A Year in Review

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2007
& HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Dear loved ones:
We hope this letter finds you all well and that your Christmas holidays have been blessed! We are sorry this has gotten out a bit late this year—it has been quite busy for us here at the church as you can imagine.


Well 2007 certainly was an eventful year for us and our families. In March Michael and I signed a contract with Ryan Homes and in July we moved into our brand new town house in Fruitland, a small town just south of Salisbury. It was such an exciting time picking out all the flooring, cabinetry, etc. and I finally have the wonderful country kitchen with wood floors that I have always wanted. I had a grand time picking out paint and painting and decorating, but I probably
will not ever choose dark colors again. I painted one wall in our dining room area and
our morning room all a Merlot red, and it took four coats...uggghhh! But it turned out
beautiful, I must say. We get compliments on it all the time. We have a huge living room
now too, and now that we have a cell group in our home, we actually have room for everyone!


Chris, Michael’s oldest son, got married in February, and both he and Alma were
in law school together. On December 14th Michael and I flew out to San Diego for three
days to attend Chris’s graduation from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law. It was wonderful
being able to meet Alma face to face too. Alma graduates next August, and she and
Chris are planning (at least right now) on moving to Ohio after she graduates.
Michael became a grandfather on July 30th with the birth of Audrey Elizabeth (not
to be confused with Nick & Jen’s daughter, Aubrey Elizabeth...whew!), Mark and Callie’s
first child. Michael is one happy and proud grandpa! In September we went to Ohio for a
week to see her for the first time and to see Daniel, Michael’s youngest, get married.
Daniel had just returned to Ohio from Army basic training, and he and his new bride,
Stephanie (no kidding) are now in New York where Daniel is stationed at Ft. Drum with the
10th Mountain Division. He is infantry and is on rapid response, so he could be called up
and have to be shipped to wherever on 48 hours’ notice or something like that. We are
praying he does not end up in Iraq or Afghanistan, but have to rely on the Lord watching
over him wherever he goes. While in Ohio we did an overnight trip to Indiana to visit Michael’s
mom and step-dad. It was so good to see them, but far too brief a trip! We stayed
with Nick and Jen while in Ohio, and Michael was able to play golf with Mark and I was
able to visit with Steph while he was golfing.


Michael’s dad and step-mom came to visit us for a week in August and we had a
wonderful time showing them around the area. Of course we had to do the Ocean City
boardwalk and drive to Assateague to see the beautiful wild ponies. We also drove to Annapolis
for a day and Dad, Sharon and I were able to go into the Naval Academy and see all that,
but Michael had left his wallet and ID at home, so he was not allowed inside the Academy.
Poor fella had to suffer “on the outside” and just wander the stores around the waterfront until
we were done touring the Academy. He learned a hard lesson about having his ID with him,
that’s for sure.


In late October, we finally moved into our new church building on the outskirts of town,
and it is wonderful! It is so good to be out of that ancient (built in 1859) building we were in
before. I love old buildings, but trying to keep up with maintaining it was really a huge problem,
especially with very old wiring trying to handle 21st century computers and wireless internet!
We have state of the art sound and lighting in a wonderful large worship center now…
and no more church pews! We have chairs instead (which I much prefer). Check out our new
website: www.allenmemorial.org and you can also read Michael’s blog where he puts all sorts
of news and happenings with us personally as well as goings-on in the body of believers here
at Allen. Just look for the vulture picture in the resource section of the website. The staff at Allen laughingly (and lovingly) call him the vulture because of his uncanny ability to “swoop
down” on unsuspecting “prey” (meaning new neighbors in our new subdivision and unsaved
people in our community) and bring them into the fold here at Allen.


Michael is always busy as the cell pastor, mentoring cell leaders, potential leaders, discipling
new believers, etc. I have really settled down in my job as the church administrator
and feel very comfortable in the position (finally). It is very demanding and I do put in lots of
long days, but I feel the Lord has really grown and stretched my faith as I learned this position
over the past year, and that is a good thing. We are never too old to learn, nor are we ever too
old to lean more heavily on the Lord and stop relying on ourselves.


Michael and I spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas with our friends, Kip & Sharon
Powers, like we did last year, and we had a wonderful day with them. They really have become
a “family away from family” for us, and are such wonderful friends.
We hope that you have a blessed and fruitful 2008 and we send our love and best
wishes to each and every one of you. May the Lord bless you in surprising ways in 2008.


With much love, The Soves

Maryland Family

It has been a little over a year now since we have answered the call to come serve at Allen as the cell pastor. I love Maryland more than any other place I have lived. Don't get me wrong I still have a heart for Chicago, Indianapolis and the Dayton but the Eastern Shore is a wonderful place to live. I like the fact that in our area you can get anywhere you want to go in one half hour. For ministry this is fantastic. In some of the other places I lived it would take an hour to go from the north to the south. If you reached someone for Christ in the north they wouldn't travel to the south to worship with you. But here you have people coming from all the surrounding areas and there are no barriers as far as outreach. But even more than the ministry side of it I love the people of the area.

Part of the reason we were willing to leave family and friends to answer the call was the love of the people of this area. One such couple that has really impacted our lives has been Kip and Sharon Powers. When I moved out here last year I drove out one week before Cary and needed a place to stay. The Powers opened their home to me and my cat Samoa. It was friendship instantly. The following week when Cary came out they had us over for dinner and we were surprised to find out that Sharon and Cary share the same birthday month and year as well as Kip and I sharing the same birthday month and year. It got even more strange when Sharon's cell phone rang and Cary thought it was hers. They had the same ring tone "Sweet Home Alabama."

Little did Cary and I know how hard it would be to move so far away from family. Our first 6 months here we both battled depression, especially the first Thanksgiving and Christmas away from family. The Powers adopted us as family and when those holiday family gatherings came around we were included in their family activities. We have been there ever since! I appreciate Sharon's daughters Kim, Kelly and Krista who have shared their family with us as well. The Bible says, that God puts the lonely in families and we have found out how wonderfully true that is.

I also want to thank our extended family at Allen, each of you have made us feel so loved and welcomed and we wouldn't be any other place. Maryland is our Home!

Proud Day in San Diego

I am so grateful to God for the blessing of being able to witness my son's graduation from Thomas Jefferson School of Law located in beautiful San Diego. I remember when he went through a very troubled time in his life when I wondered if he would even live let alone succeed. Chris then put himself through undergraduate school at Eastern Michigan University where he majored in math and then decided to pursue law. God has really gifted him as far as intellect and I'm very proud to be his Father.

Another highlight of this trip was being able to meet Alma my new daughter in law. Chris and Alma another law student married in February of this year and we were unable to travel to the West Coast for the wedding. She will be graduating from law school herself in August. They desire to move back to Ohio where they hope to practice law. Chris is interested in taxation and she is interested in employment law.

Below are some pictures from our trip for you to enjoy!

Follow Up Story

On March 1st I wrote a story called "Japanese Birthday." I talked about leading this student to Christ. Last weekend he stood bfore the Allen congregation and shared the following story!

-My Testimony

When I was little, I remember walking down the path to go down to a temple on New Year’s day, which is a tradition in Japanese culture, seeing a bunch of people holding up pictures of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, and announcing the verses from the Bible through a microphone. Nobody seemed to really pay attention, but I remember asking my father as a curious child, “Who is Jesus Christ?” My father simply smiled and told me “Boy, you don’t have to worry about it, how about another candy huh?”

Coming from Japan, where more than 50% of the population is Atheist, when I moved to New York in the summer of 2000, spirituality was one of the many things that I did not know about American culture as a whole. To say the least, learning the language, adjusting to the school system, and getting used to the enormous food servings were more important to me back then. The high school I attended was very small, and mostly Jewish. It’s embarrassing to say, but I went to the first couple Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs with no knowledge that it is a religious celebration; to me, it was more of an opportunity to hang out with my friends who I could barely communicate with and eat good food. Four years in high school was definitely not the best time I had in my short career so far: I was learning the English language for the most part in school. Because of that, my grades weren’t that great, and my family was a mess. I was suicidal; I did slit my wrist a couple times, and I struggled to get along with my parents.

I must say I was somewhat relieved to leave New York to attend college in Salisbury. As a freshman, I arrived at Salisbury University in September of 2006. I experienced what society calls “college life” for the first couple months down here before I encountered God. Partying hard on the weekends, doing whatever I felt like doing, to say the least. Somehow I still felt empty inside, and that’s when I first had a conversation about God. One of my strongest passions is to dance. I tried out to be on a dance team at Salisbury called “Untouchables Dance Inc.” Through there, I met this one girl whom I found to be attractive. I expressed my interest to her towards the end of the first semester, and the response she gave to me was pretty much “I love God!” Unlike some people, I just couldn’t back off that time; as selfish as I sound, I just wanted to find out more about this God thing that she was so into. She ended up taking me to Allen Memorial that weekend. That was my first church experience. I kept coming back to church for the next couple weeks, because it was fun for me. I loved the music, and I enjoyed hearing Pastor Warren’s message each week. I was still partying on the side, but I did begin to slow down. One Sunday, I found myself filling out the “Christian counseling request” that I found in the bulletin. That week, Pastor Michael Sove e-mailed me and we set up a meeting.

Going into the meeting, I did not know what to expect. I did not even have a Bible with me at that point. I went in to the meeting that day an Atheist, and came out of it as a follower of Jesus Christ. I still remember the Bible verse that we discussed for a good amount of time; Romans 10:13 “for anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” That verse just blew me away. I did not know how to react. Until that day, I thought you had to know and follow certain rules to become a follower of anything. That verse just simply shocked me. At the end, that day, March 10th 2007, I did become a follower of Jesus Christ and it completely changed my life.

I did not feel the difference right away, but in upcoming weeks, I found myself asking a bunch of questions to fellow Christians, and looking forward to weekly meetings that I had with Pastor Michael. I found myself looking for and spending more time with people who helped me get to God. And for the first time, I felt as though that empty spot in my heart has been filled, with love of God. And to this day, that hasn’t changed.

A few weeks ago, my mentor passed away with prostate cancer. If God wasn’t with me that day, I honestly don’t know what I would have done. Even though selfishly I miss him a lot, I know that Peter, my mentor is with the Lord now, and that he is happy: Peter was one of the people who were so excited to hear that I had become a follower of Christ, because he himself was in love with God.

God has led me to do many things since I’ve been a follower of His. Just a few days ago, I invited my parents to go to church with me on the way back to Salisbury after Thanksgiving break. I did not know what to expect when I asked that question. But their answer was “yes.” I cannot describe to you how happy that simple word made me feel. The same father who told me to not worry about who Jesus Christ was, was now coming to church with me. When they told me that they enjoyed their first church experience, I was truly happy for them and only wished that there was a church back home where they can go frequently.

If you asked me to describe myself in one word last year around this time, I would probably used words like Japanese, male, dancer, or a student to describe myself. But ask me that now and I will tell you from the bottom of my heart, that I am a Christian: that I have been saved by Jesus Christ, and I am in love with him. Thank you. Hideaki

Neighborhood Life Captured in Art

I want to thank Russell Sullivan for capturing in this mural my hearts desire. It's my desire to bring Christ's Life to our neighborhoods. That is why at Allen we call our cell groups "Neighborhood Life." I am so grateful to be part of a church with a vision for discipleship. I believe the cell church is the best vehicle for life change. I have been walking in this vision since 1995 myself. I had planted a church on the south side of Indianapolis. We grew from my family of 7 to 150 attenders in four years. I had the privilege of leading the majority of those people to Christ.

Even though this was very exciting I was one person and could not disciple all those new believers myself. it was in 1995 that God exposed me to the two-winged church. It was this design that would make it possible for all believers to be rasied up to a lifetime of ministry and discipleship. For those who do not understand that terminology, let me explain. When God designed the church He designed it with two wings. The large wing called Celebration and the small wing called cell. The early church met in the Temple Courts and from house to house. This design represents the very nature of God Himself. He is both transcendent (most high) He is a Great God and also immanent (most nigh) or close and personal God. The Tent of Meeting and Mt Sinai contrast God's transcendent and immanent nature. God designed us His church to experience both these dimensions as well. In a cell church both wings cello and celebration are equal and both are necessary if the church is going to soar to the heights God has called it to.

Through the last 12 years I have been walking in this calling to help people experience the church as God intended. I am called to this cell church vision and thank God for Bill Warren sticking to the vision God gave him 9 years ago. I am grateful that God merged visions and moved Cary and I from Ohio so we could be part of this precious team. I am so excited to see what God does as we obey His clear call to become a cell church. To be a church that not only gathers at one location to worship but scatters into the neighborhoods of the region to impact lives. Thank You God for a Great Adventure!