Happy New Year Friends and Family,
It’s time again for another newsletter! It seems that so much has happened since our last one. We are now in the beginning stages of doing some of the renovations and building projects around that I’m super excited about! We have an architect that has drawn up plans for the Training Center to-be, formerly known as the Chapel. This will be a multi-functional building with classrooms, offices, and community space for the students and staff on campus. We are so excited to have dedicated classroom space to meet together for times of worship and Bibles classes for the students without distraction. This building will also help to create more space in the Big House that can be renovated into dorm rooms for future students. It’s very exciting to be able to take part in these building projects that will mean so much to growing the Equip program and CMTS as it changes in the future.
Coming up we are preparing for our mission trip to Monterrey, Mexico in March. Both Jenny and I will be going on this trip. I’m so excited as we plan our time there, not only for what God is doing in Monterrey but also how He is preparing our students and team for this trip. While in Monterrey, we will serve through street evangelism, feeding children, teaching Bible lessons, and partnering with some of the churches and church organizations there as we share the love and good news of Jesus Christ with the people of Monterrey.
It is amazing to see how our students are growing and being challenged through their Bible classes and how it is building toward our upcoming trip. One week that was particularly impactful was our week of evangelism training. It was amazing to see the transforming power of Christ in the lives of our students before and after. The students were challenged to step out of their comfort zones and evangelize on the streets of Lancaster city and in Lititz, sharing about Jesus to those they met on the street and asking how best they could pray for them. We are so excited to see how God will use this experience in particular to help with our trip in Mexico. In total, there will be 9 of us in our group flying to Monterrey. We will be staying for 7 days there and two additional days will be for travel time. If you would like to help us or any person in our group raise money for this trip, you can send funds to CMTS in that particular person’s name or you can write down “Mexico trip” in the comments to be directed toward anyone who still needs to raise funds.
In May, will be going to Kentucky for a week to minister to people in our own country. We will be going to help rebuild homes that were destroyed in Mayfield, Kentucky from an EF5 tornado in 2020. They still have much to do to rebuild their community, so we will be there to help to meet a physical need as we look for opportunities to share the Gospel.
Another part of how I have been involved in developing Equip is that I have also been attending different speaking engagements with Joel to help spread awareness about the Equip program. If you know of any churches, schools, or organizations that might be open to hearing about the Equip program, please let us know. We would love to share about Equip and CMTS! If you know any college-age students in your life that may be interested in CMTS or the Equip program, please log on to our website (at the bottom of the page) to see dates for our upcoming Equip Open Houses.
If you would pray for the Equip program, particularly for endurance and renewal for the staff for the second half of this first year and for our students as they continue to be challenged at living a Christian life and what it means to share the Gospel with others. Please also pray that Jenny and I would run hard and fast after the Lord, with a single focus of knowing him and making him known to anyone and everyone, and loving people like Jesus. Please also pray for the group going to Mexico that God would prepare us, grow us as a team as we prepare, and that we could learn as much Spanish as possible as we prepare.
If you told me two years ago that I would be living and working full-time in ministry and participating in a discipleship program, I wouldn’t have believed you. I feel blessed every day that God made it so clear that we were supposed to be here at CMTS working with Equip. Please pray that we would stay in step with what God has for us in the future and that we would fully rely on him to sustain us. Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter and for all the prayers and support we have received! If you have not yet found us on Facebook, please do so! For this coming semester, we plan on posting more frequent updates regarding the students and life around CMTS.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Nolan & Jenny Lapp
