Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. 2 Cor. 9:15
\nAnd thank you for your faithful prayers and support of the ministry among the Native Americans! March and April were filled with ministry
\nopportunities, travel, and various celebrations. Early in March, our youngest son, Josh hosted his Senior Graphic Design show at
\nPensacola Christian College. He was thrilled with all the out of town guests that came to congratulate and encourage him. We are
\nlooking forward to his graduation in May.
\nWe are so grateful the reservation in opening up more and more. Not only are we holding in person services, but in March we had our
\nfirst wedding in quite a while. The groom is the man I mentioned in our last letter who was saved during marriage counseling. That same
\nday was the anniversary of Steve\u2019s Dad\u2019s graduation to Glory! We held a memorial service for him at Bill Rice Ranch West Branch a
\ncouple of weeks earlier. Our family was greatly encouraged by the outpouring of support by all those in attendance. Dr. Bill Rice III
\npreached a message about John the Baptist that blessed us beyond words!
\nTwo days later Steve returned to West Branch with our largest group ever to attend men\u2019s retreat. Several first time attenders discovered
\nwhy the rest of the men look forward to this event every spring.
\nResurrection Sunday brought the largest attendance since meeting back in person. We also had our first breakfast at church in over a
\nyear. Serving the meal was different than usual to facilitate covid protocols, but everyone enjoyed the fellowship. We look forward to
\ngetting back to our monthly \u201cSuper Sundays\u201d including breakfast once restrictions are lifted.
\nThe following Sunday after the evening service we had a special fellowship time to celebrate our oldest church member turning 90! Rose
\nhas been in Hualapai Baptist Church since she was a young girl. Her life has been a miracle since she survived a car wreck a few years
\nago. Her recovery has been as remarkable as it has been complete.
\nAnother April blessing was the Brady Rochester family ministering to us in music and Word. We had scheduled this talented family last
\nyear, but they had to cancel their trip during the pandemic. Meeting and worshiping with them was another joy of being back in person
\nfor services.
\nBut the greatest blessing of all to share with you is what happened the last day of April. Our church had been praying for a woman to be
\nsaved for the last few years. This same woman approached one of our men and asked him to visit her dying husband. Arrangements
\nwere made and Raynard and Lisa made the visit April 30. As Raynard presented the gospel Lisa prayed and it became very clear that the
\nwoman we had prayed for for those years was very ready to receive Christ as her Saviour. By the time the visit was over she was saved
\nalong with her husband, a nephew and his girlfriend-four precious names written down in the Lamb\u2019s Book of Life!
\nAll of these gifts are ours through the rich grace given us through the Lord Jesus Christ! Thank you for allowing yourself to be used of
\nHim to make these blessings a reality.
\nFor God\u2019s Glory,
\nThe Steve De Ford family<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. 2 Cor. 9:15 And thank you for your faithful prayers and support of the ministry among the Native Americans! March and April were filled with ministry opportunities, travel, and various celebrations. Early in March, our youngest son, Josh hosted his Senior Graphic Design show at Pensacola Christian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"hide_page_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[63,7,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-63","category-missionary-letters","category-steve-sherry-deford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1989,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987\/revisions\/1989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}