Ancient Paths Church Update

Desi and Rose Starr ~Ancient Paths Church~ www.denverchurch.net
~Inner City Urban Missionaries Phil. 4:16b-17, 18b

October 2006 Update~ Fall is upon us once more! Isn’t it amazing how fast this year has gone?! September saw the beginning of regular meetings for our youth group. Carrie hosts it at her house, while Desi and Bruce facilitate rides and teaching. We have 8-10 regulars that come ranging in age from 14-17. For now, it’s all girls and boy does it get loud at times! The girls have told us that they love youth group and really enjoy having Desi and Bruce there (which was a surprise to us). This is probably because all but 1 or 2 of these girls have no healthy relationships with men and greatly desire examples of godly father/older brother type of relationships. Pray for these girls. They lead such challenging lives. They all live in ungodly homes, most with adults who model unhealthy behavior regularly. They are constantly tempted to indulge in drugs, alcohol, and sex (even the 14yr olds!). It’s common for them to experience hate and anger filled relationships with their friends and family. Many of them have been through abuse of all kinds and some still fear it. Pray for us as we seek to reach them with the love of God, a clear understanding of sin and what it means to really follow Christ.

Last Sunday we went to a corn maze together as a church family. What fun, even when you end up getting totally mixed up! We are planning a church retreat for the end of this month. We’ll go up to the mountains for the weekend. Pray for unity, encouragement, love and fun! For many of our youth who will be coming (most of whom either come with Carrie to our worship gatherings or only come to youth group) we are the only Christians they come in contact with.
Also continue to pray that people embrace our vision of reaching friends and neighbors all over Denver’s inner city by planting house churches that will function as vibrant families of Jesus in each neighborhood of urban Denver. The people of inner city Denver have very little understanding about how authentic church families should function (in love, of God and each other and embracing God’s mission of making disciples). We have a few families and singles that are prayerfully considering starting churches in their homes to reach people who are outside of our spheres of influence. Desi and Bruce continue to pray Luke 10:2b together daily and look forward to be able to coach people in the process of loving and pastoring their neighborhoods to see life transformation take place and to see God glorified amongst the poor and hopeless. Please join us in prayer for workers for the harvest because the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

Rose’s Reflections~ For those of you who read my blog (www.starrjrfamily.blogspot.com) you know about our intruder. Basically, we left our back door open all day, while we were home and at some point, unbeknownst to us, a man climbed our back fence, came in and went down to our basement. I found him coming up the stairs about 9pm (Desi was gone). He was out of it and left quickly (after I yelled at him), the police came, and nothing was touched. God is so good, and I have learned and grown through this. God has taken away my fear and caused me to grow in trust and faith in Him.
I began home schooling Hope last month. We use a Bible based curriculum called My Father’s World, and we absolutely love it! Hope is working on short & long vowels right now, memorizes a proverb a week, and does art, science, math and reading. I do a preschool program with Owen and Emma 5 days a week as well. I am really enjoying my Life Transformation Group (LTG). I meet with two other gals every Sat. morning to pray and discuss Bible passages that we’ve read over the week. I am amazed at how God uses us even when we don’t think it’s happening. I have a very small sphere of influence, and yet God is answering my prayers that He would use me to reach my neighbors. He has deepened my connections with our homeless friend “Aunt Debi” who we see every few days, as well as Nafisa, a Muslim neighbor from Ghana who is a new mom and lives around the corner. Both of these women have told me in the past few weeks that we are family! What a compliment! I need to trust in God’s promises more and rely less on what my thoughts are saying. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” John 13:34-35 Please pray for me that I would love in not only words, but actions as well! Thanks for reading, praying, your friendship and support! We are blessed indeed!
Love, Desi, Rose, Hope, Owen, Emma & Levi Desi: 720-629-3149 starrjrfamily@yahoo.com