Ministry Update
Brent and Michele Howard
ChurchCare Construction
May 2025
Dear Family and Friends,
As I was contemplating this letter towards the end of March, the Lord impressed upon my heart the word care. I didn’t stop to take the time to write the prayer letter out then, but the appropriateness of that word was made abundantly clear the first week of April when I began writing this letter. The month of April has been a season of GIVING AND RECEIVING care in a multitude of ways that have been a blessing. Read along for the synopsis.
As you may remember, in our last prayer letter, we were poised to embark on our trip to Western USA. I listed the known places that we would be stopping on the first half of our working sabbatical. Our goals were to provide care for the Baptist Church Planters Missionaries and their church plants, to encourage care for Brent’s mind, body, and soul through a refreshing change of pace in ministry, to care for our marital relationship through marriage strengthening counseling sessions, and to continue to care for our spiritual life through reading and studying God’s Word. The first half of our sabbatical was to culminate with our arrival in Ohio to help care for our daughter and her family as they prepared for and welcomed our granddaughter into the world.
In some ways things very much progressed as planned and in other areas the past 3 months have looked extremely different than we expected. One thing I can say for sure is that we firmly believe and rest in the fact that everything has progressed as our caring, loving, all powerful, all knowing, Heavenly Father had planned for us. We are continuously grateful for His presence and care wherever we are and whatever He is bringing us through.
For a first time in our ministry, January saw us, by our choice, leaving our project in Lincoln, NE although it was unfinished. Brent turned over the reins to our Coworker, Jimmy Stevenson. Under the guidance of our executive director, Mark Henthorn and Pastor Jeremy Penrod, Jimmy has stepped into that leadership role- caring for the volunteers, planning for the completion of multiple areas in the church and working with the sub-contractors to accomplish their part of the project. Not surprisingly it has taken much longer than planned, but good progress has been made, according to our secret sources. 😉 For the most part Brent is purposely being kept out of the loop at my request, but we both have appreciated seeing and hearing about the successful progress being made and look forward to personally viewing the completed project on our way back East after the 2nd half of our sabbatical.
Here is a quick synopsis of our trip for the month of January. We enjoyed a Sunday church visit with both our BCP church planters, Ulysses and Augustine Bestey in Kansas City, Missouri and our family in Northern Texas, Uncle Don and Aunt Bev White. We stayed almost a week with our family, the Whites & Coreys. We enjoyed watching (and helping where we could) various members of the family provide care for some of those in their community who are truly struggling- through the local food bank, meeting with people individually, and advocating in the foster care system. During these beginning weeks, we were learning how to boondock (live in our camper without hooking up to power, water, and sewer). We checked out several places we discovered on our own and a few recommended to us by some of you.
One disturbing thing that happened at the end of January was that we learned that the surgery Brent’s dad, George Howard was scheduled to have for a tumor in his neck was not going to be able to accomplish the purpose of removing the cancer, and George was going to need specialized cancer care treatments. We spoke with mom and dad, and it was decided that we would continue forward with our trip.
In February, we continued on our trip traveling through Texas and New Mexico in the beginning half of the month. We experienced many unique locations and habitats that I don’t have time to explain here, but if you care to see some of the places through our eyes, feel free to look at our Facebook group to review the stops we have made. Howard’s Western US Trip 2025 https://www.facebook.com/groups/472838048540150 We attended church 2 Sundays in February at locations that we found on the internet. That is a very challenging process and on the 1 Sunday we felt like we hit the nail on the head and the other Sunday we didn’t care for the style of service and preaching as much. God has used even these experiences to grow and challenge us on our sabbatical journey. As we progressed through New Mexico, Brent’s brother called to talk to us about the medical struggles Brent’s dad was having. We decided to cut our NM stay short and move toward Arizona and our BCP missionaries, Wayne and Shanna Dale, to prepare to head to Ohio at a moment’s notice. Although George’s health was touch and go for a number of weeks in February, with good care, he made some improvement and was able to return home. So, with dad’s encouragement, we continued our trip. During this time, we also began our marriage enrichment counseling with Pastor Dan Brubaker retired Pastor from Roaring Brook Baptist Church in Hunlock Creek, PA (we worked on the building there in 2008-2009). These sessions have been an encouragement to Brent and I as we focus on continuing to grow together toward God in our relationship. Our time in the Phoenix area with Wayne and Shanna Dale, their family, and their church was special. Although they did not have as many projects on their list as we had hoped to be able to help them with, we were able to help with a few church and 1 home project. It was neat to meet the Dale’s church family and see where they are ministering. We also connected with The Swope family (a BCP councilman) and were able to share our ministry with Pastor Swope’s church in Mesa, AZ. We moved on from there to some of our favorite sightseeing stops Flagstaff, Cottonwood, Holbrook, & the Grand Canyon.
In March, we continued our scheduled sightseeing stops and enjoyed visits with distant relatives, The Ploogs as well as BCP missionaries, Tim and Susan Heinrich. They had a good size list of projects for us to help with and it was a blessing to take care of these building needs. We loved getting to know the congregation at Crossroads Baptist Church & the Heinrich’s family members that currently all live nearby & serve at Crossroads in various roles. The March snow in California that redirected some of our travels & stops was a surprising part of our travels, but we were able to get in most of the planned stops anyway. As the end of March approached, Brent’s dad was again struggling health wise. We eagerly awaited our flight to Ohio on the 31st of March.
We arrived in Ohio the first of April after a red eye flight and jumped into an obviously God ordained specific season of care giving. On our first day home, I went to care for our grandson Marcus who had come down with a stomach bug, and Brent went to spend the day with his mom and dad. As we came back together that evening, Brent shared with me that the prognosis for George was clearly very different than any of the family members (including mom and dad) had understood. It was explained in the ICU on Wednesday that dad was not expected to recover and dad with the family agreed that he would just be moved to hospice care. On Thursday, Ryanne and then I came down with the stomach bug. The strain on Ryanne’s body put her into labor and it progressed through the night. In the early morning hours on Friday, Ryanne called me to take her to the birthing center because Daniel was now down and out with the stomach bug. While we were at the birthing center, Brent called to tell us that George had passed away with Jane and Brad (Brent’s brother) by his side. Just a few short hours later and only 45 min. after Daniel arrived at the hospital (still feeling very ill), Naomi Marie Main was born @ 11:15am. She was 7 lbs. 4 oz. and 19 ½ “ long. The verse about Weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice from Rom 12:15 became very real to us in those few short hours. As Riley, Brent, and a slew of other family members that came into contact with us came down with the stomach bug, the funeral was planned and care continued to be given to Jane and the Howard family as well as Daniel, Ryanne, Naomi and Marcus. Thank you for lovingly caring for us as we gave of ourselves to care for our family. Your expressions of sympathy through visits, cards, texts, emails, food, etc. meant so much to us
We plan to finalize our time in Ohio by May 14th and will return to our 5th wheel parked in Tracy, CA to proceed with a shortened version of the 2nd half of our working sabbatical. We will include a rough itinerary, but there are some decisions that need to be made to be able to complete the itinerary for the last few weeks of our trip depending on which project our Executive Director decides to send us to next. There are projects in Bozeman, Montana and Quakertown, PA that are both ready for us to come.
Praise the Lord for the safe arrival and healthy growth of Naomi and a smooth recovery for Ryanne.
Pray for continued adjustment for Marcus & for Daniel and Ryanne as they raise these little ones to know, love, and serve the Lord.
We praise God for the opportunity to care for our family members for this time. It has been a blessing to plan and cook meals, service machinery, and care for lawn and homes.
Praise the Lord for our faithful partners supporting us through the years. We heard through the grapevine that we are losing the support of one of our longtime supporting churches, but God already provided for us through the support of a church that we worked for 18 years ago. Praise the Lord! We are still down a little bit as far as committed support is concerned, and although it got quite low last month, there continues to be funds in our account month after month. We are thankful that God always cares for us and provides what we need!
5-14 & 15 -Fly into and Tour San Fransisco, CA
5-16 to 18 – Complete projects + Church in Tracy
5- 18 -Lake Tahoe, CA
5-19 -Death Valley National Park, CA
5-20 to 21 -Hoover Dam + Valley of Fire Park, NV
5-22 to 5-29 -Hurricane, Utah with the Vairs
5-30 to 6-1 -Zion NP and Bryce Canyon NP
6-2 -Capitol Reef National Park
6-3 to 6-4 -Canyonland & Arches National Parks
6-5 -travel to Salt Lake City area
6-6 to 6-10 -Visit Bob & Penny Toomer Grantsvillle, UT
6-11 to 6-15 -visit Stephen and Janell Jesperson Preston, ID
6-16 to 6-27 TBD based on location of the next project
6-28 to 6-30 Lincoln, Nebraska
7-1 Head to Ohio
