Hi Everyone!

Wow, we are truly in the middle of nowhere!  At least we feel that way.  For perspective, we are about 50 driving miles east of Bryce Canyon National Park.  We’ve spent many vacations out west, so the smallness of the town (700 people) is actually enjoyable to us.  The people are incredibly friendly and welcoming!

Just to give a quick update after our first week out…  some answers to questions you may be asking. 😊

Our flights to Utah went well, except for the snow delay in Denver (circling for 30 minutes before landing due to closed runways), which gave us (mostly me, Sandy) a brief pause until we realized that everyone else had been delayed too and we would not miss our connecting flight to Salt Lake City.

We spent Tuesday evening and night with our board members who live 45 minutes south of Salt Lake.  Chris and Rachel DeMorrell are our BEM Western Field Representatives here in Utah.  We treated them to dinner and caught up with recent happenings in their church in Nephi (where our past two conferences were held).

After spending the night with the DeMorrell’s, we had beautiful driving weather on Wednesday for our 4-hour drive down to Escalante. Although we had met the pastor and his wife at our two previous conferences, it was good to get to know them on their home turf and hear more about the work at First Baptist Church Escalante.

Wednesday P.M. through Saturday found us being a part of the church’s mid-week Bible Study (held at the Richard’s home), meeting additional people from the church, neighbors and business owners.  We also played tourist as the Richards’ took us on a driving tour to some pretty amazing vistas and learned how to “run the dogs!”

Part of the uniqueness of our BEM Pastor Refreshment Ministry is that we maintain not only the church and congregation, but also the home of the Pastor (if that is where we are staying).  It turns out that a very important part of this Pastor’s home is their 8 month old puppies who are about knee high and weigh 50 pounds each!  We had two days of intense training (Thursday & Friday) to learn all of the particulars of their daily schedule, including food and snack schedule, activity schedule etc.  They are really cute; however, we did have to establish some boundaries, such as no licking our face, no sitting on our laps and no sleeping in bed with us! 😊  They’ve done a great job thus far, appearing to feel loved and content. They have certainly kept us from getting bored!   We’re sooo thankful for the 2 days of training and the opportunity to bond to some degree.  The four of us are doing really well!  This was a very important piece of our ministry here, as the Richard’s could not take the dogs with them and needed to be completely comfortable with us in that role.

Sunday was a blessing as we met with the people of First Baptist Church Escalante.  It was so helpful to have already met many of them.  Their friendliness and thankful spirits were an encouragement to us, as well as their easy interaction during Sunday School (“What is the Gospel”).  FYI….Escalante is 76.3% Mormon, 1% Roman Catholic, 0.5% Baptist.

Part of the 21 in attendance was a group from Turn-About Ranch, a local ministry for “at risk” teens (some with pretty hard hearts)! Tim’s message and visual presentation on The Good Shepherd from John 10 (Jesus is the Good Shepherd who knows us, died for us and is the Door to salvation), was a perfect challenge for all of us, especially for those young people who clearly have had huge struggles in their lives.  As always, God’s Word offered hope to all who were in attendance!!

BEM was established to minister to Pastors of Small Churches.  We love ministering to these small pockets of believers and encouraging their Pastors, in hopes of helping them avoid burn-out and discouragement.  We’re so thankful that our Heavenly Father has equipped us with the desire, ability and excitement in serving in this way. 

Please pray for us through the next 2 weeks… for good health, endurance, continued opportunities to meet with the congregation outside of church, for a fruitful time of Bible Study, Sandy’s piano playing (good so far!), success in taking care of “The Boys” and especially for good physical and spiritual refreshment for Dale & Lella Richards as they are away. 

Thankful & Blessed,

Tim & Sandy Hewitt