Troy Manning

Thank you for your prayers for my deputation meeting at Maranatha.  The Lord definitely answered.  Yesterday was the second part of Maranatha’s (Flint, MI) two-Sunday missions conference.  On the first Sunday Pastor Donald Albright directed the people’s thinking about missions particularly in relation to their church.  Yesterday, the Michael Carlyle family and I presented our ministries and challenged the people about missions.  The people were extremely welcoming, promised their prayer support, and gave a generous offering to help our ministries.  Though the church can’t take on new missionaries at this point, I was thankful to form good relationships with the people and to gain their prayer support. Maranatha is very missions-minded, and it shows by the way they are reaching into the darkness that surrounds them in Flint, a city that ranks #3 in the country for crime.  The Sunday paper boasted that they actually had no homicides for the first two months of the year.  Definitely not the norm for Flint! 

The Lord also gave me a special blessing at the house where I stayed.  The host is a retired pastor (of a church in OH) and now heads the deacon board at Maranatha.  He wanted me to have some of his books that he doesn’t use much any more.  I was able to find 9 books that I can use, one of which is an expensive Greek grammar that I’ve wanted for a number of years.  What a blessing to have more tools for the ministry!

Next week I head to Imlay City, MI, to minister at Trinity Baptist Church. 

By the way, school started back up this week at MSU, but it was hard to tell that because the campus was still pretty barren this morning.  Many of the students apparently decided to extend their spring break one more day.  Some may have been detained because of the terrible weather in the Midwest, but I doubt that explains all the absences!

Also, the guy from visitation didn’t make it to church yesterday.  Apparently, his sister hurt herself, and he had to take her to the emergency room.  Definitely a legitimate excuse!  Satan is very much at work to keep him from coming.  We need to keep praying!