Special Delivery!

Our Little Bundle of joy has finally arrived!  We are proud to announce the birth of Cassidy M. Beckles.  Born Friday, June 17 at 11:51a.m.  Everyone is doing well.  Thank you for your prayers. 

March - April Prayer letter

Dear Pastor and church family,

These past few months have truly been an adventure for us.  We praise the Lord that we have survived the big storms that came through this area recently.  We experienced severe thunder storms, hail and rain; but no tornados touched down in our immediate area.  There was a family not too far from us who lost their mother and seven year old son. 

            The people in our church have experienced many challenges as well as answers to prayer.  The young family that we mentioned in our last prayer letter have a three year old son who was seriously ill for several weeks.  He had to be medi-flighted to Children’s hospital in Little Rock with double pneumonia and a very low white blood cell count.  He underwent many tests, including a test for leukemia; but we praise the Lord that he made it though and is now back to his old self, with no leukemia! Also,  a young lady in our church recently passed out after visiting her child at school.  It was discovered that she has severely damaged kidneys and the doctors say she will have to be on dialysis for the rest of her life.  This is a faithful family in our church and they-

she, her husband, and two teenage children -  will need a lot of prayer as they face this storm. 

            We praise the Lord that the van has been running for a whole month with no problems!  We would like to ask you to continue to pray that our van runs well as it is a tremendous tool for us to reach our community.   Just last week two young people were saved.  One of whom has been coming for about three weeks.  We went by his home this past Saturday to find that he and his family are moving.  We also recently found that one of our members was seriously considering a big move; but changed her mind at the last minute.   These situations helped us to realize that we may only have a short  time to minister to those who attend our church.  May the Lord help us to make the most of each service.

            Recently we had two pastors come and visit and preach for us.  One of them commented several times about how well behaved the children were and how well they sang.  This was a tremendous blessing to us as well, as they do not always display such good behavior!

            Family News: Our family is doing rather well.  Soon our daughter will be two years old, which is very hard to believe; and my wife is due to deliver our second child on or around June 8^th.  Please pray with us for a safe delivery and a healthy baby.  Thank you for your faithful prayers and support! 

                                                                                    Until next time,

                                                                                    Pastor Raymond Beckles

What a Trip

Somehow we managed to make a 16 hour drive turn into a three day trip!

Our plan was to leave NC Friday evening and arrive in Jacksonville sometime around 3:00 p. Well, it didn't quite work out that way. We were still unloading things from the house - to put on the curb - late into the night. Raymond ran a quick errand to Lowe's and when he returned he noticed the fan on the van was still running to cool the engine down long after the had shut the motor off. Finally, it did turn off and we were glad until we found out why it turned off. We got in the car and turned the key....nothing! The battery had died. Well, our landlord made it clear that if we stayed one day longer we would have to pay another months rent, so we decided to stay in the van until we could get a jump the next day. Praise the Lord our neighbor had worked late that evening and around three in the morning he came home and Raymond flagged him down. It took about two hours; but we got the batter fully charged and officially headed out on Saturday morning around six. We gassed up and noticed the temperature signal come on in the van - it was about to overheat. Raymond removed the sensor - and everything was fine for a while (45 minutes) until we reached the Raleigh area and it started to overheat again. We made a pit stop and Raymond worked on the van for a few hours until we got everything fixed and the vehicle was again trip ready (or so we thought). ( I didn't mind because we got to go eat at a great Thai restaurant and I got to go shopping at Trader Joes:)


By this time it was late and we were tired, so we booked a hotel - that allowed pets - and headed out again next morning after church. All was well until we heard a loud BOOM! - a tire on the trailor blew. Time for another pit stop. Raymond put on the spare, then we went to the next town we saw and shopped around until we could find a place that carried the right size tire for our trailor.

On the road again, no more vehicle incidents (unless you include the top blowing off our trailor in the mountains of NC during a rainstorm!); but once we reached Nashville, Tennessee we learned that the Wolfe river had overflown its banks. We - along with hundreds of other travelors - spent the night on the side of the road hoping it would be safe to travel I-40 sometime early the next day. It wasn't. We had to take an 8 hour detour through Kentucky and down to Arkansas.

We finally made it to Jacksonville sometime around 10:00p.m. Monday evening!

What a trip!!!