Summer Ministry Begins!

180 and Escape 22 kicked off their summer meetings with God's "rain plan":

• Unable to meet outside for the activities and games due to the heavy rains, junior and senior highers met inside the auditorium for praise and worship
• they gathered in groups in areas of the auditorium to pray for their schools
• and finished off the evening by splitting into 180 and Escape fellowship groups of 120 each!

Internationals welcomed at the Des Moines airport:

• 16 Americans and 2 new Chinese believers welcomed 19 Chinese students at the Des Moines airport at 1:50a this morning
• the 2 Chinese believers had arrived in last year's visiting group as unbelievers!

Westwind has their first church service

• 105 people participated in the first worship service at Waukee elementary on Sunday
• Pastor Troy attended and rejoiced in the authentic worship and excitement of God at work in their midst

From Beijing to Bangkok to Rosebud

Jack and Connie Owens just returned from China where they reported that

• the teams are unified and love working with one another
• the teams have been instrumental in raising up new house churches
• Jack & Connie sovereignly "bumped into" a young man named John Mark at a law school in Beijing. John Mark had been led to Christ 3 years previously by one of our staff members, Stan Hayek, while Stan was in China for a Cornerstone summer trip. John Mark is one of three believers in the law school, active in a house church, and strong in his faith!

Jah, from Bangkok, visited the Cornerstone staff meeting as a guest of Jen Lee's...

• she had been discipled for 2 years by Jen who was in Thailand in the late 90's as a 2-year journeyman missionary
• Jah was just trained by Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in the states as a missionary and spent two months sharing the gospel in Izmir, Turkey where 2 people received Christ!

Stan Hayek returned from Rosebud Reservation where...

• his goal was to find a couple of strong believers among the Rosebud people that Cornerstone could partner with to reach out more effectively to the native Americans
• God led him to Bob & Teresa Whitehorse-Steed...a couple who met Christ as alcoholics, have since walked with Him consistently and have raised a godly family.
• Pray for much fruit through the power of His Spirit and this team effort at Rosebud!

Moving Forward

At our biannual Family Meeting:

• all the existing elders and the new elder, Jack Owens, were affirmed unanimously
• the financial report indicated that our general fund giving is at 105% of budgeted giving!
• all "Your Move" benchmarks have been met (99.8% of 2006 pledges received, 57% total pledges received, maintain a growth rate of 5%+)
• the cost of the building with some cost cuts (landscaping, office, paving, dam for retention pond, "black box" equipping room) was kept to 13.7 million in order to maintain a maximum debt load of 22%
• steel was ordered last week and should arrive in 14 weeks
• construction begins on Tuesday, May 27th

Thank you for continuing to pray for this process!