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February '08

Craig & Victoria Oye have been helping their daughter and son-in-law remodel an old house. One of the projects

was to run new wiring through the house. Craig is an electrician so did most of the work to install new wires and a

new service box. The wiring that ran from outside the house to the new service box was still old and badly needed to

be replaced, but with the ground as frozen as it was, Craig didn’t think they would be able to replace it until Spring.

Matters got worse when the outside breaker on the electricity supply pole shut off one day. Craig knew there was a real problem somewhere in that line, but didn’t know what to do other than pray that God would protect the family until Spring when they could replace the incoming line. Once that breaker went off, Craig began to pray regularly for his kids protection.

Then it happened. Craig and Victoria’s daughter and son-in-law were both home unexpectedly one morning about 10:00. They could hear a strange noise. Eventually the son-in-law discovered the problem in the crawl space beneath the kitchen. The wires within the cable that ran through the crawl space had shorted out. This time instead of throwing the outside breaker, they continued to short The conduit melted from the intense heat and the arcing cable was throwing flames up toward the underside of the kitchen floor. The floor joists were already blackened and smoking when the fire department was called. The smoldering fire was extinguished just in time. Craig and Victoria are praising God that the kids just “happened” to be home at the time this took place and were able to get the potentially devastating fire put out. It was a real answer to prayer.

But even better news arrived the next day. The power company had to come out because there

was no power to the house. They were able to get a conduit trencher under the porch where the frost was not so deep and cut a new trench to the power pole under the front. They got a new power line installed within the next day or so and the insurance company covered the cost of the new installation! God is good!

January '08

December '07

You may have heard that some of us at Rustic Hills are prayer walking. We have been prayer walking for over a

year in various locations. God has amazed us in the way He has planned divine appointments for us. On one occasion we

were downtown walking and praying quietly for the city, when we ran across a man standing on the street in a business

suit. We asked if we could pray for him. He said, “Oh, no. I’m a Christian. I don’t need prayer.” But we continued to talk

and asked him about his family. I offered to pray for him and his wife. We prayed for them and their marriage. We

asked that God would bless them. After we had prayed, the man looked stunned. He said, “Wow. I had no idea that

things like this could happen around here.”

On another occasion we were walking through the neighborhood of Lucy Jans and praying for her home and her neighbors. We ran into a woman that had known one of our prayer walkers (Linda Christensen) for years. We asked if we could pray for her. It turned out that she had just moved in next door to Lucy Jans and had heart trouble. We prayed for her healing and peace of mind. About a month later, she stopped to see Linda at work to see if we would pray for her again.

A few weeks ago some of us were praying at church – praying that God would extend His reach to the North, South, East and West of our building. As we were talking afterwards, Bev mentioned that she hadn’t seen as many visitors that came because of our Yellow Pages ad. I went home and got out the phone book and began praying that God would use that ad.

The next day a woman called the church office and asked Pastor Sandy if we had anyone that would bless a house. She said, “It just so happens that we have a group that does just that.” Pastor Sandy talked with her a bit more and discovered that there were some rather bizarre things taking place in her house. Several of us went to her home the next night. We prayed with her, blessed her and her home. In the midst of the praying, some spiritually dangerous influences from her past came to light. She was able to renounce those influences and find release. As we were leaving, she said, “I was praying that God would send me some people to pray for me and I found you in the Yellow Pages!”

Our current focus has been to pray over each RHCC family and neighborhood. So far, we have prayed over more than 60 households. We have encountered some of your neighbors and have prayed blessings over them. We have prayed for their healings, relationships and some strongholds. They have generally been receptive and we are always encouraged by these opportunities from God.

How can you get involved?

1) Let us know if there are specific ways we can pray for you or your neighbors.

2) You are welcome to join us. We meet at the church Wednesdays at 6:00 PM and go out from there.

3) Pray for us. Pray the Holy Spirit would lead us and empower us to proclaim His word with power.

Blessings,

Melanie Dancler

October '07

How are you seeing God in all this?

September '07

In our newsletter two months ago we told the story of a couple in our church that

had struggled with what to give to the building fund, but made a pledge and God gave them a

raise in salary that exactly matched what they had pledged. It happened again! This month

another family experienced the same thing. They pledged to the building fund not knowing how

they could actually give the amount, but God gave them a raise that was exactly enough. We’re not sure that this is a new technique for getting a raise at work, but it has been exciting to see what happens when we start listening to God.

For the last year or so, Jessica Rosheim has made her apartment available to children in her

apartment complex. She teaches them games, reads to them and talks to them about Jesus. Last

week she planned a Childhood Evangelism 5 Day Club as an outreach event. She had 15 children

show up for the event and four of them gave their lives to Jesus! Praise God!

Several weeks ago Dick Colbert came down with a severe case of the shingles. The doctor said

they would continue to spread until they ran their course. Dick called Pastor Mike to pray for him.

Pastor Mike prayed that the shingles would stop their progress and reverse themselves. The next

day the shingles began to reverse course with no other side effects and were gone within a few

days. But that’s not the whole story. Two weeks later, Dick ran into a neighbor who was walking

her dog. She mentioned that her husband had just come down with a severe case of shingles. Dick mentioned that Rustic Hills is a praying church and asked her if she would like us to pray for them. She replied yes. The next week, Dick ran into her again. She was excited. “My husband’s shingles just disappeared!” Give God all the glory!

August '07

Gretta Nomansen works nights at the EROS Data Center. She usually drives her small car to

work, but on Monday, July 16^th, she told husband Duane that she was going to take the

SUV. That seemed very strange to Duane, but they didn’t talk about what motivated her to do so.

Shortly after leaving Sioux Falls on the highway to EROS, Gretta came over a hill to discover a

2,000 pound bull standing the road. Gretta slammed on the brake hard enough to actually

fracture her ankle, but could not stop in time. Hitting the bull head on, she totaled the truck. But Gretta walked away with nothing more serious than a tender ankle. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that if she had been driving her little car as usual, she would not be with us today.

It has been an eye-opening experience for us over the last year as God directed us to continually pray

Psalm 91 over our congregation. From the very first week we started making this Psalm part of our weekly prayer time, we have experienced miracle after miracle of God’s protection and provision. He is our shelter, refuge and fortress – our God in whom we trust

April '07

Most of you have never heard of Minnie Nelson. I could only find an old picture, so you

might not recognize her even if you had seen her in recent years. Minnie passed away a few

weeks ago. Minnie had never attended Rustic Hills. She had her own church home. But she did

come one or two times with family members to special events or a potluck meal. She told her

family, “Those people are so friendly.” “They are always so nice to me.” “I wish my church was

that friendly.” Nobody thought much about it. We weren’t trying to put on a show. It’s just the way the people of Rustic Hills are.

She also said, “You folks need a bigger building – You’re out of room!” And so over the last few years, Minnie made several contributions to our church building fund. But then a couple of weeks ago after Minnie had passed away, we received several letters from banks with checks inside letting us know that Minnie had named Rustic Hills in her estate. These were sizeable gifts and helped us accomplish our next building goal.

A few years ago, our building committee began to pray about the process we would take in providing a new facility. After much prayer, the committee came up with several goals they believed God was giving us in order to get to a new and expanded building. It has been amazing to watch God take us through each of these steps.

1) The first goal was to pay off the existing debt leftover from the last building expansion – approximately $100,000. We figured we could do it in about a year by simply asking people to give a little more. God accomplished it in just four months.

2) The second goal was to help one another develop sound personal finances. We began using Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, and over the last few years almost 100 families have been through the course, and we regularly hear people talk about the difference it has made in their home.

3) The third goal was to establish a $500,000 cash reserve to use as a down-payment against future construction loans. We looked to that amount as being a threshold to cross before we could actually begin. The committee decided that a professional fund-raising campaign was not what we wanted to do. Instead, we would simply ask people to give to our future building, and depend on God to channel money through generous people. Over the last couple of years the money has steadily come in through the generosity of people who sensed God providing them with the means to pass on to us. Minnie’s gift got us to the $500,000 level.

4) Our fourth goal was a very long term goal. We knew that if we were going to expand on our

present site, we would eventually need to purchase some of the houses around us. We decided that we would begin praying that God would so bless our neighbors that they would want to sell us their home. We committed ourselves to being ready to purchase any of these homes that might come on the market. To our great surprise, three of these homeowners came to us within the first year and asked us to buy their homes.

It has been an amazing and somewhat mysterious adventure that God has taken us on. We wait with much anticipation to see what He is up to next.