New Year Triumph!

Murch Family Business Soars, Our Crisis is Miraculously Over!

Many of you know that our family has gone through an 18-month ordeal in the area of our finances. On top of this, my beloved wife Beverly still suffers from serious depression, which has lasted almost three years now. Our situation was so bad that we were in danger of losing our home, being almost five months behind on the lease. EVERY bill that came in was a shutoff notice. We had no firewood (our only source of heat) and no propane (cooking and hot water). Our freezer, which is usually packed with venison, was empty and turned off. We were eating our Y2K food: rice, beans, pasta, and wheat for bread.

Our Thanksgiving Miracle

One of the things we do for income is real estate title examinations. But we lost our liability insurance for this work, and were left without the money to purchase it. We tried to build the business back up, but only a very few clients would give us title work without it.

We were trying to earn money over the internet this last year by going back into woodworking, internet marketing, selling off things on eBay, etc. A couple of days before Thanksgiving I called a friend in Massachusetts who owns a company. We used to work for them until we started the title work. I thought I would see if they had any extra work we could do to try to get back on our feet. This work is all done online, so it is perfect for us.

There was good news and bad news. The bad news was there was no regular work for us. The good news was that all the company's partners had agreed to pay our back rent and underwrite our liability insurance for the title examination business for a year! In return, we will do 150-200 hours worth of work for them in the coming months, as their new project unfolds.

A happy Dad sports the latest in "Christmas ties".

This miracle was just the beginning! We got a call from one of our title clients, a timber company, who invited us to come to one of their tracts nearby, where they had just cut 50 acres of timber. They are allowing us to glean anything they have left behind, which is at least two years worth of firewood!

Our title work, even before I got the insurance secured, all of a sudden went through the roof! The miraculous thing is that the month before Christmas is traditionally one of the slowest times of the year for this work.

On top of that, we always put up a sign in the local market asking hunters who have deer meat they don't want, to drop the deer off at our house. This hunting season we got 15 deer dropped off! That kept my boys mighty busy gutting, dressing, and processing around 400 lbs. of free meat! (For you health-minded folks, that's 400 lbs of ultra-lean grass-fed organic meat!)

At the very same time, our 21-year-old son Ben, who owns a home replica-building business got so busy he almost couldn't keep up with the work, and was able to pay down his debt to his folks, and contribute to the family income.

Our oldest son Aaron, who had also been in the title business that went belly-up, got an outside job after several months of searching, and he began to contribute to the family support as well.

So, practically overnight, all these events happening over the span of a few days, we were out of financial trouble as quickly as we had gotten into it 18 months ago.

I cannot pretend that I understand why we went through this, or even why it's over now. But I thank and praise Jehovah for His unmerited grace and mercy toward me and my family!

Our Thanks To Our Supporters

There were several of our supporters who were particularly instrumental of God in helping us through this long nightmare. I won't mention names, because they prefer to do their giving in secret.But we thank all of you who helped. Most of these gifts were not responses to the several appeals we did, but were ongoing commitments from people that have supported us for years.

With our financial situation vastly improved, we will again be able to devote any donations we receive to the actual expenses of doing ministry work, rather than support for our family.

MINISTRY UPDATE

Three of the Murch children, Lauren (19), Sam (17) and Jesse (16) attended Faithful Soldier School of Evangelism near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This school was started by street preacher Jason Storms, longtime friend of the Murch Family and Full Quiver Mission. There will be another semester of this school in April. Click the link for the school for more information.

Ben practices guitar in the living room.

The kids returned from the school even more on fire than when they left! Since they have returned they have stayed busy in ministry, between getting all the farm chores done, like the firewood and the meat processing. They have also done some door-to-door evangelism in the town where our home church is located. The weekend of Feb 4th they will be in Miami, preaching, witnessing and handing our gospel tracts at the Super Bowl.

Ben (21), Sam (18) and Jesse (16) have been learning guitar and are starting to play in church, with the rest of the Murch kids singing. Lauren has been teaching herself to play the electric keyboard, and although not feeling confident enough to play in public, she OUGHT to. They plan to use these talents in their evangelistic outreach when possible.

Please keep us in your regular prayers and rejoice with us for our family's miracle!