Jan UPDATE

Happy new years to you all!

 

It is always exciting at the new year for me to be able to look back at the old year and see where you have come from in just a short year. It is always amazing how fast the time goes by. looking back on this old year is very humbling for me, to be surrounded by so many great people and having so many opportunities to do what you love is also very humbling, considering there are so many people that lack such opportunities that we take for granted so easily.

This last year has brought us all a year older - a creative 6 yr old Jacob, even if it was at the end of the year. (His birthday is Dec 31st) A vibrant 3yr old Leah, and Amanda and I didn't get a year younger either. We are blessed and healthy and are looking forward to a new year to see what God has for us this year.

December was a wonderful month, we were able to see all of our family and spend some time together with all of them. We had opportunity to be at a couple of churches local to us here in the Newnan area, and then after Christmas, Amanda and I drove to Chicago to be at a youth retreat for the youth ministry of our friends at Grace Church. Where I had the opportunity to speak with them each day, and saw several give their heart to the Lord.
We left Chicago and drove to Detroit to visit our friends at Riverwood Community Church. We are so grateful for these opportunities to share about the heart that God has given us for our friends in Pine Ridge this last month and are looking forward to the busy month ahead of us. We have been blessed this month with Coats and blankets as well as a whole van load of personal hygiene products that will make their way back to Pine Ridge in a couple of weeks. Thank you to all who have gathered this stuff together for us.

We now have a date of when we will be heading back. We are leaving Feb 23rd to head back to Pine Ridge. This is very exciting for us and we are very much looking forward to being back there. Please pray that as we prepare for this, that the transition would go well for Jacob and Leah especially. Sometimes I think they handle the back and forth better than we do even though they don't fully understand what is going on all the time. We can probably learn from that and just not try and fully understand everything but in all our ways lean on the Lord and trust that His ways are always good.

I have been so challenged these last couple of months by having a heart that desires to have a Big God. I know that God is big whether I believe He is or not and my beliefs do not change God but they do however change the way I live my life. I want to live my life knowing and believing that God is everything that I am not, and in Him I lack nothing. The bible says that without faith it is impossible to please Him. My heart wants to please Him by living a life that says "my God is greater than ______" when we realize this truth there is nothing that can stand against us because of His greatness. Our needs have been met by the greatness of God, I don't know where it all comes from and I don't know where it will come from next month, all I do know is that God is faithful to Himself and that means he cannot go against His word.

We have a lot going on this month and ask that you would continue to pray for us as we head into getting ready for the transition back to Pine Ridge.

Something that we are really looking forward to is at the end of this month and I would love to see everyone of you there and we love for you to invite your friends and church family as well. We are having a night or worship on January 25th to worship the Lord and to make aware of the needs in Pine Ridge. We did this same thing last year and were blessed by it and had heard from many of you how it had blessed your heart as well. This year we want it to be a time where you can catch the vision that we have for the Lakota people. A good native friend of ours in Pine Ridge, Mike Brennan (Pastor Two Shadows) will be there and share some of his heart and we hope to have plenty of pictures for you to check out and then just have a sweet time of worshiping together in song.

January 25th at 7:00pm

Crossroads Church -

2564 Hwy 154

Newnan, GA 30265

Our schedule for January is -

9th - Carrolton Performing arts Center

12th - 14th Leesburg, MS and Gulfport, MS

19th - 21st Memphis, AR and Danville, AR

27th - Feb 9th - Northwest Territory (Matt only)

If you would like to support us monthly or just a one time donation you can donate

online www.youthevangelismstratgies.com

paypal athadden@gmail.com

check:

YES

HCR 49 Box 242

Porcupine, SD 57772
Memo - Hadden Family

Thank you for all your prayers and support, we love you all

Learning to serve the Lord in all we do,

Matt, Amanda, Jacob and Leah

December Update

Hello Everyone,

As always I hope this finds you all well.

Seasons come and go. With each season comes change, past memories, the making of new memories as well as new feelings, some good and some bad.

Many of times I refer to what I am doing at that time as a season in my life. I would say that this time for Amanda and I is a season we are in. As the months and maybe years go by God will have us doing something different and we will be in a different season. With each one of those seasons brings the same as seasons of weather, (Change, memories, feelings) sometimes it is easier times than others but through any and every season we are in, God our Father says that His grace is enough. I find much comfort in knowing that. This season for us is easy and yet somehow hard. It is easy trusting that God will provide your needs, he has proven it over again many times, yet it is really hard because he does not do it how I want Him to or even in my timing. I believe many of you can probably relate to that.

I am learning to embrace the season that I find myself in and to be grateful in it.

As we have come into this new Christmas season, we as a family have so much to be thankful for. As I have been able to travel some in the last few months, I have seen how even in controversy over economics or politics that we live in a great country with a lot of wonderful people. I am proud to be an American and I hope and pray that we as a people would rise to the occasion that is set before us to demonstrate the goodness and love of God.

We have had a great time the last month, we were in OH a few weeks ago and had a wonderful time with our family there and were able to share some specific needs with them as they are planning a trip to Pine ridge next summer.

Last sunday and the next few weeks we will be around the newnan area in a few different churches locally.

Still planning our trip south to the gulf coast in Jan.

We will be having another benefit concert the last friday in January, which is the 25th. We are planning an amazing night filled with a great night of worship and some testimony from my Native brother Mike Brennon and from Amanda and I sharring about our time there last summer as well as casting our vision for the years to come that God has us there. I would love to encourage you to bring your church and families to this night. I believe it will light a fire in your heart for Native American people.

The following Monday (the 28th) two close friends and I will embark on a journey to the northwest territory to encourage a handful of pastors there and to minister some aid to the Dene people. Please pray for finances and cold weather gear for this trip, if you have some really cold weather gear such as coats and boots, we are in need of these things and would like to borrow some if possible.

In closing I want to encourage you this season of your life to love the Lord your God with all of your heart and embrace the relationship you have with Him. If you dont have a relationship with Him, there is no better season than the one you are in right now to start one.

We love you all and hope you all have a blessed Christmas,

Matt, Amanda, Jacob and Leah

Needs;

We are at %35 of our monthly support needed

We have some Dental work needed for Matt and Jacob

We will need tires for our van before we leave in February to head back

Musical instruments to start a music program in Pine ridge

Cold weather gear to borrow for Northwest Territory trip

Any support is greatly appreciated and can be made out to YES (Youth Evangelism Stratagies) and sent to

HCR 49 Box 242

Porcupine, SD 57772

As always, I so appreciate you holding out for our posts and updates. We've been home about a month now and we are adjusting to everything well.  Who would have thought it would be an adjustment to being home, coming back to where you are so comfortable, but it has. We have missed our family and friends in South Dakota and the urgency of being back has only grown stronger. Some of you are asking what we are up to while we are home.  Our schedule is only getting more busy, thankfully. While we are home, we have events and churches scheduled for us to come and share about our ministry in Pine Ridge.  Our main job has been to share our hearts and trust the Lord for our financial needs.

This is a very uncomfortable place for us to be, to be honest.  It's hard raising funds in this economy but we have a God that has far more than we could ever need. We do have a goal that we are trying to reach.  It's a goal that is above what we require monthly, and the reason for that is one month someone may not be able to meet their commitment.  We raise a certain percentage expecting to get 60% of it. While also being completely dependent on the Lord. Being a full time missionary is like being a full time Pastor. We dont have a 9-5 job, we are on the clock, creating ministry opportunities, partnering with the schools and education departments, community service, Co Pastoring, and Co Directing the Chanku Waste Youth Ranch during the summer. As our full time job we are ministering to the Native Americans and showing the gospel through our lives.  This takes money to allow us the task of ministering and reaching the Natives full time. It's definatly a strange place to be, and it's such a testiment to Gods provision. Regardless if we have what we need, we are heading back early March to set out to do what God has called us to do.  If we need to get jobs we will do what it takes to complete the task set before us.  Please be in prayer for us.  We will be traveling the weeks after thanksgiving and Christmas and we will be gone all of Jan and Feb.

We will do our best to keep you informed of what we are doing, and how things are going.  Thank you so much for your thoughts and Prayers!

God is Good and ALL things are possible!

Newsletter Update

God is good!

Hello Friend.

I wanted to update you all on how the Lord has blessed us this past month and also make you aware of some needs that are in front of us.
I was able to drive back to our home in SD and take a trailer load with me full of coats, blankets and the rest of our furniture. The house is set up and ready for us to be there living in it. I am so grateful to many of our friends who have been gracious in giving us their time and other resources for us to be able to have the house ready for us.
We were able to bring together several coats and blankets that have been given out in the last week or so and the timing is great considering they already are starting to have snow on the ground.
The gas for the trip up there was a large exspense and I am grateful to report that half of it has been taken care of but there is still a chunk that is needed to cover the rest. It was around $1600 total to get moved in up there.- I guess that is not bad for a move of 1500 miles.
We were able to get all of the siding on the building that we have been working on for the kids camp as well as all of the rough hvac in. We are almost ready to insulate and Sheetrock. I am excited to see the end result and how it will be used for the glory of God and a testament to His love.
One of the goals we have for the spring is to be able to teach some music lessons after school in the church and with that, one of our needs is instruments that we could use. Such as guitars and recorders, hand drums, whatever we have we will use. If you have any instruments lying around and would like to donate them to this need please feel free to let me know.
We are looking forward to the months ahead of us in seeing some of you in person and being able to fellowship with you all. We are still in need if monthly support whether that be through a commitment from some of you or a job for me there on the reservation. Please pray with us that our faith would not grow weary. God is faithful.
I am also looking for work to do through the next few months as this will help us while we are continuing raising support for next year while we are home.
We will be in Columbus OH in Nov and in Chicago in Dec still with the plan to be in MS and along the gulf in Jan. And then on to Nashville.
I am taking a trip with a good friend of mine to help do some work among the Dene people in the Northwest Territory in February to encourage the people there and offer supplies. After that we will make our way back to SD stopping in a few cities along the way.

I have decided that it is not easy fully trusting the Lord, it is easy to say I trust the Lord, but my life does not show it. It seemed that Paul stresses in his letters to the church that he did not want to be a burden to them, I hope you know that my heart is the same and I don't ever want to be burden on any of you but rather want to keep you informed of our journey and the needs that are in front of us and to give opportunity for you to have a part in what God is doing in Pine Ridge. We are so richly blessed and honored to be a part of something so much bigger than we can see.
Please feel free to give me a call if you have any questions or would like to just catch up.

 

We love you all.

Learning to serve the Lord in all we do,
Matt, Amanda, Jacob and Leah

What are we portraying?

This was a message from Pastor Mike a few weeks ago and I've soaked it in for a while.  I wanted to share this with you.  So often, and I've experienced this more than ever in the recent weeks, as Christians we take what we want of God and paint a picture of Him that is inaccurate.  For unbelievers or those that set out to make Christians look foolish, it "proves" their point in their eyes.  If we believe in THE God, then why on earth wouldn't we take Him in all that He is. Caricatures are those pictures painted that take qualities or characteristics of a person and exaggerate it to the fullest. I have an example for you....

Now that is FUNNY!!!!! Haha!! Now the bottom picture exaggerates the most dominate features.  Let's get real and honest. How often do we take the most dominate features like Gods love and mercy, and forget God's sovereignty and Justice. We paint a picture of God that is inaccurate and makes Him look foolish.  We make Him look like a clown, and discredit His most powerful characteristics.  If we want an accurate picture painted of God through our lives, we must take Him in all that He is. 

I hope that as Christians we paint an accurate picture of our Holy Saviour. In all His greatness, in all His mercy, in all His love, and in all His justice.  I want to show the world the FULLNESS of God. 

Email update...living life on a mission!

Hello Everyone,

I have been asked by several people about what life is like here on the reservation, it is hard to answer until we were living here for a little while, I feel I can answer that a little better after being here almost 4 months. This email is to share with you some of our experiences here over the summer. Some of it is not very pretty but that is why God has us here I believe.

When we first set out to come here we didn't know where we were going to live. Our original place to stay was going to be in a barn loft that I was going to add some water to make a little apartment out of. That fell through in the last few weeks before we came and God opened another place for us to stay, which was the parsonage beside the church. I am so grateful for this, we could not have asked for a more practical place to stay. It is spacious and in really great shape. it needed a lot of cleaning up and some minor work with holes in the walls and such, but I just so happen to be gifted in that area as well as there was a wonderful church around 2 hrs north of here that wanted to be a blessing to us and came one Saturday and helped me paint and all before Amanda got here back in may, and such a great blessing they were.

It is directly across the street from the busiest gas station on the entire Reservation at an intersection called Sharps Corner. Sharps Corner is considered the most central place here not so much because of where it sits geographically but because of the convenience to get to pretty much anywhere here.

The back door had a sticker on it that says "We do not give out gas money" That should have bee a hint as to how many people we would encounter on a daily basis that come by our house asking for anything you could possibly imagine. Because we are at the parsonage we have people stop that need to get in the pantry for food and baby supplies. Baby supplies, such as diapers, wipes and formula go faster than anything else. We have a lot of teenage moms that come by needing help. We are blessed by people that put boxes and such together to help keep this pantry stocked. We have been working on a clothes closet that has plenty of room to be able to stock clothes and coats for winter and such, it has already been put to use but is still a working progress.

The weather has been a crazy thing to experience here. It can be totally sunny and over 100 degrees outside and within a few hrs be seriously cold and hailing. The wind is always blowing, 60 mph winds are nothing here. we have experienced several days of winds around 80 100mph. I told them, where I'm from we call that a hurricane! It is a constant job cleaning trash and such that the winds blow all over the place. We keep a ratchet strap on the trash can to keep it at a minimum.

Rapid City is the closest city to us. It has around 80,000 people and has everything you could need. It is home to the busiest wal-mart in the world is what  am told at least, and I totally believe it, there has never been a slow time to go to that store. it is because it is the only one for so many miles that people use that one from so far out. Rapid City for us is about 80 miles away,so we are learning to make good use of our trips to town. I am becoming a much better list maker!

The people here are very passive and easy to get along with. Most of them have light hearts and cut up all the time. When you are talking to them about something might not agree with at all, they will just shake their head and smile and probably agree with you just to not have any argument at all. It gets aggravating sometimes when you are trying to teach them because you don't know if they are getting it or just shaking their head for fun, so I am learning to ask them a lot of questions.

I believe we have been well received here by most. There are some that just look away from you and you can tell some bitterness and hate with "white people", but even then they just wont talk to you or even look at you I have noticed, never any words or other actions to show that.

Gang activity is pretty much in every community here, there is graffiti on pretty much every house and playground in every one of the government housing communities. 

Drugs and alcohol are a huge detriment to this society. There have been several cases I have gone out in the morning and heard from some of our neighbors about all the things that have transpired the night before and I didn't hear or see anything. That confirms for me once again that God has a hedge of protection over our house and family. some of the things I have heard that have happened even in the last few months that we have been here are too grotesque to share in this email and are very upsetting, but just know that it is not pretty things.

Last Saturday morning I had gone to a friends house in a community down the road that they have nicknamed "mini Baghdad" (I think that is a little stretched but it still gives you the idea) as I was coming in, there were people out standing in the streets and something seemed a little out of the norm. I had asked my friend what was going on and he had told me that a 24yr old a few houses down had hung himself that morning. I don't know if any of you have looked at or remember us sharing some of the statistics here before we came, but the suicide rate is insane here. This was the most recent but I have heard of so many more in the last weeks and all are of young people. In Rapid City at the Lakota housing there a few weeks ago they found a 12 yr old that had killed himself and while the coroner was still there they had gone back in the house and the boys 8yr old brother had done the same. Even as I write this it grieves my heart sharing this with you, but I do feel the need to let you know of the condition that is here. People ask more than anything else "what do you think is the main #1 problem here, is it the drugs, gangs, alcohol?" I have heard Pastor Mike say - You cant one dimensionalize a problem this big, there isn't just one thing, all of these problems are symptoms of a much deeper problem I believe.

We have had a little boy about Jacob's age named Daryl come and hang out at our house for a little while and he would eat lunch with us after church, I have never met his parents or anything and he had kind of disappeared, when I had asked around about him I was told the other day that his mom had abandoned him and his 2 other siblings and they had put them in separate foster homes because nobody wanted them all together. I hear of this quite often, even with the teens they are always being moved around to different relatives to stay with.

All of this to say, we know without a doubt of why God has us here. These are a people that God loves and He likes them. He chose a very similar culture to call His own, so much of the culture here is so close to Hebrew culture, and I don't believe they are far off from the truth from what they believe, but you can have almost the whole Gospel without Christ and you would have nothing. Pray for the ministry here. I am sad to be leaving next month but it is something that we have to do. I feel that we are going to have to almost start over building relationships here when we get back in March.

Pray for our family, for continued protection. I have had to explain so many things to Jacob that he has heard and seen and doesn't fully understand, I pray that God guards his little heart from things that he shouldn't be exposed to, as well as Leah. We are getting ready to make our journey home leaving here September 14th heading to Chicago for that Sunday the 16th. from there hopefully going to Columbus Ohio, Louisville KY, Radcliff KY, Nashville TN, Huntsville AL and then home. if you are in any of these areas please give us a shout we would love to come see you. God's people have been so gracious in opening their homes to us and we are excited about making new friends along the way.

Thank you all for your prayers and support for us to be able to minister to the Lakota people.

Learning to serve the Lord in all we do,

Matt, Amanda, Jacob and Leah Hadden

Resting in Him.

Hey everyone!

Wow, the last week of camp was last week and it was definatly bitter/sweet!  We have really started solid relationships with the kids that attend, and we are going to miss them. Some of them we will see at church but most we won't.  So the end of summer camp is a bit sad for everyone. On tuesday we got to pick up Rebecca and Daniel, two of Matt's siblings, from the airport. They will be staying with us for a few weeks right up to the time that we head home.  For them it is probably going slow, we aren't used to having much free time, so we have enjoyed the last few days of rest and a little boredom!! haha! But all is needed. 

Tomorrow we get to enjoy a full day with some of the youth. We are taking them to a local lake and spending the day there, then coming back for a girls lockin. MAN!! Am I going to be worn out! haha!!  We are excited to get to spend this time with them. As I've shared with some of you, we are just now taking our friendships with the youth to new levels.  We hope when we return in March that we wont have to start from scratch.  We pray that we can still keep up with everyone and still be positive relationships for them. We will have pictures to post of all our fun this weekend!!

Soon, we will be packing up and preparing the house for the winter and the time that we are gone.  We are thrilled to be able to visit with alot of the wonderful people that we have come in contact over the last summer. We will be in Chicago, IL, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, then GEORGIA!  In the fall we are planning trips to North/South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Mississippi, Lousiana, Texas, and that's not including our trip back to South Dakota and the northern states we will hit.  This is going to be crazy!!!  All of this to share the amazing ministry happening here in Pine Ridge. God has truly blessed us with like-minded ministries and we are truly pumped about getting to spend more time with them.

A few weeks ago, we were pleased to find a great deal on a family vehicle.  We dont have a vehicle back home, only Matt's truck.  With our sweet growing children, it was going to be a tight 3 week long trip home on a bench seat, and we had a peace about moving forward with the purchase.  With that, we have 2 vehicles to get home, and two gas tanks to fill.  We aren't pulling the trailer home, because we are leaving alot of our stuff here, but we are planning on about $600-$700 for fuel, per vehicle. Please rejoice with us that our financial needs will continue to be met.  I say rejoice because this need is already before the Lord! And we trust that He is faithful.  We have learned not to worry or fret. If we are faithful, God is ALWAYS faithful!

More updates on the youth event to come!!

Love,

Amanda