Jennifer Tibbetts

Dear Friends,
This morning while spending time with the Lord, he was ready.  Scott picked up the phone and called Marvin, head elder at Community Church of Monroe https://www.cefcmonroe.org/  "Yes, I'll be your new pastor!"  

So... we hope to drive out of Bradenton, Florida by May 31st - 2 weeks from today, and arrive in Monroe by June 1 - I'll get a new State and a Church for my 53rd birthday :)  Please pray for all the details of packing, moving and saying goodbyes, and for God's peace - that we will remember to rest in Him and not be stressed.  Jesus says, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Our pastor and church member as well as Scott and I got to visit Awm yesterday in the ICU.  It was a sweet time. His 35 year old Son Shanta was there and translated for us. I reviewed the gospel with Awm and it seems like he is believing in the right things although he’s very weak so we couldn’t talk much.

Shanta said to Scott, “One year ago I was coming to visit my dad from Orlando and my dad (Awm) said ‘Don’t come until 11:30 because I’m going to church’, and I was so surprised! I said, ‘Do you mean you're going to a Buddhist temple’ and he said ‘No, I'm going to church!’ “  It was interesting that Shanta told Scott about that!  Awm's family and community have been watching his faithful church attendance over this past year and that he listens to the Khmer Bible regularly.  I'm continuing to pray for a healing miracle of God, and for whatever will bring Him the most glory in this situation.

Nuansee (my Thai friend) is Awm's caregiver and friend.  Yesterday, Awm said to me with tears in his eyes, "Please take care of Nuansee [if I pass away]."  Nuansee has no children or family in the US.  She is 77 years old and quite afraid of what will happen to her if she gets ill.  She loves Jesus, but in her panic sometimes forgets that He has been taking very good care of her.  Please pray for Nuansee to trust the Lord at this time and for peace for Awm.

Thanks for your prayers - we need 'em!  And thank you for your many notes of encouragement. I'm sorry I don't have time to write back to each one just now, but please know that we read all of them and are so blessed by you!

Jennifer and Scott

To see all of my updates for the last few years or to partner in my ministry, please click on this link:  

https://partnerhub.omf.org/JT2/updates 

At a recent minor league baseball game at the 3rd oldest ballpark in the US:

On Sun, May 14, 2023 at 6:01 PM Scott and Jennifer Tibbetts <sjtib...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear friends,

Scott got a phone call today and the North Carolina church voted 100% to call Scott as pastor!  Scott wants to pray a few more days before responding (though he’s feeling very positive) so he’s set Wednesday at 2 pm (eastern time) as the ‘deadline’ for his decision and response to the call.

Thanks for continuing to journey with us! We’re so grateful to see how God is at work.

And God allowed me to be part of a miracle! Someone told me today that when I prayed for her a few weeks ago she felt tingling and got home to discover significant healing has taken place and the doctor was shocked so she had a chance to tell him about prayer. She says it’s 90% healed in 2 weeks! Praise God and so encouraging to me to keep believing and praying for miracles.  She said this song encouraged her to believe - it’s beautiful!  

https://youtu.be/dQ1xxoP7NJk

Blessings

Jennifer and Scott

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Scott and Jennifer Tibbetts <sjtib...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 11, 2023 at 1:07 PM
Subject: Results of Time with Church in North Carolina

Dear Friends,

Many have been asking so I am going to get a quick note off to you on this with more on other things later.  Life is a bit crazy right now!!  But we are so grateful for your prayers and interest in how God is leading us.

So... the weekend in Monroe was wonderful and VERY full.  We arrived in Charlotte early Friday afternoon (and had a frantic 20 minutes because I lost my phone, but thankfully flight attendant found it in my seat pocket after we deboarded!! Had had an amazing talk about the Bible with a 24 year old seatmate so I think that distracted me a bit getting off the plane - or maybe I'm just slipping mentally... )

By the time we drove to the church member's house where we were staying, we had half an hour to collect ourselves before our first connection time with some church members who are shut-ins.  Then dinner with pastor search committee which lasted till 9 pm.  Next morning breakfast with deacons and elders at 8:30, then pickle ball and visiting with church members.  Then Saturday afternoon Scott met with tech team to test his PowerPoint slides and audio for Sunday morning and then got a rest while I drove 3 hours round trip to meet up at halfway point with Jacob and Alysha.

Had sweet Mother's day celebration with them as they treated for lunch and ice cream and it was fun to see baby bump Abby Pauline - yes, Alysha's having a girl!!  Then I got back to Monroe 15 minutes before dinner out with deacons/elders.  Then Sunday morning Scott preached - did an excellent job if I say so myself!!  You can watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2yFosWXd8E  I was so absorbed that afterward I asked Scott "Did you only preach 10 minutes?"  It flew by.  My parents watched the recording of Scott's message and wrote "We just listened to your message.  We think it was great!  In fact, we think it was the best message we ever heard you preach and very appropriate to that church and for all of us.  We are going to forward it to many in our family who don't know Jesus."  Encouraging!

Then we visited with people for about half hour and then had a church potluck.  Got back to house about 2 and rested until 6 pm final dinner with search committee.  By then, I was exhausted and Scott was too!  We flew home Monday morning.  Scott asked me a number of times over the weekend, "All weekends won't be like this if we take the pastor role, right?!"  I said, "Of course not!  They don 't really want to spend that much time with us and they have lives to lead!  They were just trying to make the most of our time together."

During Sunday potluck, elders pulled Scott out for short meeting "Do you have any final questions for us?"  And then "Just so you know, our church bylaws say that our elders have to be 100%, our deacons 100% and congregation at least 75% in agreement to call a pastor.  All of us elders are already in agreement, right?"  And right then all the elders said "Yes!"  Exciting!  So they'll check with deacons this week and then vote this Sunday May 14 (yes, Mother's Day!) and hopefully we'll hear soon after - either a "Yea" or "Nay" as to whether they're calling Scott as pastor.

I had been praying that church and we would be all on the same page so I'm delighted that they need such a high agreement as if they do call us, this will 1) be another mark of God's leading and 2) mean that we should be in alignment to serve the Lord together in days to come.

Scott says that if they ask him to Pastor on Sunday, he will ask for a few days to pray to seek God's confirmation before responding, and has he told me that he will decide by Wednesday May 17 at 2 pm Eastern time (!)  So that's when we will know if we are moving to NC or not.  And if we do move, we're thinking of driving to NC on the days of May 31 and June 1 so I'll get a new church and State for my birthday :)

So that's our news.  Thanks VERY much for praying and continuing to pray as we seek God in this momentous season.  I plan to continue to work for OMF if we move and see how God leads in the future.  My OMF hours are part-time so there is room for ministry with church.  And of course, I would love to serve alongside Scott in pastoral ministry and outreach again.

Urgent OMF prayer request: the Consultation for TCK Advisors and Child Safety Officers that I was supposed to be running in Chiang Mai, Thailand is next week May 15-18 with at least 39 people attending.  Many are traveling to Chiang Mai over the next few days from around the world.  Please pray especially for my team members Megan and David who are flying from the US and Canada in my place, as well as my boss Tania (flying in from Singapore) and Dee Anne (on the ground in Chiang Mai) who are running the Consultation.  Pray that God will use this time mightily for networking, information sharing, development of new material, encouragement, etc. that our OMF families and TCKs will thrive.  Currently in OMF, we have 657 TCKs (MKs) ages birth to seventeen in 289 families!

Another important prayer request is that Matthew and Rachel have been with a couple/family in crisis for the past 4 days to help them in this very difficult time.  Please pray for wisdom and strength as they support this family and seek to see them heal and walking with God.  We know God will use this painful situation redemptively if they surrender to Him.

With much appreciation for you,

Jennifer and Scott

A picture of the church in Monroe: