Pat Storey Newsletter (Winter 2024)

Hello Everybody!

I hope you are all doing very well.  We have been enjoying some cool temperatures here in Florida. Some call it cold, but when they think about those of you who live up north with single-digit temperatures and tons of snow, they realize this is not cold at all.  This is the time of year when I really appreciate living in the South.

I enjoyed my deputation trip last August.  Thank you to all of you who allowed me to share at your churches.  It was fun to get to meet some new people and catch up with old friends.  I also got to spend some time with my kids and grandkids in southern Iowa.  I really miss them living so far away, so I look forward to visiting them each time we can get together.  Thanksgiving was spent in Pennsylvania with my oldest and her family.  I am blessed beyond anything I could have ever imagined!

Teen Missions has just finished running 14 Boot Camps all around the world with their teens in various places on mission trips in their own countries.  Not all reports are in, but there have been over 3,000 who have come to know Jesus as their Savior!  Praise the Lord for that!  It’s the reason we are doing what we do, and it’s great when God lets us see this kind of results. 

Our winter volunteers are here and it’s always so nice to have them.  They do so much to help the ministry and they do high-quality work!  The men have been building some very nice benches to set around the lakes and on the walking trails that are being developed. They have also made some new signs around the property.  The old ones have needed to be replaced for a very long time. The ladies are working to make puppets and drama props for our overseas bases, as well as many other smaller things that need to be done. We love and appreciate them all very much.

Right now, we are beginning to look toward the Teen Missions Mud Run in May and, of course, our own Boot Camp shortly after that.  We already have more registrations than were here at Boot Camp last year and it’s only January, so we are very excited that our numbers have now increased two years in a row.

I have been working with our administration team to develop an overseas budget (not very exciting work, but someone has to do it) and the board approved it last November.  It’s kind of a new thing for us, and so we are excited to keep developing and refining that process.  It’s a lot of work, but it feels good to get it accomplished.  I’m also still auditing our overseas finances and working to develop processes for each country.  

Teen Missions has begun a partnership with Oasis, which has provided Bibles for our Boot Camps and some of our Bible school students around the world.  What a blessing!  So many of our students and teens at Boot Camp have no Bibles available, and we are so excited that Oasis has been able to ship so many.  Here in the U.S., we don’t usually think about what it would be like to not even have one Bible to pick up whenever we want to read it and so this is just so great!

I don’t always know how to express my appreciation to all of you who support me through Teen Missions and make it possible to do the work that we do.  I cannot tell you enough how much that means, not only to me personally, but also to so many people all around the world who are learning how much God loves them and wants to change their lives.  THANK YOU!!