On the first day of a new year many of us wish each other a "Happy New Year!" But as we begin a new year, we need more than a hopeful greeting from the people around us. We need to listen to what God told Joshua about 3,400 years ago. As Joshua was about to lead God's people into the promised land, he had reason to be afraid.

"It's close to freezing outside," I muttered to myself as I glanced at the Weather Channel app while getting ready to go out this morning. I guess growing up in the Wild and Wonderful state of West Virginia, you might assume that I would be a cold weather, winter type of guy. In reality, winter is something I have never looked forward to (unless you count when I was a kid and it gave opportunities to have snow days off of school).

Our youngest son, Levi, learned how to ride his bike without training wheels last summer with his older brother Caleb. But, for some reason, he got scared and lost the interest of riding it. So for quite some time he wouldn't even get on his bike even after he got a new one for Christmas last year.

In New Testament times, when rabbis chose disciples, they would go to the rabbinical schools and select the best of the best. One of the questions they would ask themselves was, “Could this man do greater things than me?”

I wanted to share a poem that one of our Good News Club ® Coordinators wrote and sent to us after she was inspired by the Holy Spirit to do so following a training course that we were conducting that she attended. My prayer is that it speaks to your hearts the way it did ours…

Henry Ford was an American genius and his Ford automobiles changed the course of history. But even a genius needs help from time to time. 

Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn't solve problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Charles Steinmetz into the plant. Charles worked for General Electric and was a German genius whose work on alternating current changed the course of world history. 

Patrick Henry is known for several things including being the first post-colonial governor of Virginia, one of the founding fathers of our great country, and his “Give me Liberty, or give me death!” speech. However, we appreciate him for quotes like this, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!”

This month I thought I’d share a few testimonies from the field. I hope and pray that they are as much of an encouragement to you as they were to me …

Spring is officially here! A lot of great things come with each new spring: budding flowers and trees, warmer weather, baseball season and of course, Easter. For Christians, there should be no greater holiday celebration. We truly have something to celebrate … the resurrection of our Lord Jesus!

We had another two more new After School Good News Clubs® start in the month of February. This brings our total to eight brand new clubs, have two more scheduled to begin this month, with two more still on schedule to begin by the end of the school year!!! We wanted to share another testimony of one of our clubs that the Coordinator shared with us recently….