Events

Event Report: The True Vine Fellowship

For well over a decade, Pastor Dennis Beguelin and his beautiful wife Charrise have steadfastly opened their home fellowship to whoever the Lord sent their way. When the Covid 19 pandemic closed most churches on the Olympic Peninsula, the Beguelin Home Fellowship reached out to the community by hosting a weekly 10:00am breakfast at Mariners Café.

From left to right: Dennis Beguelin, Keith Franklin, Phil Mesibov, Jean Dager, Will Finch, and Frank Tyler

As a result many brothers and sisters have been encouraged and many unbelievers have been blessed with the good news of eternal life.

Event Report: Dennis Feten

Prayer, praise and the word: these are the three pillars we work toward to grow in Christ and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This year things were different.

Metanoia NW

With covid-19, the street ministry in Port Townsend stopped for a month or two due the Governor’s stay at home order. There were also few people on the streets to witness to for a time. But as things opened up our small team once again began the street ministry. We also developed new strategies this year. One was to hold "Jesus" signs in public places. This maintains social distancing and greatly encourages believers. We have watched the Lord raise up a number of people from different local churches who are now holding signs at the main intersection in Sequim, Washington and Sequim Blvd. A couple of believers do this nearly on a daily basis. Gary Todd of our team displayed his large ten commandment banner on the highway 20 intersection outside of Port Townsend in the spring. In November we met another man in Port Hadlock who is street preaching at the QFC intersection where our team also is signing. Holding a sign in person or on bicycles is very effective.

Prayer

Prayer, I believe helped our community in Sequim bypass what could have been a difficult situation this spring during a couple of protest gatherings. A man carrying an assault rifle had planned to participate, but at the last minute let the police have his weapons and quietly left the area. Local leaders and pastors (facilitated by Gordy Hadad), who for years met in person to pray changed to phone conferencing this year also.

Home Fellowship

A home group that Mark McGriff and I hosted changed our meetings this spring and summer to parking lots in town. We sat in our cars and phone conferenced. This provided a safe means to gather and have some degree of face to face communication. In the summer, other gatherings took place at the Cole Family Farm east of Sequim also in cars. In the later part of spring and summer our team resumed passing out Books of John as people became more comfortable to receive them.

Event Report: Josh Mathews

Sports Beyond is a sports-based mission in the Bremerton/Silverdale area. While 2020 presented many challenges with COVID we were still able to host a few activities and share the gospel. Early in January we partnered with Central Kitsap High School to host a 3 on 3 tournament to help them raise funds for the boys’ basketball program. 15 teams participated, and high school players helped volunteer to put on the event.

Over the spring we met with kids on zoom to provide encouragement and opportunities to continue practicing their basketball skills while staying at home. In July and August we hosted outdoor basketball camps. This was a huge blessing as some kids it was the first activity they had participated since the shutdown! In the fall, the Lord opened up an opportunity to use a church gym so that we could offer weekly basketball clinics. We had over 50 kids sign-up! Our theme “Press On” in reference to Philippians 3:12-14 was on the back of a free t-shirt we gave each kid who attended the fall clinics. We were able to share the gospel with the kids who attended our summer camp and fall clinic to remind and encourage them of God’s love and his promise of eternal life.

Event Report: Mark McGriff

The year 2020 has been challenging for the Sequim Street Ministry. It started out normal with us assisting Port Townsend Street Ministry on Fridays and then going door to door in Sequim on Saturdays. When covid-19 hit in March we had to switch strategies. Door to door was out. On the street we donned masks and held up Jesus signs, which resulted in some divine encounters.

The Sequim Irrigation Parade and the Port Townsend Rhododendron Parade were both canceled because of covid-19. Therefore, we could not perform our usual ministry of participating in Parades and passing out Gospels and Jesus DVD’s along the parade routes.

Our Halloween outreach was stopped when the merchant activities were cancelled, and the Christmas outreach doesn’t look promising.

We found that by using rubber gloves we were still able to pass out Gospels of John and Jesus film DVD’s on the street, but it did not work well when the Farmer’s Market opened up in Sequim.

This year the supernatural lectures were expanded to include Port Angeles Public Library along with the Sequim Library. We had encouraging turnout and were developing a following in Port Angeles, when both libraries were shut down because of covid-19.

As an encouraging note, we found that holding signs such as “JESUS IS KING” and “JESUS IS SAVIOR” at major intersections in Sequim was more effective than we could have imagined on pedestrians and passing cars.