Dear Family, friends, and prayer partners,
Thank you all for your continued prayers and support of the ministry among the Native American
Indians. Hualapai Baptist Church finished out 2023 well, and have been blessed already in 2024. As is
true for nearly everyone, we had a non-stop schedule from Thanksgiving through the New Year.
Our church was blessed with two adults that received Christ as Saviour during the month of
December. Aubrey had been attending services o\ufb00 and on for several week, before realizing her lost
condition and coming to Christ. Camario had been on our church prayer list for months, and began
attending church in the fall. He received Christ as his Saviour after our Christmas Program December 17.
We finished the activity filled month with Fifth Sunday, December 31. Whenever a month has five
Sundays, we have the teen take over many of the responsibilities of Sunday School and the Morning
Worship on the fifth Sunday. They help teach classes, volunteer in the nursery, provide special music,
lead the singing, collect the o\ufb00ering, and give the announcements. We have a great group of teens, and
they do a great job helping in the various ministries of the church.
In January, we introduced our theme for the New Year –
Avoiding the Daze of Deception. We are highlighting the importance of
being immersed in God\u2019s Word in order to recognize and avoid the lies
of world.
We were blessed personally during the holidays by having some
of our children home. Our sons, Joshua and Micah, along with his wife,
Rachael, and grand children were in for Christmas. Our daughter,
Jackie, and her husband, Jon, flew in with their two boys for a late
Christmas in January. This was our first Christmas season with Mom
living with us. She moved in back in November and jumped right into all
the actives that surround the holidays. She also helped plan a family
reunion here in Arizona for her maternal side. Most of our extended
family lives in the mid-west or east coast so we rarely see them.
However, several flew in for this special event.
Hualapai Baptist Teens
Steve\u2019s mom, Becky
Work began on the remodel of our home to improve Mom\u2019s living space. As I write, volunteers
are here working to make several improvements. We are very thankful for all the work that has been
done and the generous, godly servants that have come to help. We look forward to seeing the finished
product. Mom is very happy and beyond grateful!
We finished out the month attending two di\ufb00erent missions conferences here in the state. One
church has been a long-time supporter, and the other church is less than an hour away from Peach
Springs. Both conferences were an encouragement to us.
We want to thank you for your interest in the work here. It is essential that we have faithful prayer
warriors lifting us up regularly before the Lord in order to know His will, and be filled with His Spirit to be
empowered to do what God has called us to do.
For God\u2019s Glory,
Steve, Sherry, Molly, and Becky DeFord<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Family, friends, and prayer partners,Thank you all for your continued prayers and support of the ministry among the Native AmericanIndians. Hualapai Baptist Church finished out 2023 well, and have been blessed already in 2024. As istrue for nearly everyone, we had a non-stop schedule from Thanksgiving through the New Year.Our church was blessed with […]<\/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":[71,7,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-71","category-missionary-letters","category-steve-sherry-deford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578","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=2578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2582,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578\/revisions\/2582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibimi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}