Hello everybody. I hope you are doing good on this wonderful May day. I am sitting in a Café in West Allis, Wisconsin, today! Picking up Molly from college in a couple of days and currently helping Jamison with his production of Seussical. 

Where have we been? I am encouraged by the direction of what we’ve started!

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First Hand Truth Workshops…

• I began First Hand Truth as a single sheet of paper with an idea in July/August of 2025. 
• From there we held a single “How to Study the Bible for Yourself” seminar in November of 2025 at Continental Bakery.
• After that initial event I did some recalibrating and had another 6-8 seminars or so in the Jan-March timeframe of this year. Most of these have been at JPG Resources where I’ve been gifted the usage of their offices for ministry purposes!
• Retooling a second time and scheduling seven more seminars for the May-June timeframe, we are in the midst of these right now. We determined the best night for these seminars are Thursday nights locally.

If you’ve yet to attend one of these I would encourage you to! I’ve developed a number of workshops that will help anyone who desires to study the scripture for themselves. I need your feedback to improve them.  I need people who can help find people who would benefit from these – to be an encouragement for others to participate!

Beyond this I am trying to break into having churches sponsor workshops. I have had 2 successes on this front but it is slow going. I did one workshop with a church in Stockholm Sweeden with a group of Philipino church members through our friend Lauren, this was about 16 or so people and it was very good. I also had two three-hour training workshops at Calvary Baptist in Battle Creek, this was on Logos Bible Software. We had about 25 participants over those two timeframes. I have a number of irons in the fire warming but it is slow going.

The Bible Study Café…

Along with those workshops I’ve hosted about eight or so Saturday morning events called Bible Study Café. Basically this is just providing a location for people to come study, get encouragement, get some equipping and enjoy some fellowship with other Bible study-ers. It has been a mix of very effective to ghost town. I will continue to tinker with the format and the communication of this idea to others. I have been encouraged by what has been accomplished – most of it is just being available to people and encouraging scripture study.

Upcoming Retreats…

I’ve done the initial research into costs for retreats both locally or within about 2 hours. I am going to schedule one around a few individuals who want to commit and offer them to more people. I would assume that these retreats would be good for 12-20 people at the most. I am going to attempt to schedule one for the two following topics.

• Studying the Bible for Personal Recovery: helping people study scripture to find recovery from burnout, spiritual abuse, discouragement, or just people who struggle with their faith.
• Studying the Person of Jesus The Messiah: a deep exploration of the person of Messiah as predicted in the Old Testament. 

If one of these sounds interesting to you, send me a note. 

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Financially

Katherine and I have decided to continue making this ministry a reality. We have not received very much personal financial benefit from the ministry as almost all the monies that people have given have went back into the ministry. This is good. I would love to provide these workshops for people free-of-charge and make that a continued reality. If we have to travel a bit I would charge that part to the church that is hosting – but I want to continue making my time be a gift to the Church – the church universal.

Here is a quick financial update. From the time of the inception of the ministry

• Receipts: $2,930
• Expenditures: $3,510

I would appreciate gifts towards certain aspects of ministry. I just purchased a small Macbook Neo for $500 for educational use at the Bible Study Cafe just recently. If you want to give to this ministry or know more about where the money is going visit the website here and find info on the links provided.

How you could help give…

• Sponsor this computer or another one like it. $500 + $500
• Sponsor the logos annual subscription $150 / I don’t want to use my account because my notes would be subject to other people’s edits. We need on subscription that will cover any number of computers.
• Give towards photocopy expenses and resources produced for workshops.

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Next Few Things!

• How to Study the Bible for Personal Recovery / Thursday, May 21, 6-8pm at JPG Resources.
• How to Do a Great Topical Study / Thursday, May 28, 6-8pm
• How to Study the Bible for Yourself (basic) / Thursday, June 4, 6-8pm
• How to Study the Bible for Yourself (advanced) / Thursday, June 11, 6-8pm
• Pressing On: A Five Week Study in Spiritual Growth / Saturday mornings from 9-10am / Beginning May 30 / Helping participants to discover the qualities of Spiritual Growth and implement them

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How you Could Help…

• Attend a few things! Bring a friend or encourage people to attend a few thins. This works best when you ask someone to go with you!
• Prayer / Pray for God to direct this ministry to paths that are helpful to people. Pray for people to be encouraged. Pray for recovery.
• Can you Organize a Retreat? / I would like someone to come alongside and help me organize and promote a retreat or two.
• Financial gifts / anything would be helpful.
• Cheerleaders / bridging the gap betwen “in house” workshops and breaking into churches is important. If you want to help there are things you could do in this arena! Ask your church leaders. Bring them to a workshop so they see what we are trying to do. Help by calling a few churches with/for me.

Please call me or send a note saying you’d like to help in some way! I realize I can do much of this work and ministry – but I cannot do all of it.

In Christ,