Jon Stover

Getting ready for summer

By Jon Stover on May 4, 2022 in Uncategorized

Greetings praying friends and family,

After a short reprieve this past week, we are ready for our May meetings. Our meetings for this month are primarily local, so we have more time to prepare for our trip this summer. However, we have also had two of our meetings this month rescheduled on short notice. Pray for us as we attempt to replace those meetings and reschedule the cancelled ones.
We are right around 90% of our needed support pledged and 80% coming in. There are several churches that have expressed the intent of supporting us and several more that expressed interest. The meetings this past month have been good. We are on track to reach our goal of full support by summer, but we would still appreciate your prayers that God would bring that to pass. Also, thank you all for your prayers for us thus far; we know that we have come this far because of your prayers.
The most exciting thing at the moment is our survey trip is finally going to happen this summer, pending any intervention from God. While details are not solidified yet, we are looking at June 29-August 3. During this time, we will also be able to attend the European Missions Retreat and meet with many other fellow missionaries! There are a few things we would ask in regards to our trip: pray that we would be able to find a place to rent for the time that will be within our budget, that we would have safety in our travels, that we would be a blessing to the Petersons and church there, and that we can begin to find a more permanent home while there so that we will have a place to live when we move there later this year.
Speaking of our move to Germany, we are about 50% of our moving fund. Pray with us that we would be able to raise the remainder of that amount quickly.
Everyone in the family is doing well. Simeon is as energetic as ever, and he has started to say more things. He is still inconsistent using his words without prompting, but he is starting to put phrases together. It is amazing to see how much he is growing, and encouraging to see how much he loves his Bible book and sing Bible songs.

75% and onward!

By Jon Stover on January 18, 2022 in Uncategorized

Greetings, Praying friends and family,

We are back in Odenton for a little downtime for the next two weeks before heading south and west for two months(-ish). We are taking the time to get a few necessities resolved, and will also be attempting to fill more of our schedule for the coming year.

We just finished up a fantastic missions conference at Salisbury Baptist Temple. Pastor Leto and the people there made us feel like family, and we made good friends it was hard to say goodbye to. We praise the Lord that we were able to be a part of their missions conference.

Some general news for us: Lena was able to get the temporary stamp in her passport, so that is an answer to prayer. With the ever-changing landscape of Covid restrictions, we believe it wise to wait until the requirements for travel have stabilized. That said, we are still anticipating traveling to Germany this summer. Pray that everything would line up for that to happen.

Simeon is as active as ever! He has been running all over the place, climbing and getting into everything. He tends to wear us parents out within the first few hours of the day. It may be a less-spiritual prayer, but please ask God to give us the endurance to keep up with our growing bundle of energy.

Our support has reached around 75%. The calculations are still a little fuzzy, and I think that we are a percent or two under, but we are definitely close! The reality of our departure later this year is starting to sink in, and we have been going through our belongings to downsize for our move to Germany. Three requests to go with that: 1) Pray for our support levels; we would like to reach 85% by the end of winter and full support by summertime. 2) Pray for our passage fund, which currently is ~15% but growing quickly. 3) Pray that we would wisely consolidate our belongings.

As always, thank you for your prayers! We have seen God bring us this far because His people pray, and we know He will bring us to an expected end!

Getting close to 2022

By Jon Stover on November 19, 2021 in Uncategorized

Greetings, praying friends and family,
It is hard to believe that 2022 is almost here. We are excited what the Lord has done for us this year, and look forward to what is yet to come!
Our travels so far this month have taken us down to Pace, FL and up to Pecatonica, IL. Our plans changed some preparing for this trip, but God has blessed, and there have been some wonderful churches that allowed us to stay in their missions chambers as we went. After this Sunday, we head back to Odenton for a meeting in NY and PA.
Our December is going to be spent in the US again, it seems. First, Lena’s green card update: the congressman has basically told us there is nothing he can do. However, we learned that there is a special stamp that we can get that will serve for her green card until we get the real thing. We have made arrangements to get that stamp and are waiting to hear back from Immigration Services later this month. Second, Germany has gone back on lockdown for travel from the United States and does not look like it will reopen until the Delta variant has decreased. As such, it does not look as though we will be traveling to Germany for a while yet. Thank you for your continued prayers for both of these situations.
Our schedule for next year is continuing to slowly fill, but we are still looking to fill more meetings. Please pray that God would help us fill our schedule.
Everyone is well, and everything is holding up. Thank you for your prayers; we know God is working.
Our support level is still increasing, and we have several churches that have told us that they will be voting soon as to whether they will take us for support. Please pray over these churches; we are excited to see our support increase and are praying to reach 75% before the end of the year, though we would be happy to see it by the end of winter.

On the Road Again (again)!

By Jon Stover on May 25, 2021 in Uncategorized

Greetings, praying friends and family,

A bit overdue for an update, I know, but April has been a busy month for us. We have been traveling quite a bit, and are now leaving for our circuit of the US. We will be traveling today to Illinois for Sunday, Oklahoma for Wednesday, and Arizona for the next Sunday. That’s only the start! Our travels will take us to Texas, Florida, back to Illinois, Nebraska, Mississippi, and Alabama before heading back to Maryland. Please pray for us as we put the miles behind us. We have a good number of churches to visit, but there are some gaps in our schedule also, particularly Nebraska. Pray that we would be able to fill a couple more of those meetings. We currently have 23 churches and several individuals supporting us for~43%. We are anticipate breaking that half-way point soon! Pray that we would reach it by the end of spring. It is our desire to be field-ready by the end of the year, but it will take the work of God for it to happen. This month has been good. We had several good visits with churches with positive feedback, and we believe that, if the mission budgets increase in these churches, they will take us on for financial support. Of course, prayer support is the most important thing, and we praise God for you all often for the prayers you say for us! We will probably never know how many things we were spared from because of your faithful prayers. From the depths of our hearts, thank you again!

Happy Easter!

By Jon Stover on April 2, 2021 in Uncategorized

Greetings, praying friends and family,

Happy Easter to you all! We rejoice over another anniversary of the resurrection of our Savior, and we look forward to another year to spread the gospel to the lost. We currently have 22 churches supporting us, and are just under 40%. While it is not where we were praying we would be at the start of spring, but it still means that we have seen 10 churches take us on for support and gained around 20% (there was an adjustment to our projected budget). God made all that happen in half a year! We praise the Lord for what He has done, and we know He will continue to do great things for us! We are praying that we would have 50 supporting churches and be at 100% by the end of the year. Please pray with us to that end!Our meetings in Maryland have been good, and we are praising God for our safety and time to recover slightly during our two weeks. God has been good, even though our travels have been more local. We enjoyed our time with both churches, and had the opportunity to preach in chapel as well. We also had a meeting at Gethsemane Baptist Church in Radford, VA this last Wednesday. It was a good time, and we were blessed for being there!We will be traveling a bit more this month, as we will be in Pennsylvania (Hannahstown Baptist in Cabot) and Ohio (Victory Baptist in Lodi) the next two weeks. God has give us a relatively full schedule for April, although we would like to fill some of our Wednesdays. If we can’t, we will be using the time to visit churches in the areas around us. Pray that all of these meetings go well.That’s all for now, so here’s a picture of Simeon, now seven months old. He is doing well; thank you for your prayers!

(Almost) The End of Winter

By Jon Stover on March 19, 2021 in Uncategorized

Greetings, praying friends and family,
We are back in Maryland, and finally feel like we are set up again. God has been good to us in keeping us safe, but we are still a little weary from our travels. We have been up to Pennsylvania twice and out to Michigan and back. We had good meetings all around. We are praising God for all He has done. It is good to be back to meetings again, but we still have some gaps in our schedule. Pray for us to fill those meetings.
We are in Maryland for the next two weeks. It will be nice not to have to travel for several hours to reach our next meeting, and we are looking forward to a couple of weeks of “downtime.” Pray that we can be a blessing to these churches: Hampshire View Baptist Church and People’s Baptist Church.
Simeon is doing well. He is six months now. He’s trying solid foods and rolling around in the little space that we have. We are still working on sitting up on our own, but he’s already working on crawling. He is a very mobile boy already, so please pray for us as he starts moving all over the place. I don’t know if we are mentally prepared for that.
We are praying that God would give us 25 supporting churches and 50% by the end of winter. We are three churches and about 10% shy of our goal. Please, please pray that God would help us reach these milestones; with only a couple of days until spring, it must be God’s working to achieve these milestones. It would be a huge encouragement to us and a great testament to God’s power!

Snovid-21

By Jon Stover on February 18, 2021 in Uncategorized

Greetings, praying friends and family,
As many of you have probably heard, Texas is experiencing historic lows and record snowfall. When the Northeast is >50°F warmer than Texas, you know it is pretty bad weather. We are surviving “Snovid,” as we have taken to calling it, but it has been rough the last couple of days. God has been good, though, and we want to praise Him for it. We were fortunate to get our car repaired before the snowfall began, but not before our trip down to visit friends from Odenton who moved out here. Our friends Kate and Todd Stowe, whom we are staying with, allowed us to borrow a car, which was a huge blessing. We had a great time with the Richards and Aurands, and we thank Pastor Webster and Ambassador Baptist Church for allowing us to present on such short notice. We were also able to schedule a couple of meetings from the churches we visited. God has been good. We did, however, have to reschedule the meeting from this past Sunday. Again, we never would have expected cancellations due to snow in Texas. With temperatures below 0°F, many people, including our hosts, lost power and water. However, their Sunday School teacher still had power and a spare room, so we were able to keep Simeon warm and comfortable. Thank you, Bro. Terry and Miss Lenda; you were a true blessing to us, and we know God will bless you for it. We are praying that “Snovid” won’t prevent us from keeping our final meeting this coming Sunday in Vernon, TX. Please pray with us to that regard. It is suppose to warm up starting today, and get up to the fifties tomorrow, so we anticipate that the snow will melt and not be an issue for Sunday, Lord willing.
We will be heading back to Odenton for meetings in the Northeast this Tuesday (Kate’s birthday is Monday, so we are staying to celebrate). Pray that we have good weather and safe travels back.

Brushing off the Dust

By Jon Stover on January 29, 2021 in Quick Update

Greetings, Praying friend and family,

With baby Simeon taking much of our time, our updates on Facebook have taken priority. I fear that I have neglected my posts here; partly because we had some issues when the domain renewed, and partly because, as I said, our Facebook page took precedent.
To catch up those who do not use Facebook (believe me, I envy you), our son was born August 31, 2020, happy and healthy (mostly). We have been able to keep most of our meetings through the fall, and God has brought us to now have 17 supporting churches and just under 35%. We were not able to go on our survey trip in December due to coronavirus, but we are praising the Lord for time we had to spend with family.
We are in Texas at the moment, visiting some churches down here. We were not able to get anything scheduled for January, and since our next meeting in February is in Texas, we decided to head south to drop in on a couple of churches down here. Already God has blessed our time with sweet reunions; Lena seems to know people everywhere, and we met a Russian lady who got to talk with her. God has also granted us some additional meetings, and we praise the Lord and thank the churches for last minute scheduling.
Our car is having some issues that we will need to get looked at. Pray that it would be an easy/cheap fix. I can do most small things myself, but I don’t know enough about cars to try anything major, and it sounds like this isn’t something I can do myself.
Simeon is doing well, he is a happy and joyful baby, but he is having some minor health issues. Pray that they would resolve themselves; we are praising the Lord that the insurance has already approved treatment should treatment be needed.
I am working on updating the website, but I am not web-savvy. Mostly it is just updating information and uploading new things, but when something goes wrong, I’m not very knowledgeable to fix it. All that to say we are trying to get our updated presentation on the website, and I’m hitting a few snags. Don’t be surprised if you don’t see Simeon in it for a while.
As always, thank you for your prayers! We are hoping to be at 25 supporting churches and 50% by winter’s end. It will take a work of God, but we know nothing is impossible with Him!

Prayerfully yours,
Jon, Olena, and Simeon Stover

Baby Watch is Go!

By Jon Stover on August 21, 2020 in Quick Update

Greetings praying friends and family,

Baby watch is official here! In only a couple more days, our son will be born! We are excited and nervous. Pray that God would give us calmness during this time, because there is a lot on our minds regarding the birth. So far, all reports seem positive, and there doesn’t seem to be any concern from the doctors. We praise the Lord for that! Thank you all for your prayers; I firmly believe that God has kept mother and baby safe because of them.
July saw things slow down a little, as we were only able to schedule two meetings: Lighthouse Baptist Church in Dover, PA and Berean Baptist Church in Newville, PA. We had a great time of fellowship with each of them, but particularly with Pastor Bob, as he was the pastor of Simferopol Baptist Church, where my wife went to church in Crimea. It was good to get to know them, and Lena had a great time catching up on everything. We are so thankful for their continued service to the Lord in Newville.
Our schedule for August was intentionally left empty because of the birth. There were a lot of worries early on about what complications there could be, but, as I said, praise God none of them have been realized so far. While we don’t have any meetings for this month, it does give me lots of time to contact churches old and new to plan for 2021. Pray that God would give us a full calendar next year.
September and October picks things up again, with meetings in PA, MD, and NY. We have had a few cancellations, but so far our schedule looks like it will stay intact. There are still concerns about the coronavirus, and traveling with a newborn will make life quite exciting as well. Pray that God would keep the doors open so that we can keep out schedule and stay safe and healthy as well.
We are still planning our survey trip for December, but with traveling restrictions, we aren’t sure if that is going to work out. First, Germany is not currently open to travelers from the US, and second, we need to obtain a passport for our son. These are the difficulties, but we serve a mighty God, and we trust that He will open the doors for us, as he has always done. Pray with us that God would allow us to travel in December if it is His will.
We have had another church vote to take us on for support! We are excited to represent Open Door Bible Baptist Church of Astoria, NY! We are getting very close to the 25% support milestone. We have been praying that we would reach 25% and 12 supporting churches by the end of summer, and ask that you would pray with us. We trust God to answer in His time, but it is something that we would like to see God do!
The next update should include some baby pictures, so stay posted!

Out sowing again

By Jon Stover on June 25, 2020 in Quick Update

Greetings, prayer friends and family,

It was good to get back out on the streets and talk to people about Jesus again! With this last round of churches, I had the opportunity to go out on visitation with some of the pastors. It is still a marvel to me that people, even when they see the truth and have no arguments against it, how they fight against and deny God! All the more reason to sow the seed and reach the lost, for their ears are growing dim, but there are still those that will here. Pray, pray for those lost souls in Germany, and for the lost souls in Indianapolis, Shelbyville, IN, and Council Bluff, Iowa. May they have another chance to hear the gospel before it is too late.
Our meetings this month have been with churches of small number, but God is good! I enjoyed getting to minister to the churches of Fountain Square Baptist Church (Indianapolis), Eastern Hills Baptist Church (Council Bluff), and Victorious Life Baptist Church (Shelbyville). The people were very friendly, and it is with God to work through the many or the few. God supplies for us, and He can do so with a church of few just and He can with a church of many.
My travels have been uneventful; thank you so much for your prayers. I am ready to get back home to see my Beloved! We have been apart now for nearly three weeks, but my heart aches to see her again. Thank you for praying for us; without the comfort of the Lord during this time, it would have been unbearable. We have one more meeting in Michagan before I can get back to her, though. Please pray that God would use us at First Baptist Church in Westland this Sunday.
Lena is doing well, but she is feeling the pregnancy now. She is now into the third trimester; just a little more to go before the baby is here! However, her energy goes quickly, and it is hard for her because she is used to doing a lot. Pray that she would have the energy she needs to do the things she wants. Thank you for your continued prayers for her and the baby; so far, none of the complications that the doctors have been worried about have happened, but please continue to pray. We can see God’s hand of protection keeping us.
That is all I have for the moment. Keep praying the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers!