As many of you know, we volunteer once a month at a coffeehouse put on by area churches at Fort Lee.  The following progress report is from Steve Zachry, coordinator of the coffeehouse ministry.  I think you will find this encouraging.  Please pray for our soldiers, the volunteers, and consider coming out with us one Friday evening! 

“As many of you are aware the mission of the ‘At Ease’ Ministries is based on the Great Commision as given in Acts 1:8 and is ‘To reach Fort Lee, the military and the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ.’ It’s important from time to time to take a step back and see how far we’ve come and particularly to take a moment to reflect on how the Lord has provided. When I stop to think about it, I find it very difficult to get my mind around all He’s done. The following stats don’t begin to capture how He’s been transforming hearts and lives including our own! Since our inception on 4/22/06:
 
a. 13,231 soldiers have visited the Coffee House.
b. Over 4000 pieces of Gospel literature and Bibles have been distributed.
c. 1065 have attended Bible study.
d. 613 decisions have been made for Christ with about 50% 1st time commitments!
 
Additionally, the number of volunteers including Army personnel, musicians, bakers, administrative staff, purchasing and Friday night volunteers now exceeds 100 people. There were a total of 3,335 volunteers hours in the past year alone. We just added a new music group called ‘Loaves and Fishes’ and Dave Brown, who is the leader, served as a Marine in Afghanistan. There are 9 music groups that regularly give their time to help minister to the troops. With the recent addition of West Hopewell Presbyterian we now have 6 churches in addition to a number of generous individuals providing financial assistance to the ministry. The young adult groups from Iron Bridge Baptist, West End Assembly of God and a Bible study group from VCU have come to help out. The new Spiritual Fitness Center Senior Chaplain (Maj.) Dennis Krumlauf recently commented how ‘deeply impressed he was with the dedication and professionalism of the numerous Coffee House volunteers.’ Jehovah Jireh, the Lord provides!
 
Also, we’ve seen God’s favor through the prayers of His people. There have been so many answers to prayer that it would be much too difficult to try to include them all in this short update. However, I’ll mention a few recent ones to give you an idea of what the Lord has been doing. As some of you know, attendance has been significantly down this year. This has been due primarily to the total turnover of Chaplains since December. Without Chaplain support we have no ministry. We are the only civilian ministry allowed on post and have been ‘grandfathered in’ since we have been active at Fort Lee for so long. Our attendance is contingent upon a full compliment of evangelical Chaplains supporting our efforts and getting the word out to all of the training brigades. We’ve been praying for the Lord’s favor during this time of transition. Attendance since January has been approximately 40% of last year. Even still, we’ve seen the decisions for Christ more than double over the same period from last year! The Lord has now filled all the vacancies with strong committed Christians who value and support our efforts. The e-mail I got last week from Gary Padgett who is a minister with Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry clearly shows the Lord has heard our prayers. Gary shared that he had just performed a wedding at General James Chambers house at Fort Eustis and had an opportunity to talk to him about the ministry at Fort Lee and our desire to start a second coffee house at the new Ordnance Campus now under construction. The General told Gary he would be taking over the Command of Fort Lee at the end of the summer and felt the Spiritual needs of the troops was of high importance. He asked Gary to let him know if we should ever need anything. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord provides!
 
In addition to a second coffee house we’ve been asking the Lord to ‘enlarge our territory’ in whatever ways he sees fit. One of the AIT trainees who graduated in December shared with his Pastor about what was going on with the ministry at Fort Lee. As a result, his church has started a Christian Coffee House in a juvenile detention center in Ashville, North Carolina and they are now seeing numerous decisions for Christ. This soldier has completed seminary and will be attending Chaplains school in June. He’s requested his first assignment to be at Fort Lee. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord provides!
 
A couple of months ago we were able to secure some Arabic Bibles. We’ve been distributing them to soldiers that have specifically felt led to have one. One particular soldier told me when requesting a Bible that he was in the process of learning Arabic in his free time so he could be a more effective witness for Christ. He was thrilled to get one and believed it was a ‘God send’ to get an Arabic/English New Testament. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord provides!
 
Two weeks ago one of our more adventurous music groups requested that we look into the possibility of them going overseas to minister to our troops in Kuwait. Although this is a reasonably safe country it is still considered ‘in theater’ by the military since it’s where our forces are staged before going into and out of Iraq. Please be praying the Lord would open this door of opportunity if this be His will.

A heartfelt THANKS to all of you that make this ministry possible. We’re looking forward to seeing how the Lord is going to continue to provide to build and expand His Kingdom at Fort Lee. To God be the Glory for all He has done!!”