April Update!!

Hello Everyone,

I know this is a little later getting to you than usual and I apologize. It is amazing how fast time goes by. I cant even believe it is already April.

I am so grateful to everyone that has supported us being here and has committed to supporting us monthly. It humbles me every time I think about God having us here and that other people would want to invest in what God is doing here in Pine Ridge. It honestly is overwhelming in a good way.

The last month and a half have been busy getting settled in as well as getting back into the groove of ministry. Mike has been traveling so I have been blessed with the opportunity to preach on Sundays and the last few Wednesday nights. We have started the teen night back on Friday nights and have been having a good turn out. We are in the process of kicking off some addiction accountability group meetings on Sunday nights as well as Amanda starting a ladies bible study on Tuesday nights focusing on forgiveness.

In the mean time we have been blessed with a groups that have wanted to volunteer their resources and time to still work on our building projects. Last week we were able to pour a full size basketball court for the kids camp this summer. We are looking forward to picking back up with our building, starting the insulation and sheetrock in the next month and working on it through the summer as the time and resources allow.

Being here in the winter has been a new experience for us. Last week we got around 26" of snow and as I am writing this now I am watching the snow fall outside as it has done all last night. We are expecting a few more inches today. Pastor Mike told me last summer that there is more ministry to be done in the winter as far as serving and disciplining. I have found that the ministry between summer and winter is just different types of ministry, but there is definite opportunity to counsel during these months.

Amanda is doing fine, she has had some ups and downs with morning (afternoon and night) sickness, but it seems to be subsiding the further along she gets. Hopefully we will find out what the gender is in the next few weeks or so and we will let you know. We have got some baby chicks and plan to be having some fresh eggs by the end of summer. it has been fun watching them grow and I know Amanda is having a blast chasing them around the house. (I can see it in her eyes)

I have been meditating on Nehemiah lately, what a beautiful picture of restoration. In Neh 1:4 it says that Nehemiah wept when he heard the news of Jerusalem and the shape that it was in. It is so easy as Christians to complain about the shape our church is in, our nation or even the shape that we as individuals are in, but there is delight in knowing and understanding that we have a God that did not design us to be in shambles even in spite of our ruin He has plans of restoration for us. Our response to ruin should be the desire to run to the One who makes all things new. Restoration is needed not just here in Pine Ridge but is something each one of us should be longing for as individuals so that it can overflow into our churches and corporations to bring life into these dry bones. My heart breaks for the people in Boston, as Christians it is an opportunity to weep at the brokenness and ask God what can we do to go rebuild and bring restoration to a hurting people. I hope this challenges you in the same way it has me to have a different response to brokenness in our lives.

I am looking forward to see what God is going to continue to do here and through our lives. As a whole we are super excited for summer to be here.

Learning to serve the Lord in all we do,

Matt, Amanda, Jacob, Leah and Bump

March Update

Hello Friends,

 

I hope you are all doing very well and each of you are experiencing much grace in your lives.

 

I am excited to let you all know, we are back here in Pine Ridge. It is so good and refreshing to be back here. We didn't skip a beat getting here. Amanda, the kids, and I left Feb 23rd, we stayed in Nashville one night and moved onto Memphis and stayed until Thursday morning. We drove around 12 hrs Thursday and came the rest of the way on Friday and boy were we all glad to be here. Jacob and Leah did wonderful in the car and throughout our stays in different places, we have been so blessed with great children. Along those lines I would like to let all of you know that Amanda is carrying our 3rd child of which we are so very thankful and excited for. She is due Oct 6th and we are already thinking of some native names. We have been referred to as gypsies in recent times, I don't deny that because it sure has felt like we are.

It was great to be at church here yesterday, we have missed the people so much and there was great joy to see the small group of believers that are here. we had a good service, Mike was preaching on constantly stumbling over the gospel and afterwards a man who was from Oklahoma, who was here for a funeral came forward and received Christ.

There were 7 funerals going on in our area alone yesterday. One of them was held at our church, it was the sister of 2 ladies in our church. It is so heart breaking and sad to watch a funeral here, there is so much pain and hurt in their lives and then death just adds to it when you have no hope of eternity. All of their belief is in what they can accomplish in themselves, and if any of you have been around at all you will know that people will always let you down, we will always let ourselves down apart from Christ Jesus. We can never be good enough to merit righteousness before a holy God. Jesus is our righteousness.

We have a lot of work ahead of us. We continue to ask you for your prayers, that we would experience much grace in our family and ministry and that we would continue to grow our support to be here. We are here completely on faith that this is where God wants us to be and leaning on Him to take care of us as we should do anyways. I am hopefully going to get a part time job at the school as a teacher, pray that my interviews and such will go well.

One thing we would like to start doing is a quarterly newsletter that we would actually mail out, some people have asked us about this and we would like to put pictures in there so that you can have a more visual aid of what is going on. I will still include it to all of you that are on our email contacts but if you would like to receive a newsletter in the mail every 3 months please send me your physical address as I plan to work on this in the next few weeks.

I am so very blessed by so many of you. many of you have been a rock to lean on for Amanda and I and we are so very grateful. God is so good, He fills my heart with joy and peace. Our prayer is that the Love of God and His compassion will spill over into the lives of the people we meet along our journey through life. What great examples many of you have been of just that.

Learning to serve the Lord in all we do,

Matt, Amanda, Jacob, Leah and Peanut

Feburary Update

Hello everyone,

Wow what an incredible time in our lives, it has been so busy and rewarding.

We ended last month with the benefit concert that we hosted for our ministry, what a blessing we received. We are so blessed with so many people around us that care for us but also care for the ministry and it shows with their giving and sacrifice of time and efforts to love people and share the gospel.

I left the country on the 27th to head to the Northwest Territory with Jake Ayers and David Hahn, we flew into Edmonton and drove 1500 miles north of there to Deline and then back down and east to go back north to Yellowknife and then back to Edmonton to fly home. altogether we drove around 3500 miles on Ice roads to get to these remote places to minister to various pastors and missionaries to encourage them and to find out how we can help them.

I think this mission trip probably blessed me in a very unique way from other mission trips I have been on. I was encouraged but also very challenged. Challenged to wonder and think about what we are doing as Christians to accomplish the Great Commission. There are over 7,000 people groups in the world that are still unreached. we have gotten so overwhelmed with the comforts of our own homes and churches that we have lost the desire to be uncomfortable and put ourselves on the front lines of reaching the unreached and loving the unloved. When Jesus came, He came to seek out the lost, and He put himself with them, dined with them and loved them. I see how far our church has come from that. we are no longer concerned with what brings glory to God but rather what is most convenient to me right now. However, I do see a generation rising up to take the place of the generations that have been before us. I see a progression of people in our church moving past our agendas through denominations, race and so many other things that I believe have slowed the church from growing and reaching as to what Christ intended His bride to look like.

I challenge you my friends as I am challenged, to allow God to be bigger in your lives. Look past all the stains that our culture has to see the beautiful work of God in our daily lives and have an eternal perspective on life.

Now to update you on where our family is.

We leave two weeks from today (Feb 23rd) to make our way toward SD. Tomorrow we will be in two different local churches and next weekend we will be in MS again.

when we leave the 23rd we will head to Nashville to be at a church that Sunday morning and that Sunday night we will be at a church in Memphis. We will be there until that Thursday and then arrive in Pineridge on that Friday March 1st.

once we get there we are having to move out of the parsonage into another house. we knew that this was a possibility but didn't think it would be this soon.

This is the busiest we have ever been and we covet your prayers. That God would go before us and that we would learn to embrace His grace each day. Pray for Jacob and Leah as well that their hearts would always lean on Jesus as their sufficiency that they would learn that from Amanda and I as we seek the Lord for provision.

God is so good, I cant explain it, I can only say you just have to take a bite and try it for yourself.

we are so blessed and so needy all at the same time and I thank God for each of you.

Learning to serve the Lord in all we do,

Matt, Amanda, Jacob and Leah

Donation Info

Online - www.youthevangelismstratagies.org

Check -

YES

HCR 49 Box 242

Porcupine, SD 57772

Paypal - athadden@gmail.com

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