Wilson's Call: Missions are not an event, they are a way of life

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The following is a monthly newsletter shared by Michael and Baylee Wilson. The full-time ministers are from Sand Springs and consider Word of Life to be their home church. 

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MONTH

Fontil now has his own 6X10 room, sleeping on a bed, receiving meals on a regular basis and hearing about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. 

Fontil

You remember Fontil? One of our Haitian friends found him sleeping on trash under some banana leaves and cardboard exposed to the elements. She moved him to Lascahobas to keep a better eye on him. He seems to have dementia. There are times we see him and he doesn't know where he is or what's going on around him. When we met him he was sharing a 6X6 room with another man and sleeping on the floor not knowing where his next meal is coming from...

Fontil now has his own 6X10 room, sleeping on a bed, receiving meals on a regular basis and hearing about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. 

From Death to Life

The Bible says to go lay your hands on the sick and pray for them to be healed. Today we saw that happen. We walked down a steep windy trail, walked along a river bank into a group of houses really close together. As we navigated through these houses we came to THE house we were looking for. We walked in to a man struggling to breath. We went in to pray for him and he accepted Christ and he gave his last breath right after we finished praying. God took him from glory to glory. He is healed by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

After he passed, we walked out of the house and 3 voodoo priest came running up. They said that "Voodoo" told them to hurry before he dies so they can save him. They were late because our God is always one step ahead and this world offers what only God can give. Jesus Christ has defeated death and he stole the keys to the grave. God is so good! 

His Hope Ministry Growth

We are so excited to let you all know that we are now feeding eight abandoned elderly a week and increased to three feedings a week! 

We are still believing to start a home/living facility for our elderly. We know this may be a long way off, but we believe with God and your help, we can make it happen. To give them a place to live means we will be able to give them the care that they need on a daily basis, feed them every day, allow them to spend time with others their age, and be able to share the gospel in their every day lives. Please join us in prayer about this. 

Celebrate

Baylee and I celebrated two years of marriage in our favorite place, as well as Baylee's 23rd birthday!

We are so happy to share these joyful moments with the amazing people of Haiti. We look forward to a lifetime of happiness and serving together!

Michael will be doing a monthly Facebook live video where we will talk about everything missions. We will talk about Haiti, local & global missions, what it means to be on mission and everything else under the sun!

There will be an episode on the first Monday of every month at 6pm (CTD). I am excited to see how God uses this to be glorified. 

WE NEED YOUR HELP. Would you please send suggestions for what you would like to hear about? Simply message Wilson's Call on Facebook to share your thoughts.

Prayer Request

In Haiti you pay for your rent a year at a time and at the beginning of the year. We are believing that God will provide it all this month so that we can have a year of housing behind us and another amazing year of ministry in front of us here at RTS Missions! This would free up resources to be used in other ways to further the kingdom of God in Haiti for the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord. We're believing that God is going to show up in a big way!

Would you consider joining our mission team with a one time donation this month? Thank you all for your continued prayer and support! We could never tell you how much we thank God for each and every one of you!

For more details message Baylee or myself or follow these steps
(all donations are tax deductible)
1. Go to www.rtsmissions.com
2. Click the red "donate" button
3. Create an account
4. ***click the scroll down arrow and select "Michael & Baylee Wilson"***
5. Enter and donate the amount God puts on your heart to give.

Praise Reports: We had our first ever Game Day at our house for those in the His Hope ministry, along with some other elderly in the neighborhood. We ate together, played bingo, sang a few songs, and prayed together. It was an amazing day and they all had a great time. We are working on putting together our next event for them and they are looking forward to it. 

Thanks to your generosity, we were able to pay for the first year of kindergarten for a little girl whose mom and dad left her whens she was a baby. She means the world to us and we were blessed to be able to do this for her. She is enjoying school and we pray that she makes many friends and learns more each day. 

Baylee and Michael Wilson celebrate seven months of ministry in Haiti

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Submitted by Michael Wilson, Wilson's Call.

This month we will be living in Haiti for 7 months. It's been over half of a year in this beautiful country. We knew that we loved the country before we moved here. But after moving, God has broken our hearts for the people of Haiti all over again. We've seen heartbreak, joy, loss, and lives changed because of Jesus Christ. We've met so many amazing people on this journey and we can't imagine living without them. We've only seen a glimpse of what God can do when you allow him to use you for his glory. God has given us a burden for the lost. Over 40% of people in Haiti are illiterate. Therefore, 40% of people will never be able to read God's word, all they know about the gospel is what they're told, which can often be wrong. We want to share the TRUTH of Jesus Christ, and tell the people we meet that Jesus saves the worst of us. We don't need to get our lives right before we come to him, because when we completely give our lives to Christ, he will change us from the inside out. 

This is Christie. She was given away as a little girl to become a restavek (civil slave) to another family in Haiti. Her whole life has been devoted to doing other peoples laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping in the market, etc. We invited her to church and she gave her life to Christ. Because of her new faith, her mom traveled to our area to go to church with Christie. Earlier this month she came to our house to tell us that she is no longer going to be living with this family, and that she gets to move back home with her mom. When we add God to the picture, things change. Lives are made new. Although we miss Christie, we are so thankful that she is now living a life of freedom. 

Everyone meet Viergelie, our new sister in Christ. We had a team a few weeks ago doing house to house evangelism. We noticed Viergelie watching us from a distance as we visited with multiple people on the streets. She finally came to us, her head down, not wanting to look us in the eyes. She told us that she is living with her boyfriend, and hasn't accepted Christ because she knows she's sinning. After sharing the gospel with her, the truth of Jesus changed her life. She was always told that she can't be a follower of Christ until she gets her life right first. But we know that WHEN we surrender our lives to him, he will begin to change every aspect of our lives. We gave Viergelie a new Bible, and you wouldn't believe how her face lit up. She hugged the Bible so tight to her chest, you would of thought she had never held the word of God in her hands before, maybe she hasn't. She began to go around telling everyone the decision she had just made. She said she couldn't wait to go home and tell her boyfriend that she was ready to change her life around. 

RTS Missions has been very busy lately with back to back short term mission teams. We had a medical team last month who gave each of our elderly individuals a health check-up, along with a bag full of medicine and hygiene products.

Lately we've been asking God to give us huge vision for the future of His Hope and we are believing to start a home/living facility for our elderly. We know this may be a long way off, but we believe with God and your help, we can make it happen. To give them a place to live means we will be able to give them the care that they need on a daily basis, feed them every day, allow them to spend time with others their age, and be able to share the gospel in their every day lives. Right now we are doing many different things at RTS Missions and aren't able to put our full focus on the elderly ministry. We are praying that there is a way to put our full effort into it soon. Please join us in prayer about this. 

Prayer Request: Our constant prayer is that no matter where we are at, we would continue to Love God, and Love people. We know that God has called us to serve the people of Haiti, and we will do so with grateful hearts until we feel that he is calling us somewhere else. We just ask that you would pray as we continue to seek vision and guidance for God's plan for our lives here in Haiti. 

As you read above, we are praying about the growth of the elderly ministry. We know that the vision we have is huge, but our God is bigger, and he will fulfill his promises. It will take a lot of time, and money, but it is possible. Please pray that God would continue to show us the path we need to take with the elderly ministry in growing it so that we can reach more people who are no longer able to care for themselves. 

As of now we are without a personal vehicle. We are so thankful that RTS Missions lets us use the ministry vehicles but with it being a growing ministry the vehicles are in constant use so that sometimes limits what we are able to do. Would you continue to pray with us for the funds to buy a personal truck or SUV so that we can further what God has called us to do or that God would provide a vehicle through donation. Cars in Haiti are not reliable if you buy used and extremely expensive brand new. Our God can do all things.

Praise Reports: In the month of July we had back to back teams coming down to serve with RTS. During that month, we saw 67 people give their lives to Christ. Sometimes we minister to people and they say they are not ready to accept Christ yet. But we thank God for each person who comes down to serve. There are some teams who plant seeds, some who water those seeds, and then there are some who reap a harvest. Nothing we do in Haiti is insignificant and even if we had one salvation, it would all be worth it. 

We now have a fridge in our house! This might seem very small but it is huge for us. We use to have to rely on going to the Shepherds house for all of our meals (Which is not bad) but now we have the ability to cook at our own house.

CPHS Memorial Stadium to host non-denominational praise and worship night

/ Memorial Stadium/

Unity Praise
7:00 p.m. 
April 7, 2017
Memorial Stadium
500 N. Adams Road
Sand Springs, OK 74063

Donations to the event can be addressed to:
In Jesus Name Ministries
P.O. Box 1616
Sand Springs, OK 74063

Click HERE to donate online
Visit In Jesus Name Ministries on Facebook.

By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

It has been thirty years since Jim and Stephanie Schrepel first felt God calling them to start a ministry. But the timing never seemed right until now. Jim turned 71 years of age last week and the couple celebrated their 38th anniversary, but he is more energized than ever before when it comes to following God's call on his life.

You could compare the couple to Abram and Sarai, and fittingly enough, Stephanie's maiden name is Abram. Jim personally identifies more with Noah. He feels God calling him to do something that has never been done before, and like Noah, he has had to endure some skepticism from people who don't share his vision.

The vision came to Jim during an intercessory prayer session. "I saw myself standing at the old Forward Youth Building, looking down in to the Charles Page High School stadium, full of people praising the Lord." He knew that God was calling him to make it happen.

Thus began the difficult but rewarding journey to launch the first and possibly annual Unity Praise event. "It's a time to bring the body of Christ together, without worry of denomination," says Schrepel. "No denomination has the corner on praise. Praise is universal. God is trying to put this together, showing that denominations can come together and work together."

A lifetime in the Sand Springs community has given Schrepel plenty of connections. He has attended church with House Representative Jadine Nollan and City Councilman Phil Nollan in the past. Jadine introduced him to City Manager Elizabeth Gray. "Mayor (Mike) Burdge and I have known each other for decades," says Schrepel. "The City has just embraced this. Everyone I've crossed paths with has been there to meet a need."

Word of Life church recently moved Forward Youth Ministries to their main campus and sold the old building to The Stronghold church, formerly known as The Church at Moriah. Stronghold pastor Brent Thurber has caught on to Schrepel's vision and will be one of the speakers at Unity Praise.

Also speaking at the event will be former Word of Life Children's Pastor Smiley Elmore, Jr. Elmore played running-back for the University of Missouri from 1987-1989, participated on the TV show American Gladiator, and is an active bodybuilder, speaker, and physical fitness coach. 

There will be multiple worship teams and speakers from area churches working together to put on the event. "God has just opened doors and given us favor. Every day people are getting on board with it."

Securing a venue, sound equipment, advertising, and insurance can get expensive, but Schrepel isn't sweating it. "It has just totally blown us away how the money has come in. It's come from the individuals--not just businesses and churches. They're catching the Unity Praise vision and wanting to see change in Sand Springs."

"God's going to build up Sand Springs to be a spiritual hub in America," says Schrepel. "I asked myself, 'Tulsa's right in the middle of the Bible belt, why is there not more happening here?'"

In the beginning, many church leaders doubted whether Schrepel could pull off an event of this magnitude in Sand Springs. But he insists he has nothing to do with it, it's all God's work. "It's to raise up a new generation of ministers."

The event is on sure ground now. Flyers have gone up all around town, the location, speakers, and musicians are all secured. The Schrepels will even be guests on Good Day Tulsa on April 3rd at 9:00 a.m. to promote the event.

"This event is going to saturate Sand Springs with the word of God."

In correlation with the Unity Praise event, the two have also founded the nonprofit organization "In Jesus Name Ministries." Jim was previously a Radiologic Technologist at City of Faith, while Stephanie supervised Respiratory Therapy at the Oklahoma State University Medical Center. Now they feel called to be paramedics to the body of Christ.