Hi Everyone,
 
Greetings to all of you once again. Hope this letter finds you all well and encouraged in Jesus' love and grace. The Lord continues to be at work in our lives, in Imagine and in our community and it is such a privilege to have you praying for us. I wish there was some kind of an award or recognition I could give you all because I know you are on the front lines of what God is doing here. And, please know you have may sincere appreciation and great admiration, along with my utmost confidence that your reward is coming.
 
Here is an update and a few of our prayer concerns for your intercession.
 
1. Our son Andrew and wife Christine, with their two kids, will be coming home from Kenya next week. They've been working at a hospital close to the Tanzanian border near Lake Victoria and as much as the African Inland Missions folks tried to prepare them for conditions there I think the reality of the poverty, malnutrition, disease and other evidences of the fall and been rather eye opening. Thank you for your prayers for them and their work. I know they'd appreciate prayer for the patients and new friends they are leaving behind. We'd ask for God's traveling mercies for their trip home and for us as we plan to leave next Thursday afternoon to reunite with them, and other family members, for Andrew's graduation ceremony from medical school next week and other festivities.
 
2. Our missional community Sprout is getting all geared up for the next growing season. They've got the ground tiled, some hot boxes going, and some exciting plans in the works. Teresa Kessler, one of the key leaders of Sprout, has gotten connected with a group called 1,000 New Gardens. It's made up of college students, church folks, and people who care about their communities from around out state. Their goal in Bozeman is to see at least one vegetable garden on every block and to help those in need, particularly by helping the Food Bank. She's been speaking at the different ministerial groups in the valley encouraging the churches take advantage of this opportunity to be salt and light. I was able to be at one of her presentations and was quite encouraged at the positive response and have had several pastors tell me since how they are already seeing interest for this idea growing in their congregations. So, pray for all that Sprout has going, for new relationships this year and for the continued growth of relationships already established for the Gospel to spread and the Kingdom to grow. For those of you who receive The Banner look for an article they are doing on Sprout in the next issue.
 
3. As for Imagine...Growing Together, our other missional community, they are asking for prayer regarding their involvement with Family Promise. Millie Veltkamp, one of the key leaders of this group, asks that we'd pray for their efforts and especially that their missional community can be blessing to the families they serve and for wisdom and compassion for those they continue to have contact with. Since Family Promise is run by churches they ask those participating in this ministry to not "proselytize" the guests (as you can imagine how that would go dealing with a new church group every week), but if the guests ask you a question you are of course free to respond. We've had some great opportunities for conversations and Millie especially has become quite close with one of the families, the mom in particular who had some special needs. On May 15th the Family Promise folks need help with the Day Center so our group has volunteered to help that day and have decided to have a BBQ for everyone and to do some fun activities to make the day a little special. This Sunday the kids in this missional community will be making Mother Day gifts for the moms involved in Family Promise. There are four families involved right now and two of them are single moms. We thought this might be the only recognition they get on Mothers Day and that this might encourage them in their efforts to provide a better future for their kids. So, pray for these folks as they represent Imagine, build relationships, seek to be examples of Jesus' love and be in step with His plan.
 
4. We got the beginnings a third missional community started. We've met a couple times at the home of one of the other real estate agents in our office. The connections we have with these folks are only something God could work out. It's a group that is just getting together to talk about life, God, the Bible and whatever. We met on Good Friday and they had all kinds of questions about the crucifixion, the events surrounding Jesus death and why He had to die. The next time we got together after a few minutes of small talk they wanted to ask some follow up questions that they'd been thinking about since we'd talked, like where did Jesus go after He died and rose again. If He died and rose again then where is He and what's He doing now? Great question if you think about it. That's how it goes one question leads to another and I'm just having a blast. Last week I did do funeral for a very close friend of someone who died in this group who didn't have a church home. The individual was an older person and I thought maybe there be a couple dozen people at Dokken-Nelson Funeral Home for the service. The place was packed and the funeral director said there must have been at least 250 folks there. So, you never know what the Lord is doing. The wife of the man who died has asked to get together to talk so please pray for that time as well.
 
5. A big item that I'd ask you to pray for is the visit next week of Barbara Garcia, the Director of Community Development, and Steve Allender, Chief of Police, both from Rapid City, South Dakota and key movers and visionaries behind the Rapid City Reentry Initiative. They'll be arriving next Tuesday and a couple of us will spend the evening with them talking about what's happening here with reentry and recidivism and looking at some property that might work for transitional housing. The next morning Jim Cashell, our County Sheriff, is sponsoring a breakfast for all the key law enforcement personnel in our valley to meet with them and hear a presentation, in the afternoon they'll address the Criminal Justice Coordinating Counsel and then after that the Subcommittee on Empowering Reentry and Reducing Recidivism, then Steve Ette, head of Court Services, is taking them over to meet his staff and talk to them. Wednesday evening we're having a dinner at Rev. Roxanne Klingensmith home for them to address all the Judges in our valley (when we were planning this event Marty Lambert, our County Attorney, said he didn't think all the our Judges had ever gotten together before) and then finally we have a breakfast Thursday morning for them to speak to around 60 of the key service organization and community leaders of our area. Pray for me as I escorting them and introducing them at all these events and build some good relationships all around. And pray that God will use these folks to get key people in our county on the same page for some Kingdom change to happen here with regard to developing and supporting an effective strategic plan for reentry that can be a blessing for offenders, their families and our whole community.
 
6. Finally, for now, continue to pay for my real estate work. So many people have questioned my sanity for getting into the real estate business right now. Actually with home values down, interest rates at historic lows and a third of the agents out of the business (compared to a couple years ago) this might be the perfect storm combination to be get into this business. As you can tell from item 4 above already we see the Lord at work in this endeavor. Pray that Shirley and I will serve our clients not only well but above their expectations, that we'll have favor with not only our clients and other agents but all the folks we work with (loan officers, inspectors, escrow officers, tax assessors, home owner associations, city and county personnel, etc.) and that the Lord will provide us with some good leads, appointments and listings.
 
Every time I write one of these I'm always amazed at all that the Lord is doing just through our little church plant. I know as intercessors you are all seeing the Lord work in various and powerful ways where you are as well. What a great time in history to be alive to witness what God is doing as He faithfully fulfills His promise to build His Church. Thank you each and everyone so much for your prayers for us here at Imagine. We are blessed to have such an effective prayer team. May God receive all the glory!
 
In Christ's matchless love and grace,
 
Randy 
          
 Randy Van Osdol
      "Imagine"
Missional Community