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