A Look Back at 2024 from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

Dear wonderful Refreshing Hope Family,

As we close out another year and look back on 2024, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to each of you for being an integral part of our journey here at Refreshing Hope Ministries. Whether you've joined us through reading our devotionals, watching our videos, or listening to our music, your presence and support are deeply valued. It is beautiful to see the community the Lord is building at RHM! I pray this message finds you warm, safe, and happy, covered by the presence of the Lord wherever you happen to be.

2024 has been full of obstacles and growing pains, though nothing has stopped us, for if the Lord brings you to it, He will bring you through it. The Lord doesn’t need someone smart, just obedient. He will bring the smarts as they are needed. That’s the story of my life in a nutshell.

(Proverbs 3:5–10 NKJV) Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones. Honor the LORD with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine.

When I was young, I couldn’t afford a computer because they were so expensive. So, I built one out of parts other people didn’t want. My first computer was an Intel 8086 from 1978, housed in a cardboard box because I didn’t have a case. RHM has been much the same way. We still don’t use computer cases; we never had them before. Why start now? We started RHM using leftover equipment from our computer business, and over the years, we have been upgrading to more modern, energy-efficient equipment as the Lord allows.

Instead of spending $10,000 on a new server, I cherry-picked only the internal parts I wanted and built it here without paying for all the things we didn’t need for 1/5 of the cost. The Lord had me spend twenty years working on computers before He put us in ministry, and we couldn’t do what we do here today without having done that first. He can truly see the end from the beginning.

Just as devotionals, teachings, and songs come to me, plans for a new website did. The Lord gave Noah plans for the ark, Moses plans for the Tabernacle, and David plans for the Temple Solomon built. I knew what we needed, but the problem was it didn’t exist yet. So, I set out to build a custom website for Refreshing Hope that could grow with us over the years, just as Facebook, eBay, Amazon, and others do.

It took me around three years of programming behind the scenes to design and build a social platform from scratch myself. I wrote it line by line without using frameworks (long story omitted here), and I understand how it works, which allows us to do about anything we can imagine. I had planned to work on the new website for quite a while longer, but in April, the Lord created an "emergency" that required us to push it live, ready or not, when 50k of our devotional emails bounced back to us. We could no longer communicate with our members, and that began an upgrade path that led to the site going live far earlier than I had anticipated.

Today, the new website is much better and faster than anything we have ever had. It is also much more phone and tablet-friendly than last year's. It certainly wasn't ready for me, but as so many times before, I found that the Lord doesn't seem to let that worry Him. We are now in the tedious process of restoring content and adding new features. We have a long way to go, but we have also come a long way from where we were. We have made over 500 updates and added new features weekly.

Eventually, we would like to build a small studio here, a place to write and record our devotionals, Bible studies, music, etc.… We currently use a spare bedroom that is about 9’ x 9’ and 81 SQF, but we cannot get the camera far enough away to render properly. It is also noisy at times because our area is growing fast, and so is the traffic. When recording audio, I sometimes have to re-record it or pause it while trucks go by.

We have put together a slideshow for you with pictures taken throughout 2024, showing many of the new features at the website and some of our other times. We spend hundreds of hours working at computers, but that isn’t much to look at, so here are some photos that capture the moments of our lives when we are not in front of a screen. These are the days of our lives. We hope you enjoy it. We love you. God loves you, and He put us here for such a time as this!