long as they are working and following the requirements that are agreed upon in the beginning. This would allow them to work on restoring their credit if needed and to also save money to go toward their future housing. This is also a great opportunity to build relationships for spiritual mentoring as well.

As far as upcoming events, we are planning on having a GARAGE SALE / WORK DAY at the Vision Onward building on Tuxedo on October 20th. We want to have the blow ups out for the kids, maybe cook out some burgers and hot dogs, work on the building and/or the bus and have the garage sale all at the same time. If anyone has anything they would like to donate toward the garage sale, please call Jeff at 350-0205 to set up a drop off or pick up time.

We would also like to serve a THANKSGIVING DINNER in November, but this will depend on the progress of the building. If the building is in good enough condition, we would like to serve dinner to many of the families we have made contact with over the past few months.

We will have more details to all of the upcoming activities in the near future.


"Joy comes not from finding ways to skirt God's plan, but by living in harmony with it." -Jeff Myers Passing the Baton

Blessed With a Building / Deeds 4 Needs

Who could have imagined an 8,900 square foot building being donated to Vision Onward? That is just one of the cool things we have learned about God- - -expect the unexpected. There have been things we have expected to happen which did not happen and even more things we never would have expected that have happened. We have finally realized that it doesn't matter what our expectations are because God is sovereign and whatever is meant to happen will happen.

This past week we received the deed and keys to the old Coffer Music building on Tuxedo. It was a generous donation from Bill Coffer. This will be an awesome headquarters now for Vision Onward. It has 4,000 square feet of overhead garage space where we can park Ya'Way while we are reconstructing it. It also has office spaces and large storage rooms. There are so many things it can be used for and we are very grateful to Mr. Coffer for this amazing gift. It does have flood damage so it is currently being worked on by members of the Commonwealth. We thank them for their hard work as well. We have learned so many valuable things from them. They have such amazing servant hearts and are a great example of living a life of service.

We are also excited about two mothers who have asked us to pick up their boys for church this Sunday. These are contacts we made at Douglas Park on Wednesdays and we brought their boys to the Walk This Way event this past weekend. They are amazing young boys and their mothers are sweet as can be. One mother had back surgery this past week and we have been able to show Christ's love to her through Deeds 4 Needs and Shonna D. bringing her dinner and flowers tonight.

We just received an email from Shonna D about her visit with the mother who had back surgery. This is what she had to say, "We went in to meet K----, and I asked her if I could pray for her. She was not feeling very good at that time. She welcomed it. So we prayed. God is so wonderful. This is something new for me, being able to step out of my comfort zone and meet someone new and being able to pray for them. She was so thankful for everything. She mentioned that when she was better she was planning on finding a church. She is so thankful that Jeff is picking her son up in the morning to take him to church. She also said that if I wanted to come over and read scriptures to her to come over anytime. If she is not a christian she is really willing to know more. Praise the Lord. Your ministry is really planting seeds! Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to serve!"

Thank you Jesus!! We will continue to pray for her healing both physically and spiritually! It is so great to to see the blessings from people serving. Not only a blessing to those who are being served, but it is just as much a blessing for those who are serving. This is the beauty of the Deeds 4 Needs Ministry. It allows relationships to develop and grow through serving. When we serve people, they truly feel loved and cared for. This gains favor so they are softened to hear the good news of Jesus! Hallelujah!!

God is so good. We praise Him for what He is doing in Bartlesville. We pray that His love will be contagious. We pray that more and more people will have the desire to reach out to the downcast. We have seen so many sad, lonely and lost faces who just need someone to show REAL love to them. Someone to share with them the good news we have in Christ. Someone to show them a different way to live their lives. Please pray about whether that person might be you!!!!

If you are interested in receiving a blessing by serving, please visit Deeds 4 Needs and see if there is a need you can fill. We will soon be putting Deeds 4 Needs under the Vision Onward website, but for now you can check it at the above link provided.

Walk This Way 2007

Wow, where to begin with the weekend we just had!! The words that come to our minds as we reflect on the weekend are: unbelievable, exhausting, humbling, heart breaking, awesome, inspiring, enlightening, entertaining, moving, but most of all God glorifying.

God's Army arrived in on Thursday and were able to be a part of The House FM all request hour that night. The DJ, Carter, is a good friend of Bryan Hindman so Bryan hooked us up with him so we could get some air time. God's Army just released their new album "6:12", which is in reference to Ephesians 6:12. So it was good to get some air time with their new songs. Many called in and expressed how much they liked their music. I was even listening to their all request hour tonight and someone called in requesting one of God's Army's songs. Below is a picture of the live video feed from their website:

On Friday, the band began by visiting Hoover and they were given free range to talk about whatever they wanted- - -even God. The teacher also told the students they would receive extra credit if they went to the concert. Later that afternoon the band visited the Westside Community Center and The Boys and Girls Club and spoke with children. The day wrapped up with the band members having dinner with their host families and then spending some time out at the High School Football game.

Things started off very slowly Saturday morning with just a handful of kids at the workshops. We were determined not to get defeated by the low numbers, so Rich, Johno, Laura Jones and I hopped on Barnabus, cranked up the music and cruised the Westside neighborhoods looking for kids. Within the hour, the bus was full of kids and just as we arrived with our bus, the Westside Community Center van arrived with a van load full of kids as well. Praise God!!!! It was amazing to see how God brought the kids like that. By lunch time we had so many kids, we didn't have enough chairs for everyone to sit. The kids were awesome during the workshops and seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously. They did workshops in dancing, rapping, and songwriting- - -with one of the favorites being a rap where the kids picked words and the artists had to make up a rap about them. The rap ended up being about Meatloaf and Asparagus. Here is a picture of Taivia teaching the dance moves to their song "Warrior".

After the workshops, we moved outside to Frontier Park with the Slide, Boxing ring, Juniper Jump, cotton candy, and craft table. The kids LOVED all of that. Janet Rix told us about how Camryn and Emma Robertson got all the kids around the table ready to do crafts and told them they couldn't do crafts until they listened to the Bible story. So Camryn and Emma proceeded to tell them about God and Jesus and then allowed the kids to do their crafts. By the end of it, they had about 18-19 kids signed up for a Bible Study. We are not sure when this is supposed to take place, but we will figure that out if these kids are wanting to do it.

We started serving dinner around 5:30 and we had TONS of people come through and eat. We ended up serving 600 hamburgers and we are not sure how many hot dogs- - -A LOT!! After dinner, God's Army and Tedashii both had awesome performances and everyone seemed to really enjoy their music. It was amazing watching people of different churches, different races, different ages, different socio-economic classes all coming together to enjoy an incredible day of worship!! We are very thankful to all the hardworking volunteers who made this event possible. We are humbled and awed by the sacrifices that so many made in order to show love to the people on the Westside. There were parents who said, "We never have anything like this over here!" We met so many kids and parents and now the doors have been opened to become a part of their lives. We can't wait to begin developing relationships in order to help these families find hope in Christ.

Thank you to all the volunteers who came out!! We appreciate you and love you!!! We also want to thank the host families for their hospitality in opening their homes- Brian and Aubrey Baker, Donnie and Tammie Mooreland, Caroline Casselberry, and Jude and Mindi Henry.

Special thanks to those volunteers who worked especially hard:

Bryan Hindman

Jude and Mindi Henry

Kristin and Keith Girard

Gary and Janet Rix

Judy and Melvin Hill

Mark and Laura Jones

Johno, Rich, Seth and Daniel

Brad and Kristin Barber

Brian and Aubrey Baker

Kalan and Mandi Powers

Paige Saylor

Jim and Laura Robertson

Alex and Rachel Feria

Hannah Gore

Erin Strobel

The M.O.B. group - -(Missions on Bartlesville)

Caroline Casselberry

Donnie and Tammie Mooreland

Frank and Shonna Dickinson

HOPEFULLY WE WILL POST MORE PICTURES LATER!! God Bless you all!!!!

Wednesday Devotion & Popsicles at Douglas Park

In the midst of all the busyness of last minute details for the Walk This Way event, we were able to escape from it all and do our Wednesday night devotion and popsicles at Douglas Park tonight. It was the perfect time to stop and remember the reason why we are doing what we are doing. There were quite a few kids there for a change and we actually had one little boy, Jarell, join us for our devotion. Then, a little later his friend, Darris, joined us for a popsicle and we told them about the concert and they were real excited and wanted to come. Jarell's mom came out a little later and Jeff was able to talk with her and tell her about the concert and she said she would bring them if we could bring them home after it was over. Jeff also found out that she is about to have back surgery this coming Wednesday so we are hoping to be able to show God's love to her after her surgery and through recovery with a visit, a card, some flowers and a meal.

It is so neat to see how God opens the doors for us to show His love when we are just willing to do what He calls us to do- - - -love and serve. It would have been SO EASY to have skipped going to the park tonight with everything else going on- - -and it actually crossed my mind because when we went last week there was NO one there and sometimes it feels like a waste of time- - -but if we had, we would not have met Jarrell, Darris and Jarell's mom. We would have missed that chance to find out about her surgery, which gives us the opportunity to serve her through her recovery. I am so thankful that we didn't allow the busyness of this week to keep us from that time we had with them tonight. Thank you God for slowing us down tonight to see a bit of You!!!

That is our prayer for the remainder of the week- - -that we do not allow the busyness of the weekend to cause us to lose sight of why we are doing what we are doing. The details are not important; the PEOPLE are important. The people there are not going to care about all the minor details- - -they want to see that WE CARE about the people. Showing LOVE to them is so much more important and that is what they will remember when it is all said and done!!!

Dear Father, let Your LOVE shine through all the chaos!!!!

CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS!!

The Walk This Way event is quickly approaching. We are in need of willing bodies to help us out during this event. We appreciate all the people who have offered to help out and it is now just a matter of securing names and times for people willing to serve. We have needs from Saturday at 9:00 am - 7:00 pm and Sunday from 8:00 am - 11:00 am. If you would be willing to take a 1, 2, 3 or 4 hour shift we would greatly appreciate it. We will have workshops, juniper jump, blow up slide and boxing arena, sno cones, cotton candy, drinks, merchandise table, serving dinner on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday. So there is plenty to do if you are willing to serve. Please call us at 876-1928 or email us at marci@visiononward.org.

Prayer requests:
1. Good weather for the weekend
2. Volunteer needs to be met
3. For God to prepare hearts to be open to the message of hope and salvation for those who may not yet know Him
4. God would use us to bring Him glory- - -that the whole weekend would glorify Him
5. We would see a uniting among churches and community for a common good.

Thank you to everyone and God Bless!!!!

BarnaBus Near Completion

BEFORE AND AFTER PICTURES OF THE BUS



The bus we previously blogged about, Barnabus, is a 13 passenger bus we currently plan to utilize for taking people to and from church who do not have transportation. Future plans will also include transporting groups of relief aid workers to areas of need along with picking up people in need to bring them to a place of service.

We were able to accomplish a lot of work on the bus this week thanks to the graciousness of people willing to give time and resources. Johno has spent numerous hours wiring, priming, painting and rewiring after some electrical problems and we are so grateful for his giving spirit. We are also very thankful for Brian McDaniel, owner of Truck Ranch, who allowed us to use his business garage to do the painting- - - -that was a huge help!!! So, it has now been wired with speakers and painted. We now just need to get the vinyl logo and some stencilling work done.

This week is going to be a crazy week due to the upcoming Walk This Way concert. The bands will be flying in on Thursday evening and we plan on showing them around the community on Friday. We are also going to try to visit schools on Friday and will be attending the High School football game Friday night. Workshops start at 10 am on Saturday and will finish up around 2 pm. Free dinner will be served at 6 pm Saturday and the concert begins at 7 pm. Sunday morning begins with free breakfast at 9:00 and the service going from 9:15 -11:15. Sunday morning will include KAA kids from camp, Greater First Baptist worship dancers, Mike Colaw leading worship and God's Army delivering the message. It should be a GREAT service!!!

LABOR Day Weekend

It has truly been a LABOR Day Weekend for us thanks to some great friends who were willing to sacrifice their time and energy working on one of the buses (Barnabus) for Vision Onward. It is so neat to see people pulling together for a common cause and having great fellowship in the meantime. We were blessed by both the Jones family and the Henry family on Saturday as we spent the day together working, playing, eating and fellowshipping. The men were able to get the wheelchair lift taken out, which will give the bus much more room on the inside. They also completed sanding down the exterior in preparation for painting. Kayla and Camryn also worked hard on cleaning the inside of the bus.

Then again on Monday, Jude and Johno came out and worked from early morning until about 3 pm. Johno is an extremely talented guy to have around and he wired up some speakers we had here at the house into the bus and did many other other handy things. God is so good at putting just the right people in our paths right when we need them to accomplish a task at hand. We are so thankful to everyone who came.

We are hoping to have this bus on the road by the weekend of Walk This Way event so it can be used to transport the bands around town. So we have about 9 days to get it wrapped up.

Thank you to everyone who helped out this weekend: Mark & Laura Jones, Jude & Mindi Henry, Kayla and Camryn, and Johno!! You all are awesome and we appreciate it so much!!

How many Jesus Christ followers does it take to screw in 2 bolts?????

Apparently, THREE!!!

Ya' Way - - - - - - -the before picture

CORRECTION: I had the wrong link in our previous blog for the Big Red Bus website and I wanted to put the correct link here. Here is the correct link http://www.bigredbus.org/index.htm.

We felt pressed upon our hearts that in order to connect with people who we want to reach, we needed to be able to go to them. One of the ways we felt we could do this was with a bus. The bus will allow us to go into neighborhoods, community events, local church functions and can be used for relief aid. The bus will draw people to us so that we can minister to them and develop a relationship of trust and acceptance.

Once we knew that God was leading us to have a bus and deck it out like the Big Red Bus, we were not sure WHERE we would get a bus and how much it was going to cost. Jeff searched around for a little while and even checked on Ebay. During this time, he drove by On the Rock Ministries and noticed they had some buses there that did not look as if they were being used. He was planning on going by there to talk with them about it, but did not get around to it that particular week. Well, that weekend someone from church came up to him and told him that Ken from On the Rock had called to get Jeff's cell phone number because he was wanting to donate a bus to Vision Onward. What???? We got a bus without even having to ask for it???? Apparently, Ken had heard from someone else that Jeff was looking for a bus and God took care of the rest. That is the awesomeness of God!!!! And thank you to Ken for his generosity!!!

So at this point. . . . we have an idea and we have a bus. Naming it was the tricky part. We did not want to name it something meaningless so we began brainstorming. We asked some of our creative friends to help us come up with a name and we had many, many great ideas. Most of us really liked the name Ya' Way - - -which was contributed by our great friend, Jude Henry. Jude has also been a HUGE asset in everything we have been doing. We deliberated over this name for a while and asked a number of people what they thought about it. We were a little concerned about the idea of naming a bus after Yahweh, God, and changing the spelling. We did not want it to be disrespectful to God in any way, nor did we want to offend anyone. We then sought out some wise counsel - -a handful were pastors- - -and I think most, if not all, thought it would be just fine to use Ya' Way as a name. We then learned that Jah (Yah) also meant God in Hebrew. So, by naming it Ya' Way- - -it means God's Way. Thanks Jude for your creative juices that gave the bus an awesome name. Also, thank you for all the time and dedication you have given to Vision Onward- - -you are a blessing to us!

We are currently in the midst of fundraising in order to get the bus ready to go out on the streets for ministry. If you are not sure what the vision is for Ya' Way, please visit this link http://www.visiononward.org/?page=ministries to read more about it. We will keep you updated on how things are coming along with the reconstruction of the bus.

We have been so blessed with many amazing people around us who have been supporting us through time, counsel, donations, ideas, contacts and prayer that we are hoping to be able to say thank you to one or two people with each blog we post. So, today was your day Ken with On the Rock and JUDE- - -THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!!!!

God Bless!!!!

The Beginning of Our Blogging Journey

Hello and welcome to our blog!! I, Marci, will be doing the blogging as Jeff still uses the hunt and peck typing method, but I will be writing mainly about our experiences with Vision Onward as Jeff tells me about them. This will be the first of hopefully many exciting blogs to come. God is moving in amazing ways each and every day and we have finally decided it was time to keep a journal and allow others in on the awesome journey. We could probably post an insanely long blog just to catch everyone up from these past five months, but instead we will just give you a quick recap.

Jeff began feeling God pulling him away from the "business world" and into the "ministry world" in about March or April of this year. It happened quickly and Jeff immediately felt a peace about getting out of all the businesses and being able to devote his full time and energy to doing what God was calling him to do. He rallied some close friends who helped us come up with a name, a mission statement, a website, and a kick-off event. This was the beginning of Vision Onward and we would like to thank all of our friends for their support, wisdom and advice through the beginning. So, here we are in August with our kick-off event, Walk This Way 2007, quickly approaching and we have been watching people come out of the woodwork to help out in one way or another for this event. We want to give a HUGE thank you to Bryan Hindman who has been extremely instrumental in the planning and promoting of Walk This Way and will continue to be throughout the next couple of weeks.

Over the past couple of months, we have also received a generous bus donation from On the Rock Ministries, which we plan to gut and turn into a ministry bus called Ya' Way. It will be similiar to The Big Red Bus in Colorado, which you can view at http://www.bigredbus.org/index.htm. If you want more details on the mission of Vision Onward, you can view our website at http://www.visiononward.org/ .

We would also like to give a big THANK YOU to Chris Collins, who God has blessed with a tremendous gift for designing. He has designed our logo, the T-shirts for Walk This Way, and our website. He has amazing talents. Thanks Chris- - -it has all been GREAT!!

Jeff has met with so many people and we are excited at how God is stirring the hearts of many to reach out to the poor and vulnerable and show them the hope we have in Christ. God is so good and our heart's desire is for Him to use us for His glory. We are humbled every day at how BIG our God is and how amazing are His ways. We have been in complete awe at how He has been orchestrating this entire process. I cannot tell you how many times I have had goose bumps in the past few months by something incredible that God has done. Thank you God- - -we love, honor and adore YOU!!!!

Things have been going so well that we are anxiously awaiting for the spiritual warfare to kick in. We know Satan is planning and scheming for ways to pull us away from what God is calling us to do. There have been some minor things come up, but nothing major yet. So, please pray for us to be alert and prepared when the time for spiritual battle comes upon us.

We love you all and hope you enjoy our new BLOG!!

CONTACT US

VISION ONWARD

PO BOX 252

BARTLESVILLE, OK 74005

918-876-1928

email: jeff@visiononward.org

website: www.visiononward.org

WANT TO GET INVOLVED??

Here are some of the many ways you can contribute to the ministry of Vision Onward:

PRAY.  Prayer is our greatest need.  We are fighting spiritual battles everyday in our neighbrohoods.  We are searching for those who can pray regularly for our ministry.

GIVE.  Support Vision Onward with a donation of $10 / $50 / $100 per month. 
Include Vision Onward in your church's mission budget.
Donate items

COME.  Be a volunteer.  We always need volunteers.  Bring a mission team to help with our annual events such as Walk This Way, VBS camp and work projects.

PARTNER.  Invite Vision Onward to speak at your church.  Join us in unifying the body of Christ.

SERVE.  Help us with your talents and abilities.

Do you have a desire to show the love of Christ to those in need?  Titus 3:14 reminds us that we must "learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs" so that we will not be unfruitful.

Vision Onward shares your heart for servant evangelism, and recognizes that the community in which we live provides us endless opportunity to be the salt and light in the lives of others. Every one of us is uniquely and wonderfully made, and outfitted with a portfolio of gifts and talents. We want you to experience the true joy that comes when giving of yourself, out of those gifts and talents, without the frustration of searching for the right fit or the right need that you are equipped to meet.

That’s why we created Deeds 4 Needs, to be a bridge between you and those in need. Deeds 4 Needs is a place for those in the community who have a pressing need to post their need. For those in the community who are seeking to do a service project, they can go to the website, view the various needs posted, pick one they are suited for and then show the love of Christ through fulfilling that need.

Finding an area to serve your community is that simple. This is an exciting opportunity to show God’s love. Steve Sjogren said in Conspiracy of Kindness, “It seems people don’t necessarily remember what they are told of God’s love, but they never forget what they have experienced of God’s love.” Won’t you join us in showing God’s love to those in need in your community?

If your church is searching for ways to serve the community, we would love to meet with you and further explain the ministry we began a few years ago and share some testimonies of how God has used this ministry in our community. We would love to guide you, teach you and support you in beginning this ministry in your community.

Thank you for It is our prayer that Deeds 4 Needs will allow the body of Christ to make an impact on your community…one family at a time.


"Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but TO SERVE, and  to give His life as a ransom for many"  Matthew 20:28

THE VISION

We see passion ignited that is bringing all churches and service organizations together in unity to share time, treasures and talents to a community in need.

We see education and training classes for Moms and Dads that are transitioning their lives, managing finances, acquiring job and interviewing skills, parenting skills and so on.  This includes tutoring and  mentoring for kids.

We see a microeconomics program for transitional families and individuals which provides  job opportunities as we provide housing for up to a year.

We see car clinics, where volunteers from the automotive profession service will repair vehicles for free while teaching participants how to do it themselves.

We pray all of these efforts will be pleasing to God and provide a conduit to one-on-one discipleship with indifiduals in need, their families, and generations to come.

The Mission

Vision Onward strives to bring hope to the hopeless by sharing the love of Christ through both word and works, listening and responding to human needs and collaborating with the wider community to improve quality of life and build mutual respect among people of diverse racial, ethnic and social groups.

Who We Are

Vision Onward's name has meaning for us and the people we impact now and in the future. 

For us, it means  moving beyond apathy to caring.  We are moving beyond talk to action, affecting God's Kingdom, and passing on a legacy that glorifies God; by His grace

For the lives we hope to impact it means sharing a vision of hope and a purpose of life that is faith based.  We share a vision that is beyond self centered interests and establishes a legacy for generations to come.

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.  Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."  Psalms 82:3-4

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