Celebration Story From the EGM Sportspersons Group

On April 15, 2010, EverGreen Ministries Sportspersons held our 4th annual Spring Fest. There were three parts to this year's event. First, we started with a turkey shotgun sight in; we set up two shooting lanes and had targets at 20 and 40 yards in each lane. We even had our church's outreach director shoot several times and she is not an outdoor sportsperson, so it was nice to see her come out and give it a try. The big draw to this event? How many people can go to work the next day and say they shot their shotgun at church?

Then we went inside and started the second part of our evening: Jim Boice from Rod Benson's pro staff presented a great lesson on turkey hunting. And finally we had Franik Siemon from Michigan State Seed Solutions talk to us about food plots. It amazes me how much I learn every time I attend one of these seminars!

The Hudsonville Farmers' Co-op, Grand Valley Sporting Goods, and Standish Seeds all set up tables and displayed their products.

We had a total of 55 attendees, including 29 people who were neither members of our church nor presenters. We had asked the EGM congregation to help us by inviting neighbors, friends, and co-workers. The Co-op also highly promoted the event.

We made sure everyone went home with a prize - we gave away over $300.00 in prizes - and didn't leave hungry.

Through every event we continue to grow with new friendships and associations with those in our community. We will continue to build on these relationships and continue to share our love of the outdoors with those both in and out of our church family.

Celebration Story From AA

"Show Me, Don't Tell Me" as was published

in the Ministries That Matter brochure.

This story begins in Wyoming, Michigan, where Dan De Vries was born and attended and graduated from the local schools. At the age of nine, he had his first experience with alcohol. Even through he was involved in sports and served a stint as class president, he describes alcohol as giving confidence to an ego-maniac with an inferiority complex. He has good memories of his childhood, despite never attending church. God was occasionally mentioned in his home, but he had no understanding of what that meant.

Dan graduated from a local college and married soon after. He and his wife were planning to start a family, but could not have children. His wife suggested that if they went to church, maybe this would help. Mostly to please her, he went through all of the formalities of church with her, including getting baptized, but still no children came along. All this time, alcohol was his constant companion.

Eventually Dan's drinking caught up with him and he spent time in a local detox unit. It was here he first met Pastor Tom...Pastor Tom counseled both Dan and his wife, but by that time there was so much damage to the relationship it was beyond repair.

This drove Dan back to drinking and drugs. For the next eight months while he was out of work, Dan managed to drink every single day. This caused him to become suicidal and he went to his parents' home to say good-by. Providentially, he had forgotten that his dad worked the second shift and only his mother was at home. This brought him to have a meltdown with his mother.

Back when Dan and his wife had started attending church, his parents did too. So his mother called her pastor for help with her son. Her pastor said that he could not help, but referred her to someone that he thought could. As God had planned, this someone was again Pastor Tom, who soon realized that Dan needed far more help than ever he could provide, so he [Dan] was sent to a long term rehabilitation facility in northern Michigan.

Earlier in Dan's life he enjoyed a successful career as a loan officer. Now he felt bankrupt in every way humanly possible. He also decided that he could not win the battle for sobriety. He recalled having a 401k fund at the bank and figured that this was his ticket to getting out of rehab. He called the bank and made arrangements to get the money, and then just waited for the check. Again God intervened and the check went to his parents. When he found this out he lost all hope and fell down on his knees and asked if there was a God, if He would help him. Suddenly Dan was overwhelmed with peace. The next thing was to ask Satan to get out of his life. His sister had become a Christian and he called her to come up and meet with him. She willingly did this, and explained that this was something bigger than he was and he needed to get a sponsor to help him win the battle, so he called Pastor Tom. Dan did not believe in Jesus Christ and didn't want to, but Pastor Tom told him to pray every day and begin attending church, which he did. God had started a change in Dan's life, but it was so slow that he hardly knew it. After nine months of living right, he once more lost his battle. He devised a plan to end his life by taking a train to Reno. Again, by the grace of God, his plans were uncovered. Pastor Tom and Dan's sister and brother-in-law drove to Chicago to do an intervention during a scheduled two hour layover. His battle was not over, but the end of it was getting closer.

On January 15, 2004, Dan has his last drink. He began to attend a recovery program, where he met Judi, now his wife and mother of his son. She has been a constant source of strength and understanding which allows him to devote more time to his recovery program. He has two stepchildren, owns a home, has a new job, and Jesus Christ is now his personal Savior. The family attends EverGreen Ministries and is involved in children's ministries and Kid's Hope. He sponsors six people attending AA programs. "Show me, don't tell me" has become his personal motto, thanks to an old AA member he refers to as "Old Joe."

Dan is forever grateful to AA for pointing him to a higher power, to EverGreen for naming that power as Jesus Christ, and to Pastor Tom and to his sponsor Denny W. for being his mentors. He encourages anyone with addictions to seek help and if you can't find a recovery program to call Pastor Tom at EverGreen...