TRANSFORMED HEARTS
This is the prayer of many who have come to Twelve Stones over the years, and 2023 was another year of God bringing hope and healing to the most hurting! Through your prayers and financial support, the Lord has graciously allowed us the privilege of providing intensive counseling that continues to transform lives. Here are just a few of the powerful testimonies of God at work through the ministry of Twelve Stones:
- “My Twelve Stones experience has been life giving and life changing. God has begun a good work . . . I accepted Christ into my life during my time at Twelve Stones.”
- “I did not come in very hopeful, but am leaving with incredible amounts of hope for a completely reworked marriage and family life. We’ve been through counseling and other therapy, but nothing that can compare to what we’ve experienced here.”
- “God has used you to help heal my marriage. I was so lost and broken, and my time here gave me hope and healing . . . I will never forget my time here since it was life changing.”
ANSWERED PRAYER
We are incredibly grateful to God for His answer to prayer in the counseling room, but we are also thankful for how he has answered prayer in other areas of our ministry. At the end of last year we shared four prayer requests with you.
- First, we asked you to pray that God would keep our calendar full and that we would be able to hire another part time counselor or two. We have been very busy counseling all year and were recently able to hire Mark Schuitema as a part time counselor. He has over two decades of ministry experience and is a welcome addition to the team. He has already begun helping in counseling cases and will be fully on his own starting in January.
- Second, we asked you to pray that Twelve Stones North Indy (TSNI) would be officially launched and it would be a haven for pastors and ministry leaders. Garrett was able to counsel 20 pastors and their wives along with 6 other ministry leaders in 2023. Including the counseling that took place in Brown County we were able to provide counseling to over 35 pastors in 2023 – the most we have ever served in one year.
- Third, we asked you to pray for Dennis Gruening and his family as the foundation continued to be built for TS Germany. Dennis has been hard at work in 2023 continuing to build and strengthen a culture of soul care in Germany; preparing the soil for intensive counseling to grow in the coming years. Some of the fruit of his labor include: counseling 11 cases – one of which was an intensive; teaching counseling training to a group of 15 people at his church; being the main speaker at the German Counseling Coalition conference; and translating his second counseling book into German – I Have a Psychiatric Diagnosis: What Does the Bible Say by Ed Welch. Perhaps most exciting of all is that the Lord has provided an amazing piece of property for Dennis to use. Beginning July 1, 2024 Dennis will be able to use a 3.4 acre property that has 4 main buildings and several outbuildings. This property will allow his family to live on the property as well as have a place to provide intensive counseling, seminars, missionary member care and more.
- Finally, we asked you to pray that the Lord would meet our financial needs and that we would be good stewards of our finances. We continue to be in a strong financial position and were able to not turn anyone away from receiving counseling because of financial concerns.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES/PRAYER REQUESTS
While we are very grateful to the Lord for how He has been at work, we also want to continue to prayerfully consider where God is leading us as a ministry. We are very excited to share with you that we are in discussions with friends of the ministry to potentially plant another Twelve Stones in the southeastern United States. Would you join us in praying for God’s wisdom and direction as the board examines this opportunity with a vision trip in January 2024?
Please join us in prayer as well for the following requests for Dennis and TS Germany:
- Regarding the property mentioned previously – please pray for a smooth transition; including the work ahead as well as the needed funds for maintenance/renovations.
- For Dennis to continue to train more counselors, make connections, and have an influence in the biblical counseling world in Germany – there are two important events coming to Germany in 2024.
- The Lord’s favor in setting up an official non-profit organization in Germany as TS in Germany becomes more organized and builds additional structures for the work happening there.
- Health for the family and success for the kids in school (imagine going to school in your second language).
YOUR ONGOING PARTNERSHIP
As you prayerfully consider Giving Tuesday and any year end gifts to your favorite charities, we hope you will consider Twelve Stones! Specifically, we are looking for help to fund five exciting opportunities. For all five to be fully funded we need to raise $150,000 in the next few months.
- Brown County – giving to the general fund. Every dollar you give helps us keep our counseling fees down while continuing to provide benevolence to those who cannot afford the full price. New monthly donors are especially encouraged.
- TS Germany – we would like to raise additional funds to help support the work in Germany because it is not yet self-sufficient.
- TSNI: Lead Healthy Retreats – it is vitally important that we have funds available for pastors to be able to come to our Westfield location who are not able to pay full price for their counseling. When we help pastors lead healthy, we help churches be healthy.
- Remodeling Wisdom Cabin – we have an interior decorator volunteering her time to give us guidance on how we can update the cabin and enhance the experience for our guests. Wisdom Cabin was built in 2005 and has had very little in the way of upgrades and it is starting to show its age.
- TS Replication – for us to explore another location here in the United States.
If you desire to give to Brown County, the remodeling of Wisdom Cabin, or to TS replication here in the U.S., please give to the General Fund. If you desire to give to TS Germany or TSNI: Lead Healthy Retreats you can select those options on our website as well.
These truly are very exciting days in the life of Twelve Stones. We recognize we could not do this on our own. Thank you for your partnership in the gospel. We invite you to consider giving a one-time gift towards these goals or becoming a recurring monthly partner so that more people will find hope and transformation through our ministry in Brown County, North Indy, Germany, and possibly another location in the southeastern United States. Here is the link to donate: https://twelvestones.kindful.com/
