Pastor's Corner: Ministerial association wraps up school year of meetings

At our final meeting of the school year a week ago Thursday, Greater Havre Area Ministerial Association listened to three guest speakers. The first was Karen Anderson, informing us as to the "HeartFelt Women's Retreat" taking place this Saturday, May 21, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Havre Assembly of God Church. With this year's theme being "Walking in Freedom and Victory," two lady speakers will communicate their passion for this subject.

The first is the Rev. Emma Curtis, an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God. She also happens to be my mom - so I am definitely biased toward her preaching - incredible communicator of the Bible!

The second lady preacher is Kimberly Vohs, the pastor's wife of the Rocky Boy Living Water Church. Kim leads worship so well, and when she gets to preaching - watch out! She is a firecracker! All of the ladies will love her! If you are a woman and would like to attend this event, please give Karen Anderson 406-390-1590 or Brenda Sturm 307-575-6876 a call ASAP, as they are having lunch catered. Also, there is no charge to attend this event; just a free-will offering while you are there.

Our next guest speakers at GHAMA were Eric and Rebekah Schwanke, missionaries with Africa Inland Mission. Their current project is called Village of Hope, being built to meet the needs of the many women who are raped and used as prostitutes in that area - women living in hopelessness. The Schwankes are helping to create a safe place for these abused and mistreated women, a place where they can find out about Jesus, learn about their identity in God, and learn how to support themselves and their children in God-honoring ways. The Schwankes are raising funds for their year-long stay in Kenya - $45,000. If your church or group would like to have them come speak, please contact Eric at 406-344-2265 or Rebekah at 406-344-2923. They welcome any opportunities to present their ministry.

Our final guest speaker was none other than our own Deacon Tim Maroney from St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church. Tim shared with us the specifics of how God uses him to administer our GHAMA funds to the down and out people here in Havre. Typically, this ministry distributes about $2,000 a month to help people with gas, lodging, food, medicines, and the list goes on. Deacon Tim endeavors to talk and pray with each recipient, providing deeply needed spiritual counsel. We are always looking for donors to partner with us in this ministry.

Recently the Havre Helping Haven Board decided to donate (as they are able) $2,500 quarterly to this ministry - Praise the Lord! This takes care of one of every three months of ministry expenses. Perhaps you, your church, or your home group would like to make a regular pledge to this fund? You could call me at 406-399-0263 and we can work on this together.

At this GHAMA meeting, we also elected our officers for the upcoming 2022-2023 school year: President Pastor Edroy "Curt" Curtis (me); Vice President Pastor Michael O'Hearn; Secretary Pastor Megan Hoewisch; and Co-Treasurers Father Dan Wathen and Deacon Tim Maroney. We also signed up to take turns during the summer writing this column for the Havre Daily News. We wish to express appreciation to Tim Leeds and his team at HDN for allowing us this privilege.

And finally, GHAMA would love to have all of our pastors and churches involved with the ministerial association. Presently we have about half of the Havre-area churches participating - and we believe we can have even more cooperation amongst the churches here as we lift up the name of Jesus Christ together and encourage people to love God more and love one another more!

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Written by the Rev. Edroy "Curt" Curtis, president of the Greater Havre Area Ministerial Association; Chaplain of Northern Montana Health Care; and Lead Pastor of Havre Assembly of God Church.