Merry Christmas!
Great News for Outreach!Overview:
The ministry is truly in a time of blessing right now. We are excited about the upcoming opening of three discipleship houses. We are in need of some prayer. We believe God for continued financial blessings to make this a reality. We are looking for donations in the way of vehicles to help those coming out of jail to get back on their feet and become reliable employees. We are also in need of sturdy furnishings to furnish the three discipleship houses.
TOY MINISTRY!
As you receive this newsletter, the toy ministry is in full swing. We thank you to everyone who is giving above and beyond their usual giving to make sure that every inmates child is receiving gifts from their incarcerated parent. This does amazing things for the children. It lets them know they are not alone and they are loved. We thank everyone who gave of their time, gifts, and finances to make this happen. Without you, we could not do this. Even our own children are amazed when they see the love that is poured into this project. They know it is all God moving in the hearts of so many people to have this come together so divinely. We are truly blessed by the outpouring of community support. We truly thank you all!
Exciting Events and Ministries
On the second Sunday of every month, our teams, including Dr. Skinner, go into Indian Creek Correction Center and minister to the inmates and perform a church service.
On the second and fourth Sunday of each month, our teams go into the Virginia Beach Correction Center and minister to the inmates, one on one.
Every Sunday we have a team of volunteers performing a church service at Kindred Transitional Care and Rehabilitation at 1148 First Colonial Road in Virginia Beach at 6pm.
Monday evening we have an open Bible Study at our office. We start at 6pm with a meal and then we have an open discussion on whichever Bible passage Dr. Skinner is studying at the time. This is free and open to everyone, we just ask that you call first to reserve a seat so we make sure we have enough food to go around.
Every Thursday evening at 6:00 we have an open Bible study at the office, led by John and Tammy Savola. Refreshments provided. Call to reserve your seat.
Every Friday at 10pm our Street Ministers meet at the office and pray together before going out to do Street Evangelism at the Oceanfront until about 12:30am. You are welcome to join.
Future Goals
1. We are still planning to open a thrift store next year. We are in need of a location that will fit our purpose. We believe that God is preparing the perfect location for this venture.
2. Completing the purchase of and getting all three discipleship houses furnished, occupied and functioning.
3. Continuing to love on and minister to those who feel they have been forgotten by society!
4. We will also continue to hand out the blessing bags to the homeless.
5. Another goal is to continue to share testimonies of God’s faithfulness to people with whom we have been blessed to come into contact with.
Prayer requests
Pray for our faithful donors to be blessed with financial blessings and good health.
Pray for God to soften the hearts of the families of the inmates we are ministering to. We are praying for reconciliation and healed hearts.
Pray also for everyone here at the ministry. Pray for renewed strength and perseverance. Pray for more people to volunteer and help us in the many openings in the ministry.
We would love to hear from you!
Please like us on Facebook so you can see our current events.
You can also call us with praise reports and prayer requests at 757-498-4700
You can write to us at :
PO Box 4326 Virginia Beach, VA 23454-0326
Please come by and visit us between 10am – 2pm Monday through Saturday at :
2425 Bowland Pkwy Suite 108 Virginia Beach, VA 23454
What Else Should I Know?
Just to clarify our statements on the front of the newsletter, I would like to give you an explanation. We put “Jesus must be Lord” on the front page. Let me assure you that Jesus is definitely Lord to those of us at Outreach. He is not yet Lord to many of the people we reach out to on a daily basis. We know that until a person makes Jesus the Lord and Master of their life, they are probably not going to find the victory over their strongholds. This is why we make the declaration that “Jesus must be Lord”! Make no mistake; Jesus is definitely Lord of our lives. We hope this makes the statement a little clearer to everyone.
John and Tammy Savola
Ministry openings and upcoming events!
1. We are still looking for someone gifted in prayer and data entry to train in taking over the prayer letter. It would require about 8 hours twice a month. We will train you if you feel this is where God is calling you.
2. The ministry will be closed for the holidays from December 22 through January 2, 2017. We will have a Christmas Party at Outreach on December 23 at 6:30 pm. If you are a female, bring a wrapped gift for a female valued at $10. If you are a male, bring a gift for a male.
3. We are looking for people we can train in every ministry we have. If you feel the Lord calling you, we would be happy to train you.
4. We need a volunteer that is interested in long term ministry to head up a ministry house. We will interview men for the Men’s house and women for the Women’s house. This person needs to be very disciplined, upright and loyal.
5. We need more people able to do physical labor. We always have a variety of projects going on at the ministry or for the community.
6. We are moving ahead towards the many goals we have for the ministry.
Thank you for reading. Our 20 year old son just had his heart valve replaced. This is the completion of a testimony I wrote a year and a half ago. The surgery was successful. Thank you for praying! So, here is the story:
This is a true story about our own son, Brian. We enjoy sharing testimonies of God’s faithfulness in our lives. This was in July and August of 2015. Sorry for the small print. There was a lot to fit in this small space.
My 18 year old son was struggling with an addiction. This addiction tried to steal everything from him. It even almost took his family from him. We were on the verge of turning our backs on him when he came to me and confessed and repented. This was on July 2, one day before our church baptism. He said he was done and wanted to be baptized the next day. He spoke for hours that evening to one of our young leaders, Robert, about repentance and being restored back to God. The next day he got baptized and got clean and made a commitment to serve the Lord with his life.
That is already a nice story, but God had something much bigger in store for His glory.
Brian goes through the process of withdrawal from this addiction and weeks go by with him getting worse instead of better. He became weaker instead of stronger. When I came home from being at the Women's Encounter Weekend, I saw how terribly sick he was. I knew he needed to go to the hospital immediately.
The first day, they told us he had pneumonia. I thought, okay they can fix that. The next day, they told us it was actually an infection inside his blood stream. It travelled to his heart and his kidneys. On the third day he was unable to breathe on his own. The doctors basically told us to go into the room and say good bye to our son. Already at that point they did not believe he would make it. We went in there and told him we were putting him to sleep for a little while so he could rest up and heal and that we would be right there when he woke up. They sedated him and put him on a ventilator. He was on a machine that was breathing for him.
I knew the enemy was trying to steal Brian's new commitment to God. I know the enemy hates our family because we serve the Lord. He would love to kill steal and destroy everything we love! I also know that we serve a God that still does miracles today! That night, I stood in for Brian while the primary leaders of our church prayed for his complete healing.
We put a password on so nobody could visit Brian's room. The password was "Victory". Nobody visited unless they believed that Brian would be walking out of that room. There was a steady stream of prayer and fasting going on for the life to be restored. We could actually feel the presence of death hovering over him. We rebuked that spirit and cast it out of that room. We actually could feel when it left. Brother Bill told me that just like in the old testament, when they put blood on the doorpost for death to pass by, Brian was covered by the very blood of Jesus and death would have to pass over his door post. Even though the reports from the doctors did not get any better, I knew we had the victory. Sometimes the doctors would ask if I understood. I told them I understand they are making assumptions based on the test results that they could see, but we believe in the healing power of the Holy Spirit that you cannot see. They just shook their heads thinking I was in denial. They would say a lot of negative things and even when Tyana was with me, she would cancel every negative report. She would tell the doctors that Brian would be walking out of here soon and be eating fried chicken. Those tube feedings were only temporary. On day 17, after many blood transfusions, kidney dialysis, tube feedings and draining infection off both side of his lungs, he cam e off the ventilator. He was finally breathing on his own. That was a Tuesday. He had already missed his birthday and developed bed sores. He continued to get dialysis and blood transfusions along with mega doses of antibiotics. I was feeling pretty good about my upcoming trip to Williamsburg for the Pastors Retreat. I was the overseer and wanted everything to be perfect. I was going to arrange people to visit Brian while I was gone for the 3 days Monday to Wednesday.
So then was the very biggest test of my faith yet. Sunday in the middle of the night, we received a dreaded call from the hospital. Brian had an extended seizure that lasted for a length of time. He was back on the ventilator and completely unresponsive. I went to his room to see with my own eyes. It felt as of my son was no longer there. My husband and I played worship songs and sang praises to our Lord even through our tears. We placed Brian in God's hands. There was absolutely nothing we could do. We were helpless as parents. Only God could heal him.
I was late going to the Retreat because I forgot to order the chicken. Sister Tina and I were running around and gathering fried chicken from every store and we were already an hour late. We were getting the last pieces when I saw the number for the hospital pop up on my caller ID. When I answered, it was the neurologist. He told me he did a cat scan of Brian's brain and he believed Brian actually had several strokes affecting both sides of his brain. They did not believe he would recover from this and could not guarantee that he would survive the next 2 days. This was the thing that shook my foundation. My world closed in on me for a bit. I called my husband and told him and then I asked Sister Tina what to do. She never told me what to do, she just kept praying. Then I started to see God's hand in this. That doctor had said 2 more days. That was the time I was supposed to be at the retreat and I felt like the enemy did not want me to go. I cried out to God. I felt God tell me "Take care of my people and I will take care of your people!"
This did not make any sense to my human logic, that when my son needed me the most, I would be driving further away from him. I knew this could only be God. I drove north towards Williamsburg, putting my trust in God. We were already an hour late and as we were driving I saw one of our church vans rolling down the shoulder with a flat tire. We pulled over and retrieved 2 pastors that would have been stuck waiting for hours for the tire repair. We drove them to the retreat while the other driver stayed and waited for the repair. God whispered to me, "You are exactly where I want you". So we went to the retreat and we put smiles on our faces and we did not reveal our inner turmoil to the pastors we were serving. We served them tirelessly. We took care of their every need and trusted God with our biggest prayer. We got little sleep and worked hard and the retreat was a wonderful success. It was a blessing to be there.
We got a call the next day from the same neurologist. He said he did an MRI of Brian's brain and apparently he did not have a stroke after all. He had swelling on the brain due to his blood pressure going so high from his kidney failure. He said this was a better prognosis because people do recover from this. At this point he was not sure what kind of deficit Brian might have because there was still no change. He was still unresponsive. I was thinking well, this is only the second day. God raised Jesus from the dead in 3 days. God was still at work. The next morning I called to check on him and it was one of the nurses we knew well. She said that he was still unresponsive but she thinks he might be starting to come out of it. He was still not making eye contact, but he would put his hand down when told. I still had a lot of work to do and when we got back to the church we continued to trust. One of our out of town visitors was a young man that was very close to Brian. He had lived with us for a year. We took Hannibal with us to visit Brian. We did not know what to expect but when we went into the room, I knew that God had answered our prayer. Brian was alert and completely aware of everything. When he saw Hannibal, the tears started to fall. A couple days later, he came off the ventilator and continued to improve. This last Sunday, he stood up in front of our church and shared his testimony of God's faithfulness. He said it was time to get serious. Maybe he was speaking to you! Let's stop playing around. This life we live is a gift from God and when we spend it only looking for our own fulfillment, we will never find it. God created us with an empty spot that can only be filled by him. Stop looking to the things of this world for satisfaction. The good life is when we serve our Creator!
Great News for Outreach!Overview:
The ministry is truly in a time of blessing right now. We are excited about the upcoming opening of three discipleship houses. We are in need of some prayer. We believe God for continued financial blessings to make this a reality. We are looking for donations in the way of vehicles to help those coming out of jail to get back on their feet and become reliable employees. We are also in need of sturdy furnishings to furnish the three discipleship houses.
TOY MINISTRY!
As you receive this newsletter, the toy ministry is in full swing. We thank you to everyone who is giving above and beyond their usual giving to make sure that every inmates child is receiving gifts from their incarcerated parent. This does amazing things for the children. It lets them know they are not alone and they are loved. We thank everyone who gave of their time, gifts, and finances to make this happen. Without you, we could not do this. Even our own children are amazed when they see the love that is poured into this project. They know it is all God moving in the hearts of so many people to have this come together so divinely. We are truly blessed by the outpouring of community support. We truly thank you all!
Exciting Events and Ministries
On the second Sunday of every month, our teams, including Dr. Skinner, go into Indian Creek Correction Center and minister to the inmates and perform a church service.
On the second and fourth Sunday of each month, our teams go into the Virginia Beach Correction Center and minister to the inmates, one on one.
Every Sunday we have a team of volunteers performing a church service at Kindred Transitional Care and Rehabilitation at 1148 First Colonial Road in Virginia Beach at 6pm.
Monday evening we have an open Bible Study at our office. We start at 6pm with a meal and then we have an open discussion on whichever Bible passage Dr. Skinner is studying at the time. This is free and open to everyone, we just ask that you call first to reserve a seat so we make sure we have enough food to go around.
Every Thursday evening at 6:00 we have an open Bible study at the office, led by John and Tammy Savola. Refreshments provided. Call to reserve your seat.
Every Friday at 10pm our Street Ministers meet at the office and pray together before going out to do Street Evangelism at the Oceanfront until about 12:30am. You are welcome to join.
Future Goals
1. We are still planning to open a thrift store next year. We are in need of a location that will fit our purpose. We believe that God is preparing the perfect location for this venture.
2. Completing the purchase of and getting all three discipleship houses furnished, occupied and functioning.
3. Continuing to love on and minister to those who feel they have been forgotten by society!
4. We will also continue to hand out the blessing bags to the homeless.
5. Another goal is to continue to share testimonies of God’s faithfulness to people with whom we have been blessed to come into contact with.
Prayer requests
Pray for our faithful donors to be blessed with financial blessings and good health.
Pray for God to soften the hearts of the families of the inmates we are ministering to. We are praying for reconciliation and healed hearts.
Pray also for everyone here at the ministry. Pray for renewed strength and perseverance. Pray for more people to volunteer and help us in the many openings in the ministry.
We would love to hear from you!
Please like us on Facebook so you can see our current events.
You can also call us with praise reports and prayer requests at 757-498-4700
You can write to us at :
PO Box 4326 Virginia Beach, VA 23454-0326
Please come by and visit us between 10am – 2pm Monday through Saturday at :
2425 Bowland Pkwy Suite 108 Virginia Beach, VA 23454
What Else Should I Know?
Just to clarify our statements on the front of the newsletter, I would like to give you an explanation. We put “Jesus must be Lord” on the front page. Let me assure you that Jesus is definitely Lord to those of us at Outreach. He is not yet Lord to many of the people we reach out to on a daily basis. We know that until a person makes Jesus the Lord and Master of their life, they are probably not going to find the victory over their strongholds. This is why we make the declaration that “Jesus must be Lord”! Make no mistake; Jesus is definitely Lord of our lives. We hope this makes the statement a little clearer to everyone.
John and Tammy Savola
Ministry openings and upcoming events!
1. We are still looking for someone gifted in prayer and data entry to train in taking over the prayer letter. It would require about 8 hours twice a month. We will train you if you feel this is where God is calling you.
2. The ministry will be closed for the holidays from December 22 through January 2, 2017. We will have a Christmas Party at Outreach on December 23 at 6:30 pm. If you are a female, bring a wrapped gift for a female valued at $10. If you are a male, bring a gift for a male.
3. We are looking for people we can train in every ministry we have. If you feel the Lord calling you, we would be happy to train you.
4. We need a volunteer that is interested in long term ministry to head up a ministry house. We will interview men for the Men’s house and women for the Women’s house. This person needs to be very disciplined, upright and loyal.
5. We need more people able to do physical labor. We always have a variety of projects going on at the ministry or for the community.
6. We are moving ahead towards the many goals we have for the ministry.
Thank you for reading. Our 20 year old son just had his heart valve replaced. This is the completion of a testimony I wrote a year and a half ago. The surgery was successful. Thank you for praying! So, here is the story:
This is a true story about our own son, Brian. We enjoy sharing testimonies of God’s faithfulness in our lives. This was in July and August of 2015. Sorry for the small print. There was a lot to fit in this small space.
My 18 year old son was struggling with an addiction. This addiction tried to steal everything from him. It even almost took his family from him. We were on the verge of turning our backs on him when he came to me and confessed and repented. This was on July 2, one day before our church baptism. He said he was done and wanted to be baptized the next day. He spoke for hours that evening to one of our young leaders, Robert, about repentance and being restored back to God. The next day he got baptized and got clean and made a commitment to serve the Lord with his life.
That is already a nice story, but God had something much bigger in store for His glory.
Brian goes through the process of withdrawal from this addiction and weeks go by with him getting worse instead of better. He became weaker instead of stronger. When I came home from being at the Women's Encounter Weekend, I saw how terribly sick he was. I knew he needed to go to the hospital immediately.
The first day, they told us he had pneumonia. I thought, okay they can fix that. The next day, they told us it was actually an infection inside his blood stream. It travelled to his heart and his kidneys. On the third day he was unable to breathe on his own. The doctors basically told us to go into the room and say good bye to our son. Already at that point they did not believe he would make it. We went in there and told him we were putting him to sleep for a little while so he could rest up and heal and that we would be right there when he woke up. They sedated him and put him on a ventilator. He was on a machine that was breathing for him.
I knew the enemy was trying to steal Brian's new commitment to God. I know the enemy hates our family because we serve the Lord. He would love to kill steal and destroy everything we love! I also know that we serve a God that still does miracles today! That night, I stood in for Brian while the primary leaders of our church prayed for his complete healing.
We put a password on so nobody could visit Brian's room. The password was "Victory". Nobody visited unless they believed that Brian would be walking out of that room. There was a steady stream of prayer and fasting going on for the life to be restored. We could actually feel the presence of death hovering over him. We rebuked that spirit and cast it out of that room. We actually could feel when it left. Brother Bill told me that just like in the old testament, when they put blood on the doorpost for death to pass by, Brian was covered by the very blood of Jesus and death would have to pass over his door post. Even though the reports from the doctors did not get any better, I knew we had the victory. Sometimes the doctors would ask if I understood. I told them I understand they are making assumptions based on the test results that they could see, but we believe in the healing power of the Holy Spirit that you cannot see. They just shook their heads thinking I was in denial. They would say a lot of negative things and even when Tyana was with me, she would cancel every negative report. She would tell the doctors that Brian would be walking out of here soon and be eating fried chicken. Those tube feedings were only temporary. On day 17, after many blood transfusions, kidney dialysis, tube feedings and draining infection off both side of his lungs, he cam e off the ventilator. He was finally breathing on his own. That was a Tuesday. He had already missed his birthday and developed bed sores. He continued to get dialysis and blood transfusions along with mega doses of antibiotics. I was feeling pretty good about my upcoming trip to Williamsburg for the Pastors Retreat. I was the overseer and wanted everything to be perfect. I was going to arrange people to visit Brian while I was gone for the 3 days Monday to Wednesday.
So then was the very biggest test of my faith yet. Sunday in the middle of the night, we received a dreaded call from the hospital. Brian had an extended seizure that lasted for a length of time. He was back on the ventilator and completely unresponsive. I went to his room to see with my own eyes. It felt as of my son was no longer there. My husband and I played worship songs and sang praises to our Lord even through our tears. We placed Brian in God's hands. There was absolutely nothing we could do. We were helpless as parents. Only God could heal him.
I was late going to the Retreat because I forgot to order the chicken. Sister Tina and I were running around and gathering fried chicken from every store and we were already an hour late. We were getting the last pieces when I saw the number for the hospital pop up on my caller ID. When I answered, it was the neurologist. He told me he did a cat scan of Brian's brain and he believed Brian actually had several strokes affecting both sides of his brain. They did not believe he would recover from this and could not guarantee that he would survive the next 2 days. This was the thing that shook my foundation. My world closed in on me for a bit. I called my husband and told him and then I asked Sister Tina what to do. She never told me what to do, she just kept praying. Then I started to see God's hand in this. That doctor had said 2 more days. That was the time I was supposed to be at the retreat and I felt like the enemy did not want me to go. I cried out to God. I felt God tell me "Take care of my people and I will take care of your people!"
This did not make any sense to my human logic, that when my son needed me the most, I would be driving further away from him. I knew this could only be God. I drove north towards Williamsburg, putting my trust in God. We were already an hour late and as we were driving I saw one of our church vans rolling down the shoulder with a flat tire. We pulled over and retrieved 2 pastors that would have been stuck waiting for hours for the tire repair. We drove them to the retreat while the other driver stayed and waited for the repair. God whispered to me, "You are exactly where I want you". So we went to the retreat and we put smiles on our faces and we did not reveal our inner turmoil to the pastors we were serving. We served them tirelessly. We took care of their every need and trusted God with our biggest prayer. We got little sleep and worked hard and the retreat was a wonderful success. It was a blessing to be there.
We got a call the next day from the same neurologist. He said he did an MRI of Brian's brain and apparently he did not have a stroke after all. He had swelling on the brain due to his blood pressure going so high from his kidney failure. He said this was a better prognosis because people do recover from this. At this point he was not sure what kind of deficit Brian might have because there was still no change. He was still unresponsive. I was thinking well, this is only the second day. God raised Jesus from the dead in 3 days. God was still at work. The next morning I called to check on him and it was one of the nurses we knew well. She said that he was still unresponsive but she thinks he might be starting to come out of it. He was still not making eye contact, but he would put his hand down when told. I still had a lot of work to do and when we got back to the church we continued to trust. One of our out of town visitors was a young man that was very close to Brian. He had lived with us for a year. We took Hannibal with us to visit Brian. We did not know what to expect but when we went into the room, I knew that God had answered our prayer. Brian was alert and completely aware of everything. When he saw Hannibal, the tears started to fall. A couple days later, he came off the ventilator and continued to improve. This last Sunday, he stood up in front of our church and shared his testimony of God's faithfulness. He said it was time to get serious. Maybe he was speaking to you! Let's stop playing around. This life we live is a gift from God and when we spend it only looking for our own fulfillment, we will never find it. God created us with an empty spot that can only be filled by him. Stop looking to the things of this world for satisfaction. The good life is when we serve our Creator!