Dear Mariners’ Family,If you aren’t currently on our prayer letter mailing list, you may be wondering what is happening with us and our ministry. If you’d like to receive our prayer letter updates, please contact us at ray@theleighthouse.org with your information.As far as ministry goes, we are still deeply committed to one-on-one discipleship, as well as marriage mentoring. These two things

Wondering just what Missions is? Well look here over the next few weeks and months as Nicole Picciotto explores that question based on her experiences from several short-term missions trips. Here is the first installment:Mission trips: What do you normally think of when you hear “Missions” or “Missionaries”? I would imagine most people think of people like the Pierces ( David and Annelise,

Directly from Matt Picciotto:With the door closing on evangelism and missions in Russia as well as many Muslim and Eastern European countries it has become necessary to shift the focus of "Missions". That is what 1st Baptist Church of Pigeon Forge and Russia For Christ have begun in Pigeon Forge. And as partners in Pastor Alexei Kotchan's ministry it is what four people from Mariners' Church went to

Matt Picciotto just led a short-term trip to TN to assist Pastor Alexei. He was accompanied by Nicole, his wife, and the Tamplins. Matt's summary before they departed: Pastor Alexei Kotchan of our partner church in Russia is spending the summer in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. His mission field is the Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan students participating in the Work and Travel Program. Through a partnership

See Mariners' website for more info on our Russian partner church at:http://www.marinerschurch.com/ministries/missions/russia_christ/russia_christ.htmlUpdate from Alexei:Dear Friends,We are happy to inform you that our family safely arrived to the USA and we’ll be in Pigeon Forge area this summer, sharing Christ with 1500 Russian-speaking students from the former Soviet Union. We scheduled to fly

Just blogging mobile and I wanted to remind everyone that Craig and Dick were on their way.Say a prayer for them and the pierces.Good night

From Michelle H.:I just spoke with Annelise Pierce who asked for immediate prayer for their family. They are in the midst of student protests and there have been threats of possible violence against their family. Annelise shared that she believes there is strong demonic activity in the area.Please pray fervently for their family’s safety and for the situation to calm down and be resolved.Thank you

Guest Post from Nicole Picciotto!!Nicole, take it away...****Just over a week ago we spent a week in the Dominican Republic. We left May 19th and returned the 26th. The purpose of out trip/mission was to visit a family we support financially - Hugo and Sarah Liborio and their 18 month old son Mattis. I had never met any of them before - Matt had served on Mercy Ships with Hugo and Sarah 6 years ago...and

****Third post today, coming off the heels of the Calendar Planning meeting (see posts below for context).****As mentioned in a previous post/email a week or so ago, I thought it was time to start having monthly updates/meetings/gatherings/Q&A sessions regarding missions (now that I am starting to see a bigger picture/vision while concurrently understanding the details of the week-to-week issues).

In our Calendar Planning meeting (see earlier post below from today), we were asked to provide, amongst other things, 3 ministry goals that we desired to reach over the next 3 months. I exceeded that in my response, but I felt they were all important, so I did not limit it.I am putting myself "out there" by posting this, but here goes...These were the goals that I presented (this is a bit raw, but