Dear Friend of FOA,
I can’t believe I am already writing a December newsletter. Each day my 8 year old daughter reminds me how many days until Christmas. Time has flown by and another year draws to an end. I feel that way now, but I can remember times this past year when time didn’t feel like it was flying by. Just last week we had a student finish the 8 week program who expressed how fast time went by while he was here with us. At other times we have students who leave before finishing the 8 weeks because the finish date feels like it will never arrive. Most of the time the difference is where our mind is placed. As the expressions goes, “time flies when you’re having fun”.
Our eternal God is not limited by time, but he created the world and set time in place for us as mankind. This month we celebrate the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Christ came “in the fullness of time” (Gal. 4). He came to fulfill a promise God had given mankind 4,000 years prior in the garden of Eden when man sinned against God. And 33 years later he died on a cross, shedding his blood to redeem mankind and reconcile us to God. He rose from the dead on the 3rd day defeating death and through faith in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior we can have eternal life. Time is something we can’t get back, but for the believer while our time in this physical body on earth is temporary we have been given eternal life in Jesus Christ. This gives us great hope!
Please pray for our men to be receptive to that message of hope. Most of them wish they could go back and make different decisions in life – I’m sure most of us feel similarly. We can’t go back and change past decisions, but the decisions we make now will affect our futures. We pray they will decide to trust the Lord as Savior and learn to trust Him for the needs of their lives.
Over the past few months, I have asked you to pray for our financial situation. We are thankful for 2 sizable donations that have been generously given over the past week in addition to those who faithfully support us each month. Please continue to pray for our financial situation.
Last month I mentioned the opportunity of giving to help us give our men a Christmas gift bag this year. A number of you already responded to that need by giving and we thank you so much for helping us in this way. If you wanted to give towards that need there is still time as we will be receiving donations for those gifts until December 20th. Needs are listed on the back. We appreciate anything that you send to help our men. Thank you for considering this request.
Finally, would you please pray for our men during this time of year. The holidays are hard for many of our guys who are separated from families or have very strained family relationships.
Have a great Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior,
Aaron Bonner
