Update

Sorry for leaving you all hanging on this blog! I update my personal one almost daily, and probably should delete this one, since I write about the same things on both of them.

Our grand total for our ReThinking Christmas offering was over $29,000.00!! How awesome! The largest gift was $3000.00. So we know that everyone sacrificed, and the kids brought in $1000.00 alone!

We were able to build 3 wells in Ethiopia and help out a local mission in downtown Milwaukee. Last we took up an impromptu offering for the people of Haiti and our people gave over $3000.00. I am sure this week it will be more since now they have had time to prepare for it. I love that The Ridge doesn't just talk about helping people, we actually do it. That's our mission-to help people find and follow God.

In other news...I am sure most of you know, but Eric and I had a miscarriage last week. We are still grieving the loss of our baby, but I think we are doing pretty well. Molly has been awesome, and she has helped us heal, a lot. Bless her heart, she doesn't realize how much good she does for Eric and I.

I am settling into my new position as the Director of Children and Families at The Ridge. Our other children's minister resigned last week. She left on great terms, she just is going through a lot of personal transitions right now like getting married, becoming a step-mom, and a lot of other stuff. She will still be helping out and attending The Ridge, but what this all means for me is that I am in charge!! I am now responsible for birth-fifth grade. I am excited and God has really blessed me with people stepping up and helping out.

Our move to the high school is happening in almost a month! We are getting down to the wire with ordering everything, training everyone, etc. But it is exciting and I am super pumped to see what God does in 2010 at The Ridge!

BIG Announcement

Today at The Ridge, Mark made a BIG announcement...

**The Ridge is moving...into a local high school! This is huge for us! Meeting at the school allows us to double our size, maybe triple. It is going to be awesome! Stressful, hard, frustrating-yes, but worth it in the end to reach out to our community to help people find and follow God, a BIG yes!

Our other announcement at church today was that we have hired a student minister! I am not sure who is more excited about this, the students or Eric! Eric has been trying to do student ministry the past couple years, but neighborhood groups have taken off like none other, and he is teaching at least once a month, sometimes twice. So we all do our best to reach out to the kids, but we need help, and now that we have hired someone, Tyler, we can all breath a little easier!

Tyler starts the day we move into the school. What a nice warm welcome, haha, it's going to be crazy, but I think he is ready to jump in with both feet.

One last thing. The last 3 weeks of December The Ridge has been taking up an offering for our ReThinking Christmas series. Well, the grand total is not in yet, but the preliminary numbers are, and so far we have given over $27,000.00 towards building clean drinking wells, and to a local mission in downtown Milwaukee. How awesome! I will let you know the grand total once it is announced.

For those of you who don't know, I have taken a job at The Ridge as the Early Childhood Director. Tomorrow starts my official working week. I came in during December to start learning the ropes, but now I am on my own! I am really excited about this ministry, and I have a heart for kids learning about God at a young age.

Have a great week!

2009 Recap

Hey friends! Happy New Years to you and your family! We pray that 2010 brings you lots of happiness, good health, and tons of blessings that come straight from God. 2009 was a great year for us, so we thought that we would recap a little bit of it for you...

Jan-We did "One Month to Live" at The Ridge and it went over so well. People are still talking about it!

Winter/Spring-We saw record numbers of people committing to neighborhood groups.

Summer- We participated in "One Prayer" again, and loved it just as much this year, as last year! We had over 20 people get baptized at the end of it! The Ridge sent 20 people to the Dominican Republic to help build a feeding a center and they started working on building a church.

August-Kate graduated with her Masters in Clinical Christian Counseling, and in October she received her license to practice counseling.

August- Molly turned 2!

Fall/Winter- Kate started her private counseling practice called "Restoration Counseling." The Ridge is still growing, we average 515-550 on any given weekend, in Dec. we had 20 people get baptized. We did a ReThinking Christmas series and gave money to building clean drinking wells in Ethiopia, and also gave money to a mission in downtown Milwaukee. We are still waiting to hear the total on the offering, but we will let you know what it is! Kate joined the staff at The Ridge as the Early Childhood Director. She will be working in the office 3 days a week, and all day Sunday.

We are very excited for 2010! We have a couple BIG announcements to share with you all! One of them will be this coming Sunday, after church. Thank you all for your support (financially and prayerfully), constant encouragement, and love! We feel so blessed and honored to have you all on our side.

Our door is always open for visitors!

Happy New Year!

Love,
The Ferguson Family