Dear Friends
Exciting Newsflash!
Another momentous milestone in the Hendrickson family… Luke and Sarah Church are engaged to be married. We all agree, Sarah is a great young lady who is quite easy to fall in love with… just ask Luke. They’re planning an April wedding in Redding, CA. (See pic)
Philippine ‘Love Box’
Many of Cheryl’s relatives live in an extremely poor part of the Philippines and exist very meagerly on about $2 a day. On occasion we’ve sent money for special purposes; e.g. repairing a leaking metal roof, replacing a dirt floor with concrete and building a cook area and chimney so the concrete block house isn’t filled with smoke. When the work was completed, we were very surprised to receive detailed receipts and a letter of heartfelt thanks. On another occasion we sent a ‘Love box’ crammed full of helpful items; flip flops, hundreds of personal toiletries, writing tablets, coloring books, crayons, puzzles, toys, clothes, hats, coffee & creamer, canned meat, etc… We also added fun size Snickers bars, because when Cheryl was a little girl in the Philippines her family received a box from America. In the midst of all the necessity gifts there were Snickers candy bars which were sliced into little slivers so everyone got a bite. Cheryl talks about the box smelling like ‘America’ and how special it was. We’ve heard of others receiving International gift boxes and experiencing the same thing. It’s been a huge blessing to us when we hear how impacting our gifts have been to them.
We are shipping two huge boxes in the next few days. If something stirs in your heart to help financially or you’d like to enclose something in this shipment, please let us know ASAP. We also like to enclose a picture of each family who participated which they proudly hang on a wall in their Spartan home.
Recent travels
St Louis weekend
Last month Deb and I joined a St Peters house church one Friday evening and helped facilitate their desire to have “encounter” meetings. This group is transitioning from a ‘seeker sensitive’ church to a more Spirit led experience. It was a blast to create freedom and on-ramps for them to engage in giftings and body ministry beyond what they normally experience. This dynamic is probably the most fulfilling thing we do at this time in our lives… unlocking people’s hearts to exercise their latent giftings.. and then watch them come ‘alive’ with delight in the discovery process.
That Sunday we revisited a church of great friends in Warrenton. There was much grace to enlist many in the congregation to ‘active duty’… young and old, veterans and newbies. We even ‘drafted’ the worship team to sing and play prophetic songs over others in the auditorium. Tears and laughter, fun and freedom were the order of the day. In the course of one of the ministry times, 7 or 8 year old Kristin prophesied a Scripture over a first-time visitor… so touching and impacting to all of us. We could do that every day… so liberating and satisfying to see God’s people functioning together. It is I Cor 14:26 in action.
Springfield, MO
Each month we try to join regional leaders who gather for purely relational purposes. A great meal is provided by the host church and a very meaningful time of sharing and body ministry almost always follows. I’ve probably said this before, but this group has the most organic and ‘unofficial’ rallying of leaders… most of them not related by denomination or network… just relationship. Steve and Sally Wilson are the rally-ers of this gathering. They pastor Dayspring Church, which in our opinion is one of the freshest things happening in the southern MO region. In the last year or so, they’ve hosted three or four Bethel leaders and Randy Clark, with Todd White and Heidi Baker coming in the future. All that to say, we’re very pleased to be associated with what God is doing there.
We’ve had several outstanding house churches in our home recently. And of course, body life and body ministry is the order of the day when we gather. I can’t think of anything too much better than watching Jesus’ people discover the gifts He’s put in them. The delight and life they experience is obvious… what kind of joy do you think Jesus is experiencing?! If you’d like to attend, let us know and we will email you when we have our irregularly scheduled meetings… all welcome.
Christmas
This year, we’re excited about having a full house of all our immediate family here in our home on Christmas Day. The Hendrickson family hit a growth spurt this year with our two grandbabies, Aslan and Avalee, and Luke’s fiancé Sarah. Yay!!! Other extended family members will join us the day after Christmas.
One Thing Conf
As usual, downtown at the Bartle Hall, a major rally of around 20K hungry people will gather again from Dec 28-31 for IHOP’s annual One Thing Conference. Free online registration here. See you there.
Cool miracle
We committed to buy 5000 Supernatural Provision books from the Destiny Image Pub… in 1000 book allotments. The strange thing is that each time we’ve needed to order another 1K books at about $5K per order, timely finances for that order show up from very unpredictable sources.
Cool story: About two months ago we received a $5100 direct deposit into our bank account from a royalties distribution company. Now, we receive some royalties, but just a pittance each year. This amount was over-the-top. So I researched the matter and found that the royalties were for two songs… and we’d never heard of either one. We tried for a month or so to inform the company of the mistake. Last week, we received an email from the manager of the royalty department acknowledging the mispayment… and their correction of the computer error. But here’s the good news… He informed us, “We have no policy for receiving erroneously paid monies so there’s no further response necessary on your part. In addition, we have passed the time for 4th quarter distribution of royalty payments and so you will receive another payment for $611 later this month. There is no response necessary for this matter, either.”
As you can imagine we were elated with this much needed but unexpected windfall, so Debbie responded with an email saying, “We are surprised and delighted with how you have resolved the matter. Thank you!” To which the manager responded, “I had a feeling you’d be happy about that ha-ha. Glad I could be the bearer of good news!” Is that crazy cool or what!!! How often does that happen? Doesn’t that just sound like God?! His creativity is so amazing!
So as long as our Good God keeps mysteriously providing for us to purchase the books, we’re having a blast giving them away for free (or when mailed – $5). Ya just gotta love His ‘No Sweat Zone’ which is available for each of us! He is for sure, the better-than-we-expected Jehovah Jireh!
God bless each of you with His over-the-top goodness this year end!!
Lotsa love
Mark and Debbie
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Dwelling Place Ministries
Hendrickson
11011 Olive St
KC, MO 64131
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Web: www.dpmkc.org
Blog: www.marklhen.wordpress.com
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Mark Hendrickson
Beyond the Map 