2011 Year End Report

2011 Yearend report

It is with a blessing and honor that we write to you as ministry partners and friends of Western Harvest Ministries, in order to inform you about the year 2011, and all that we were able to be a part of. It was without a doubt, a year that we grew and learned so much. So much of our growth was about simple, childlike faith and obedience to the Lord’s will.

I would have to say one big event was when we were able to win a settlement that would keep us from going to court against the man who didn’t construct our first building’s foundation correctly. His negligence resulted in our building literally falling off of its foundation and crashing to the ground. Of course this event was in the natural realm.

The biggest events were in the spiritual realm where we were able to minister life changing challenges to several young men here at the ranch. Those men did make the decisions to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

We also worked very hard in trying to finishing our buildings and arena facility in an attempt to better minister to the community. It was a fairly normal year up to July as far as pastoring and holding Sunday services and Wednesday Bible studies. We were blessed to travel to speak for churches and western youth outreaches. And as usual the Lord did open many doors for media engagements like appearing on TBN, se well as, Chris Cox’s TV Show on RFDTV. Chris is a Champion Cutting Horse Trainer who hosted a special series for the Western Wishes Foundation. Western Wishes is our western world’s equivalent to The Make a Wish Foundation for terminally ill children. I am honored to be a Board member and Celebrity Ambassador for this incredible organization.

The last week of June, we had to make a tough decision to stop holding normal Sunday services. We were seeking the Lord as to what he would have us do that would free us up to build a better leadership team to more effectively reach the lost here in our community. We had a small group of around twenty people that were coming to our services, but there was no real involvement and after faithfully serving for all most two years we knew that we had to make changes.

We pruned a few things that were not working and tried really hard to stay focused on what our vision was and to prepare for the Lord to show us what his current orders were for us…We also felt that we were hanging on to things that where stealing our time and energy. Rather than falling victim to that deception, we prayerfully made a change, with the blessing of our Board.

We continued to minister to the youth by holding Tuesday night Bible study and Thursday night open arena youth activities. That was a lot of fun and we had great results, but when the kids all went back to school and it started to get dark earlier is was tougher to continue with it for the winter.

We finished out the year simply working our concession stands at our Dallas Cowboy’s stadium outreach events and working to finalize the pending court case. We hosted our first annual golf tournament in November.

In the middle of December, we received a settlement concerning the destroyed building. It was such a blessing because the very first thing we did was pay off all the notes that had interest accruing and we also were able to pay off our new buildings in full. We had been paying a double mortgage for well over a year, for both the cost of the first building and the improvements of the installation of the water well, new electricity lines (brought several hundred yards from across the main road) and two septic systems that we installed ourselves. (One for the fellowship center and one for the bunk house.) And finally, we had over 20 twenty loads of road base brought in for the gravel roads.

As you can see we were hard at work building and paying for things right out of the gate. By God’s grace and your prayers, we were able to endure and to be able to be wise with all he entrusted us to use. We were also blessed to have a ministry partner from California help us in the purchase of a good running but older tractor that we so desperately needed.

I think, over all, it was a year of, not just not giving up, but being willing to bend on a few things that would better position us on down the road. I feel that we are right on track and will need many more ministry partners to help us in seeing our vision coming to pass.

For years we have been spiritually learning, all the while knowing that at some point in time, the Lord would build it. This year, we have been so blessed to witness him doing just that. And the best thing of all is to see it being done and knowing that it is all for his Glory, not ours.

Go with God

Scott Mendes

Founder and Executive Director

Western Harvest Ministries

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