Love Came

The holidays can be both purposeful and painful. For those who have faith in God, our painful memories of holiday’s past can sometimes be a blessing in disguise. For example, we may feel relief that someone close to us has passed away and is no longer suffering. Along with that memory, a flood of emotions can overcome our brains in a flash. Feelings of shame, guilt or blame can sweep us to a past time and place that seems as real as the day we live in. For those who have no faith, the painful memories have no reconciliation. A life without faith falls short of reconciliation. A life with faith fulfills all hope. Guilt, shame, and blame can’t keep it grip on us, because Christ came...Love came...and determined something greater for our lives and for our death, also. It’s called HOPE. FreshWater is designed to provide this hope. Hope that lasting change can truly happen. Hope that negative memories can be defeated. Hope that even the worst of attitudes can be softened and transformed. Thank you for helping us spread this kind of hope. Rebecca and I have been helping out people everyday now for the last 3 years since leaving Wichita, Kansas. Whether it’s by providing resources or sitting with folks one on one listening. Your contributions have provided lasting hope, that hope that came to restore us.

We pray you have a very blessed and thankful holiday season.

Because Love came,

Chris and Rebecca Morton

For FreshWater Ministries

There's a Snake in my Coop!

There’s a Snake in my Coop!

We started raising hens this past Spring and they recently started laying eggs. One day, we went to gather eggs and saw a huge 5 foot black snake. Now, I know that there are some snake loving people out there, and had this snake been somewhere else other than my coop, we would have let him be. But he simply did not belong in my coop and he was not invited to have a dinner of fresh eggs! So, he had to go! Chris grabbed a rake, and persuaded the snake to leave.

There are many things in life that are good and can even serve a good purpose. The snake, in other parts of the shop, kills rodents that kills rodents that destroys stuff. Drinking wine is a good example. A small amount has been proven to have medical benefits. Too much wine, however, begins to hurt the body. 1 Corinthians 6:12 says All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

Like the snake in my coop eating my eggs, there are many things in our lives that just aren’t profitable, and they are mastering us. It may not be a specific sin, but you know it isn’t good for you...maybe it’s that show you watch, book you read, or music you listen to. Maybe you drink just a little too much. Maybe you ‘need’ a relationship that isn’t healthy. Whatever it is, God wants to help you not be mastered by anything. He wants you to have freedom and power to remember that while it might be lawful it just isn’t profitable. Is there a snake in your coop?

New Beginnings

Chris has accepted a position with Hartsell Psychological Services based in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He will work with their school-age therapy programs as well as general counseling. This job will work right along side what we do with FreshWater, supplementing each other. Through Hartsell, Chris works as an independent contractor. He currently works with 30-40

students each week. Because of the school setting he works in, the availability of his clients are dictated by the school schedule. With FreshWater,Chris has been seeing clients 2-3 nights a week. Neither position could stand on it’s own. Both together provide powerful opportunities to shape many lives. We appreciate our FreshWater supporters and the vision they have to see people who need help and provide assistance for the fees they can’t fully pay. Thank you!

Updates, Thank You’s and Prayer needs
FaceTime
Have you heard of it? Through the iPhone 4, you can have face to face conversation using a wireless internet connection. We’ve been able to utilize this technology to provide counseling to someone across the nation from us!

Prayer Needs
Pre-marital counseling sessions are one our favorite types of sessions. Recently, 2 of ‘our’ grooms were deployed. Please pray for their safety, and their wives and families. Also, one of those young men became a Dad for the first time, while deployed.

Thank You’s

I want to thank Prairie Grove Christian Church for hosting the Men’s Encounter weekend that encouraged several men including me. FREEDOM! We also want to thank them for their support of FreshWater.

Weeds in My Garden

Weeds in my Garden!

For this first time ever, we have 2 beautiful gardens that are growing remarkably well. We have tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, zucchini, squash, peppers, onions, herbs. A little bit of everything.

We also have bugs, birds, squirrels, chickens, rabbits, and weeds!

This is not a new analogy, but I’ve been reminded lately of how our lives are so similar to a garden. We want a beautiful, fruitful life. We see others with a seemingly beautiful life and think that it ‘just happens.’ Well, I can tell you from first hand experience in both gardening and life, that it’s not that easy.

But I’ve noticed something that makes gardening a little easier. When pulling weeds, if the ground is dry and hard, it is virtually impossible to remove weeds. They hold on tight and usually end up breaking when I pull on them. However, if I pull the weeds right after I’ve watered, when the ground is good and saturated, the weeds come out with relative ease. You may see the analogy already. In this ministry, the primary weed we see in the lives of virtually everyone we talk to is the weed of doubt. Doubt that God could really love them, that we have infinite worth in His eyes. Doubt that we have anything of significance to offer the world. And similar to crabgrass that spreads and replants itself in numerous areas of my garden, the weed of doubt affects our jobs, our marriage, our families, and every relationship we have.

The good news is, there is a way to remove the weed! To remove the weed of doubt, one has to saturate themselves in the truth of God’s word, the truth of His love for us, imperfections and all. And I mean saturate! Not just sing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ to yourself a few times. Saturate! Read the Bible, listen to Christian music. Surround yourself with Jesus-loving people. Get help if you need it. Talk to your Pastor. Join a Bible study. Contact a ministry similar to ours. And just to clarify, we don’t do these things to earn God’s love or make him love us more. We do these things to remind us of how much he already loves us, each moment of every day.

In my garden, I have to pro-active to prevent problems and react quickly before problems get out of hand. I spray hot-sauce all over my tomatoes to keep the critters away. I pull weeds. I water. When I wait til there’s a problem, it’s too late. I will lose produce. In my life, I have to be pro-active to prevent problems and react quickly before problems get out of hand. And unlike my garden, where I am typically working alone, we are never alone in life.

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If you don’t already, please consider supporting FreshWater as we work hard to teach people about God’s love for them and about how to daily live in the reminders of his love. Help us as we saturate more hearts with God’s love, helping them pull weeds and showing them the beautiful fruit he has placed within every heart.

May/June 2011

"There will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more fears.

There will be a day when the burdens of this place, will be no more,

we’ll see Jesus face to face.

But until that day, we’ll hold on to you always"-Jeremy Camp

Life has no guarantees. We make mistakes. Others around us make mistakes that hurt others. Floods come, both literal and figurative. Loved ones die. Tornadoes flatten cities. This side of Heaven, it all can leave you feeling very helpless and alone.

I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted.

I remembered you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated and my spirit asked: “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”

Then I thought, “To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”

Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

The waters saw you, God, the waters saw you and writhed; the very depths were
convulsed. The clouds poured down water, the heavens resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. (Psalms 77-NIV)

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.

2 Cor. 1:3-5—The Message

March/April 2011

Please note changes in our contact info:

Website: www.freshwaterministries.blogspot.com

Email: freshwaterministriesinc@gmail.com

Abandoned?

When we abandoned the truth about how God thinks about us, we were truly lost, not knowing how to regain a true perspective of ourselves. The result of this action leaves us feeling completely alone with a sense of hopelessness and abandonment; as if someone has completely left our presence. The truth in this is that when we leave the truth, lies (or partial truths) are the only thing we have left to look at.

1. Abandoning truth leaves us with a false sense of being completely abandoned.

Many people we counsel are lost in this lie. God is not absent from our struggles. In fact, he came to reconcile us in our struggles so that we could live and walk free from accusation and lies.

2. He has answered this identity struggle by adopting us as His children into His family.

3. This is God at work reconciling the broken relationship caused by sin and our abandonment of truth.

Our main objective or responsibility to maintain a healthy identity is returning to and rehearsing the truth about what God has said and done for us, namely, how He is reconciling the world to Himself.

There are 4 areas broken by sins deceitfulness.

1. How we see and understand God

2. What we believe about ourselves

3. What we believe about others

4. What we believe about the systems of the world and whether God is present in them or not

If we believe that God is in charge and reconciling the world, then we are not abandoned. If we believe we are abandoned, then we struggle in all four areas and feel lost in our ability to find our way back to the truth.

But if we believe God is present and we seek the truth, then our chances of helping ourselves find this great reconciliation raise greatly.

Let’s review…

Sins deceitfulness causes a false sense of being completely abandoned.

God answers by instituting adoption, thus reconciling the world to himself.

Therefore, since God is reconciling the world to himself through adopting us as family, our false sense of abandonment is destroyed along with sin’s deceitfulness.

FreshWater continues to maintain a busy schedule. With your help, in the last few months we have ministered to a Hispanic woman, with the aid of a translator, helping her find confidence and hope; an angry teenage boy, lost in his identity; families grieving the loss of a loved one; marriages that are struggling; teens that have literally been abandoned and neglected; as well as individual personal struggles. God is at work and has an answer for every problem we face as humans. He is not far from the hurting. He is close. And we are privileged to be a part of the work He is doing here in Adair County.

Feb 2011

A few words about our ‘team.’

Behind every good ‘front man’ is a good ‘team’ helping and cheering him on! And we have been blessed with an incredible team/Board of Directors. Jay and Melissa Gresham have served on our Board since the beginning. They were the first to support and believe in FreshWater and have been our biggest cheerleaders every step of the way. So, it is with mixed feelings that we announce that they have stepped down from their position on our Board. We have been blessed by their support and wisdom and are thankful for the heart they have given FreshWater and the friendship we share. We love you, guys!

We are pleased to introduce our newest Board Members, Greg and Dian Walker. Greg and Dian have known Chris ‘forever.’ They served with us this past summer as we led a small group of Young College Adults. Their love for those students and for the community led us to ask them to join our Board and we were pleased when they said yes. Both Greg and Dian work for the Stilwell Public Schools. They have 2 married daughters and have just recently become grandparents!

Jack and Joyce Smay still serve on our Board. Chris considers them to be one of the primary influences in his life and Joyce Smay’s name will always be a part of his testimony as to how he got to where he is today. It is a joy to serve with them. The wisdom and insight they bring to FreshWater is invaluable.

Community needs update

Stilwell has a population of just over 3,000. So, when our small town experience 3 murders in the first 3 weeks of the new year, we are obviously stunned. Two of those families have children who attend the youth ministry at the church where we serve. The emotional heartache and many needs in our county are staggering. The work is hard and, at times, overwhelming. We covet your prayers. We are seeking ways to be more ‘proactive’ in our community. We want to get ahead of the trauma. We want to help marriages before they are on the brink of divorce. We want to help young people before they turn to wrong ways to deal with issues they face.

We’ve seen that the power to change can only come through allowing God to shine His truth on the darkness of our circumstances. Only he can replace fear with faith, anger with self-control, guilt with forgiveness, blame with truth, and shame with confidence. Only He can renew our minds. This is the heart of FreshWater and what we desire to share with more and more people. If you haven’t already, please prayerfully consider partnering financially with FreshWater. We are a 501c3 non-profit and all donations are tax-deductible...more important than that , though, each donation helps change lives here in Adair County. We hope you’ll join with us.