August 4, 2022
Dear Praying Friends,

Over the last couple of years, our family has taken up biking.  Several of our children received nice bicycles as birthday gifts, allowing to tackle harder and longer trails.  We brave a few blocks of street biking with five kids and a toddler cart in tow, and then we ride the trail for 10-15 miles.  (We always get a lot of looks when we ding the bell and say, “Seven bikes passing on your left!”)  The Bronx is hilly and the streets not as well arranged as Manhattan.  So, we always end up riding through a lot of uphill and downhill sections on our rides.  The uphill sections are difficult, especially for Henry on his little one-speed bike.  They require us to change gears, slow down, and pump harder to maintain momentum and crest the hill.  There is usually a water break, a beautiful view, or a welcome “downhill” awaiting us if we can just make it to the top!

Church planting over the last few months, and even years (since 2020) has felt like an uphill bike ride.  We have had to slow down, change gears, and work harder to not lose momentum.  There have been challenges, but also some beautiful “views” when we get a glimpse of what God is doing behind the scenes.  Here are some lovely things from the last few weeks:

In July, we participated in an evangelism day with a local evangelist.  During one of the preaching/chalk talk sessions in our Bronx neighborhood, a man named Jason accepted Christ as his Savior.  Please pray that we have the opportunity to disciple this man thoroughly.

Five teenagers from our church attended Christian summer camp in mid-July.  They came back having made good decisions to please the Lord with their lives.  One young man, named Steven, had been faithfully attending teen Bible study for several months, but not trusted Christ.  On Wednesday night during camp, he accepted Jesus as his Savior.  Pray for Steven’s growth as a new believer and for his family to also be saved.

Over the past week, we have been blessed by the ministry of the Jones family of First Baptist Church in Gunnison, Colorado.  We distributed close to 1,000 water bottles with our church label on them and a tract about thirsting for living water.  Thousands of tracts and door hangers were handed out in our neighborhood, and several Bible clubs were held in different parks around our location.  Please pray for fruit to come as a result of these outreaches.

Recently, a man in our church has taken over the song leading for Ben.  It is so nice to add others laboring alongside us each week!  Some of our teenagers are also participating in the music ministry with flute and clarinet.  We added two new members in May (they have attended for a long time, but finally made it “official.”)  Additionally, we changed up the Sunday schedule to include a prayer time before the morning service.  This has been well attended and is a blessing!

Our last prayer request for this letter remains that we will find a more permanent location.  We have been renting from another church outside our target neighborhood for the past nine months.  However, the rent has become unaffordable, and we have given our notice to terminate the lease.  We have a couple of leads on places right in Kingsbridge.  We need God’s wisdom, provision, and open door to lead us to the right place (beginning in September!)
Serving in “da Bronx”,
The Hamilton Family
Ben & Andrea, Elaine, Nolan, Liberty, Nehemiah, Henry, Peter, and Finn