Greetings in the wonderful name of Jesus. We pray that you are well as you enter this New Year. May God bless each of you during this New Year.

Looking over the past year, we have seen God work in so many ways. We would like to share a few of the highlights from 2006 with you.

Kid’s club continues on and we have a constant group growing in their faith and relationship with God, though attendance dropped some during our trip to the USA. Also, the fact that Jen is leaving Mexico has impacted the kids. We have a young lady – from our church – named Rocio that wants to head up a team to lead Kid’s Club. We hope that this year will be a stronger year for the group and we hope to see real advances.

There were several guest speakers, Americans and Mexicans that came to share God’s word with us and to minister this past year. One Pastor from the USA lead a healing service where we saw God’s power released in powerful ways. One elderly lady entered the church walking with at cane and hunched over, but she left without the cane and upright. Another young man came that had cerebral palsy, his leg straightened out more and his shoulders actually straightened so he could walk correctly. Several people that had back pains from accidents or injuries had their spinal columns straightened and pain relieved. It was such a blessing to see this God’s power so evident and to see the impact this had on the believers…and especially those that didn’t know Christ yet.

Our women’s group finished Elizabeth George’s study, “A Woman after God’s Own Heart”. It served as a good discipleship tool and many of our women showed real growth. Since we currently don’t have a men’s group, even a couple of men began to attend because they didn’t want to be left behind. Next week we begin “the Patriarchs” by Beth Moore. Tracy is currently taking it in English and will be translating all the video material into Spanish for the ladies (and maybe men) in our church.

In October and November we held the 40 Day, Purpose Driven Life series. It was 40 days of blessing, excitement, enthusiasm, and commitment for the entire church. We are still in the process of getting things together to open new areas of ministry, train new leaders, and branch out into new outreaches outside of the church. About 12 cell groups opened up during this campaign, and continue. Please pray that this growth and excitement will continue and that God will continue to stir up leadership and volunteers.

In February we will be distributing the Samaritan’s Purse Gift of Hope Boxes in Kid’s Club and our church. These are the boxes that the Billy Graham Association collects and sends to needy kids around the world. We were able to get the boxes this year, but weren’t sure when they would arrive…so we couldn’t make plans to distribute them for Christmas. We are going to restart our Kid’s Club – after a winter break – with a special evangelistic service and the packages.

During Christmas and New Year’s break, we were able to finally take a breather and spend some time sort of vacationing. I say “sort of” because we still held Sunday services, and there were still some responsibilities with the church, but it was a much less busy time. We really didn’t leave the city, but were able to do some fun activities as a family and with our neighbors here in the apartments where we live. We took one day to attend part of a 4 day youth conference held by some pastors we know here in the city. There were about 9,000 youth packed into the event, and boy was it powerful to see this generation of young people committing themselves to Christ and Christian service. It would have been nice to be able to attend more days. It was very refreshing and spiritually filling. We as a couple (with small kids) rarely get the chance to attend such events together.
Well, I’d better go. Thank you again for your support and your prayers. We thank God for you and your partnership in His Kingdom’s work. May God bless you richly.

In Christ’s bond,
Todd and Tracy Ruggles

David Sherwood, Lead Pastor
Jody Thomae, Creative Arts Director
Jon Nies, Facility Coordinator
Cindy Kaufman, Children’s Ministry Coordinator
Nate Bebout, Interim Worship Coordinator

When Five Stones first made the decision to be on the Ashland University campus, they knew individuals in the transitional and training season of life would make up a big part of the character and ministry of the church. The church is filled with active and committed people who are involved in worship, ministry and service.

Our Mission

Live Life in the Name of the Lord

Our Vision

To be transformed by the love of God into the image of Christ through intimacy with the Father and through loving relationships with others. This transformation occurs through the power of the Word and Spirit and is demonstrated and shared with others personally, locally, and globally.

Our Mission

“To love God by leading people to become fully devoted followers of Christ”

Credo

Jesus loves you…and we’re here to prove it

Our Values

Prayer & Intimacy: We will become a people of prayer who pursue intimacy with God.

Worship: We will honor and glorify God by offering everything in our lives to Jesus by celebrating and enjoying Him in meaningful community and private worship.

Discipleship: We will build strong disciples by educating, equipping and empowering believers to be transformed to the image of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Community: We will journey in our faith walk with other believers so that we may bless one another in encouragement and accountability as we seek to cooperatively pursue spiritual maturity. We will be faithful in stewardship with the gifts God has imparted on us individually and corporately.

Missional: We will love the spiritually, physically and financially poor through intentional service, evangelism and missions in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

New for 2007, highlight videos have been made for our mission fields to better relate us with the culture and the life they live everyday. Mark and Brenda Ray are our January highlight from the country of Ireland. Please be patient as the video loads.

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