That's A Wrap!

      That’s a Wrap!

In this season of Christmas cards, bows, and gift wrap, it is fitting that we also wrapped up another year of Living Bridges Ministry! What a year it was!!!! There were times when it was so hectic, we no longer knew whether we were coming or going. It seemed to get crazier and crazier until October, when we found ourselves praying for God to give us each day what we needed to survive the grueling schedule we had created. In November, relative calm was restored to our lives and our household. Just in time to celebrate the birth of our Savior, all activities have finished and we can see the result of God’s hand on the ministry!

At one point this year, a blog subscriber asked if we were still doing the blog! They had every right to ask. I had not written a post since late spring/early summer! When we began the blog, I did pray about not starting something that I would not stay on top of, but God kept prodding me to write and so I did. In the whirlwind of Transformations, Kids Connection, 2 Clothing Exchanges, and a move, I somehow lost the ability to stay on top of writing the posts. I think that was God answering another prayer for me! I often go back and forth about whether to ask for the donations our ministry needs to survive. I find asking for money or stuff awkward and uncomfortable even though it is for a great cause! Part of me longs to be like George Mueller who ran his orphanages on prayer alone as a testimony to the God he served. He never made the needs of the orphanages he ran known; he just prayed and God delivered! I LOVE faith like that! The other part of me wants to make our needs known because people always say: “IF I knew you needed ______________, I had that and would have gladly given it to you!” So my struggle is real! One part of me is at war with the other to post our needs or to live on faith. God helped us to find the balance between both ideas this summer. While for a time, it was not possible for me to pack to move, write and publish a blog update (or sometimes even a Facebook post), run the Kids’ Connection, and teach two nights a week at the Transformations class. God had all the things we needed ready for us at the time we needed them. Just when we thought we might not be able to buy food or supplies, a check would show up or someone would donate through PayPal. When we needed clothing, it just showed up. More than 100 toothbrushes and toothpaste were gathered on just a couple of Facebook posts. We were also able to furnish almost an entire apartment for a family with only two Facebook posts!

By late fall when the dust from the whirlwind started to settle, we realized that we were in the third phase of our Transformations (get out of poverty) Program, we had conducted 7 out of 8 Kids’ Connections (1 rain out), we hosted several lunch fellowships at the park, 2 Clothing Exchanges, and a Trunk or Treat! It was crazy how much God had done and how many people had donated without a single blog post of request. We did manage to get a few Facebook posts up, but not nearly the quantity of requests we had posted the year before! We had been able to pray through most of our needs and still post other needs! God showed us how to find balance!

In December, our Transformations students graduated! We cannot brag enough on what God has done there! One of our students began the program working part time at a local restaurant. Through the knowledge he gained in the program and with God’s grace, he was able to get a full time job with a $3/hour raise! He is now making almost $2 above living wage! Living wage is the amount you have to make to “live” in a given area. In our area it is $9.15/hour. Another student is in school full time getting her GED and is in a program where she will go on to nursing school upon completion of the GED. We had one more student finish the program, but she felt led to move from Georgia to a new state for a fresh start. She has not found employment in her new area yet. God is doing great and mighty things in these lives! In the spring we will interview candidates to take 8 new students and begin again!

Kids’ Connection is our awesome Vacation Bible School ministry which also serves as an outreach. That summer VBS at the park brings families from all over South Valdosta who get to hear God’s word, we feed them lunch, and they enjoy fellowship! That leads to those families attending our other events like Clothing Exchanges, Trunk or Treat, a Thanksgiving luncheon, or our Birthday Party for Jesus! At the Birthday party for Jesus we had record attendance for any of our events! We hosted between 50-60 people plus our volunteers! We fed and provided devotional books, gifts, food bags, and some jackets/coats to all who needed them.

While, I have not written a blog post in a number of months, please do know that we could not have done the work God called us to without prayer partners, volunteers, and donors! We pray for everyone who supports us in any way! We are so thankful for each prayer, each hour of service to the ministry, for the meals cooked or bought for our class, for those who donated material goods, and for those who donated money! There are also those who opened space in parking lots, schools, and board rooms so we could do the things we do and we are thankful for those as well! We are thankful to the church who hosted our students for their graduation ceremony! As we sit in the calm of the aftermath of all we were a part of, we see a glimpse of the beautiful canvas that God is painting for those whom He has called us to serve and we could not be more humbled that He called us to hold any kind of brush in that artwork!

We ask you again to pray for us as we rest that we may begin 2016 refilled, refreshed, and renewed in what we are to do in His service! We pray that this Christmas is filled with the wonder of all the Savior has done and continues to do, and that the year ahead is filled with God’s richest blessings for you!

Merry Christmas,
Tony and Darcy Gunter