 Welcome to the May edition of Cornerstone Connect. We have a very special program planned just for you. Tom Hollis stops by to help us discover how to have a season of new growth in our lives. Anna Fry will join me to celebrate the ultimate career, motherhood. And our Cornerstone Cares partner joins us all the way from Venezuela to tell what the Lord is doing through his ministry, through your support. All that and more coming up next. Amanda Brocker, your host for Cornerstone Connect. And I just have one question for you. Have you received your newsletter in the mail today or any day this past week? If not, we want you to give us a call at 888-665-4483 or go to ctvn.org and make sure you sign up. We love to stay connected. But we're gonna do our best in this program to bring that newsletter to life and let you experience it. But before I get there, I would love to read some of the mail that y'all have sent in. This comes from Barb. And she said, hi, I enjoy your TV station very much. Your station brings me the gospel by many men of God. Thank you so much. And Barbara, thank you for just letting us know. This one is from, I'm not sure they didn't sign it, but it says thank you for your prayers and thank you for all your hard work to teach people the message of God. That is definitely what we are about here at Cornerstone. This is from Estella. And she said, I just love Cornerstone Television. Thank you. And she sent in some prayer requests. We'll be sure to be praying over these. This is Eileen. She emailed in and said, I am so grateful to the prayer line who I reached out to many times even in the midst of the night while my mom was in hospice. Thank you for being there. You know, there is something powerful about being present in someone's life. Russ and Norma understood that the call of Jesus on their life to even have Cornerstone Television because it's important to be present in people's lives. This is another one from Sean through email. Your programs have seen me through many trials. Thank you and God bless you. Let me tell you, if it was not for your love and support for our network, we would not be able to be here for the many people that this is impacting their lives. So just know how thankful we are for you being a part of something that's bigger than any one of us. God bless you and stay tuned for what's coming up next with Tom Hollis. He's gonna share gardening tips for our spiritual growth. Did you know your favorite programs on Cornerstone Television Network like Hope Today, Sister to Sister, Hard Questions, Dashing Dish, At Home and Move Your Mountain are not only on your TV screen, but also on YouTube. YouTube is the second most popular media platform in the world with more than 2.5 billion viewers. It's changed the way we watch content. And the way we're consuming media may be changing, but what remains the same and continues to stay untrue is God's word and the power of the gospel. Now take a look at this map behind me. These are the top cities that are watching Cornerstone Television Network and because of your partnership, they are getting life-changing television every day. So in the U.S., you see it's New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, and then we go to Canada, Toronto and Regina, and then over to Europe, Dublin, London, and then in Africa we have Buwake, Nairobi, Pretoria, Cape Town in just Hannesburg, and in Asia, Kochi, Jakarta, Bangalore, Manila, Yungu Sea, Sydney and Melbourne. This is just a list of many of the cities we reach because of your faithful giving to Cornerstone Television Network. Thank you for helping us bring hope to people around the world and right here in Pittsburgh. Well, we wanna welcome Tom Hollis, our COO, Hard Questions moderator and my co-host on Hope Today. Tom, you wrote a wonderful article, I know, and our program director, let me just add more hats to you. But in this awesome article that you wrote, you break down the tools maybe of gardening, if I'm saying that correctly, but really tying it into our spiritual growth, but just bring this to life for us. Well, first of all, let me say that I am not the expert gardener, I got the black thumb or at least brown thumb, but let me say this, I lived for 20 years next to a world champion in my view, gardener, and I'd see him doing things every spring and it relates to growth and it relates to spiritual growth, you know, and I would get some of that bounty later in the summer, some of that harvest, I love tomatoes out of the garden, and so, but he did certain things and he did them consistently, you know, he planted, he watered, and he weeded, he did a lot of other things too, but he would start planting Amanda from the earliest, like in March, you know, in his window sill, you know, planting in little egg carton containers and things, seeds, but he used to save them, he said, then that got a little too hard, but he'd order seeds, you know, and he would plant those early on, and I don't know if you're maybe a little too young to remember in the 70s, they'd say bloom where you're planted, it was kind of a little thing that we would say, in other words, wherever God plants us, he's got us in that soil in that time and we need to bloom there, you know, that, I mean, that's the thing that it's hard for us to get sometimes though. That's right. Sometimes we want to uproot ourselves and go somewhere else, but you know, that's the first thing is that we need to be able to bloom right there, glorify God, even use the example, not that we want to see this, but you see a dandelion growing in a crack in the sidewalk, you know, in a little bit of dirt and not a good situation, and I like the yellow of the dandelions, I know I try to kill them too, but there's something about that, that they are finding that root, finding that soil, finding that place where they can, you know, grow even in difficult circumstances, I think that's a lesson for us. You know, I just, I can picture in those hard places, like you talked about, maybe in between concrete, but it's like really cornerstone television being present and available for people to tune into us, even when, and then they're in those hard places or, you know, maybe you're out in a vast field, but regardless, it's like the tools that we're giving them through all of our programming, like to help them bloom, that nourishment, I know you're gonna talk about another step of this. Well, yeah, you know, just, but just think about that for a second. If you're waiting for the perfect soil, if you're waiting for the perfect flower box by the window, not every flower gets in the flower box by the window, if you're waiting for that, you're never gonna bloom. Bloom where you planted, bloom where God has you right now, maybe he's gonna move you to the flower box eventually, but for right now, bloom on that sidewalk, you know, bloom where he's got you. The other thing is watering, okay? Everybody knows he's got a water and he'd be out there, my neighbor would actually use water from a rain barrel. He'd get like pure water, you know, he didn't want to use the chlorinated water unless it was real dry and he had to, then he'd use that, but water's absolutely essential, you know? And what is that? I like to think of the washing of the water of the word, right? And so the word of God is so important to us, the Bible, to read it, to understand it, to have it be that nourishment to us, you know? Just like water, as the deer pants for the water, so much so longs after you. So those things that we learn about God and we get to know God by reading that word and having that time, we can't neglect that. If we wanna grow in God, if we wanna do something impactful for God, it's going to be blooming where he has us planted, but then letting that water wash over us. That is so good. I feel saturated right now, just thinking about God's word and it's so important for us. You know, our bread of life is not the meal at your physical table. It is literally the word of God. And it says in Proverbs four that that word brings life and health to even our flesh. It's amazing. Well, think about this for a second. Is it the little bit of water that gets on the petals and on the leaves that matter? No, it's what soaks down deep into the roots. And you gotta water down there. You gotta water down into the roots because that's what's going to really matter. It's not enough. They say that if you see somebody out putting a little bit on their grass, a little bit of water, that doesn't do anything. It's gotta saturate down into the roots. We've gotta go deep into the word. And then the last thing is weeding, okay? Everybody hates weeds. Weeds are like a curse. It's part of the fall, right? It's even in Genesis. And here you've got weeds that want to take all that nourishment. They want to take the water, they want to take the fertilizer, they want to take the compost, whatever the nutrients, those have to be removed. So if they're sitting in our lives, it has to be removed. If there's things, the Bible says, and those things that encumber us and so easily entangle us. It says, so we've got a, even things that might be good, but they're causing us to siphon off all of our time, siphon off all of our energy, siphon off all of our focus. Those things have to be weeded out too. Hey, I'm a guy, I enjoy my focus being all over the place. I like a lot of things. But when it comes to what's most important, I have to invest in that. I have to put that. And when you do all this, then you get this great tomato. Let me tell you, when you have a BLT with a good tomato, it's awesome. The nourishment, it comes from good food. You know, that maintenance part is super important. It's the weeding or it's the changing the oil in your vehicle. It's the things that keep us going and keep us healthy in the Lord. So those are great points. We have to go over them again. So from the last one was the maintenance part where you gotta pull the weeds. We need to water, make sure we're taking in the word of God and the first one was bloom. Is that right? It was planted, be where you're planted, you know. Bloom beautifully right there. All right, well, he brings it to life like no one else can, but let's make sure we're being planted that we're watering and that we're maintaining and pulling those weeds. Well, Tom, I'm not going to let you go just yet because I would love for you to stay with me and introduce our next guest. I would love to, Amanda. You know, when you give the Cornerstone Network, a portion of every dollar directly supports 30 ministries that are providing for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people, both locally and around the world. I love that. And this month in the newsletter, we're highlighting Answer in Jesus Ministries and I'm happy to welcome the founder of Vasili Scoric. Vasili, welcome. Where are you, brother? Hello. Where are you? Right now I'm in Venezuela already six days. So tell me about God has opened up opportunity in Venezuela. Tell me what's going on there. You know, I start to think about this country about five years ago and God started sending me information more and more and all information about this country was kind of scared. A lot of criminal gunsters and corruption and a lot of different bad things. But you know, I feel kind of inside, feeling in my heart, I have to go there because our ministry called Answer in Jesus. That's why I wanted to go to the places where it's really hard. And plus my children time was in Soviet Union and I kind of close to this situation what's going on here now. And first time I visit Venezuela in August 2022. And now we prepared to make a crusades here and we already supported in three years children ministry here. And now we've had great, great services. We praise the gospel in police academy. There was a 238 policemen and about 70% of them received Jesus, prayed with us. Then we had a meeting, evangelistic meeting for teachers in the schools. But then we visited and prayed for kids in hospital, oncology hospital, children. It's amazing time too. And we had a very interesting stories about what's going on there. And we had a three days crusade, all amount, it's about 2500 people. It's three crusades in three different cities. And two of these cities, it's a barrio. If you know barrio, it's places where live a lot of criminal. And one of crusades, after service, after we finished, big group of young men came to me. There was about 12 or 13 people. And there was kind of serious look me. I asked him, would you like to receive Jesus? He said, we don't know how is that, but probably yes. And I didn't know who they are, you know? And we prayed with him, them, talked, and took pictures. And then a local pastor said, this is very dangerous people in our area here. I said, well, they prayed with me now and praise the Lord, I didn't do anything. Well, let me, God's given you some open doors, Vasili. And we have a few pictures from the last time you were in Venezuela with you with some of the children. And there's one with crusade night and some of the other children that you work with. I love that you're preaching the gospel in the barrio. So some of the tough people are coming, praise God. But you've had an opportunity, you had an opportunity with this, both in Cuba and here, to work in hospitals where with children with cancer, God's opened up just a special door for you there, hasn't he? Very bit here, can you repeat last sentence? I mean, I'm just saying that God's opened up a special door for you to work with these children with cancer. Right, right. Yeah, so tell me, you know, what does it mean so for our viewers? What does it mean to have us as partners? I love being a partner with your ministry. What does it mean for us to come alongside and be a partner with you? Look at, like this, in this hospital, yesterday we talked with persons who work with kids and families, it's a hard situation. They have not enough, very simple things for work with kids. But it's not just like emergency, it's a very serious hospital and colleges. Small kids, small kids, one, two, three years old already have a cancer. And for parents, it's so painful. They look in some who can help or kind of to assist, just listen them. This is not enough, that's why they're not invisible, I know. And that's why our missionaries who work in here, they do a lot of work for. Yesterday, we heard one story about family. They didn't have kids for 14 years. And they prayed about this. And finally, God gave them small child. They was so happy. In four months, the other said, here's the case. Well, I think you're breaking out. And for parents, it's so sad and so painful. Vasily, you're breaking up a little bit, brother. I think we're gonna have to end there. But thank you for being with us. And just so glad to be a partner with you. Thank you, Vasily. God bless you and blessings on the rest of your trip in Venezuela. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you. Wow, thank God for this wonderful work that's being done. And thank you, Tom. And to Vasily, Cornerstone has these 30 ministries that we get to help out. And if it wasn't for our viewers, Tom, we wouldn't even have the finances to be able to do this. I know, and I just love it when we're so joined together with all these ministries doing powerful work. I know the video broke up a little bit there and we apologize for that. But the truth of what's going on there, young criminal gangster type people coming to the Lord, that God is doing some great things, ministering to children with cancer. Again, Vasily's had that in Cuba and also they've opened doors for that. It's awesome. It's amazing. Well, thank you. And thank you to all of our donors out there that helped make this possible. I just love the story and it was amazing to hear. It's amazing that we can online like communicate with people in Venezuela, but we'll coming up next. Anna Fry joins me to celebrate the ultimate career, motherhood. It's always been the heart and vision of our founders, Russ and Norma Bixler, to reach the nations, people of every nation, every tribe and every tongue through Cornerstone Intelligent Network. For more than 40 years, the station has reached families through the TV screen, the way you're watching us right now. And with the internet and streaming platforms like YouTube, your generosity is helping us to expand our reach around the world. Cornerstone Intelligent Network's YouTube page has more than 60,000 subscribers and nearly 100,000 views per month. Take a look at this world map that's behind me. Your continuous support is making an impact in these countries. Here are the top countries that are watching on YouTube. USA, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Cornerstone is making an impact on every continent on the planet. When you partner with Cornerstone, you're not only changing lives here in Pittsburgh in America, but all around the world. Thank you for your support. Well, I'm so thankful, Anna, to have you on Cornerstone Connect this month. And of course, we're celebrating motherhood. So talk to us a little bit about this very important career. Yes, well, it is a career, right? And you and I both have, well, we have a lot of kids between the two of us. Mine are 19, 17, 15. How old? 24. 23. Okay. 20. Yes. And 17 going on 18. It's crazy. Okay, so the quick math, right? It's seven kids between the two of us. We've been through some stages of motherhood. We've been in the trenches. We've been on the highest highs. And so, I mean, Amanda and I are just kind of here. Well, first of all, to say happy Mother's Day, but also just to acknowledge, Amanda, how important moms truly are. Like in the days when our kids were little and while they're raising them up through our house or doing laundry, dishes, we're like, it's just changing diapers, nursing babies up in the middle of the night. It's just like exhaustion physically, emotionally, but also the joys are all mixed into the middle. But I feel like sometimes whatever you're in the midst of all the just the everyday stuff, we can start to feel as significant as moms. Like, gosh, like I have an education. I have a brain and yet all I'm doing is cleaning my house and doing the laundry. And so we're here today just very quickly to say, like you matter, motherhood matters. Check out this quote from C.S. Lewis. I just love so much. He said, the homemaker or the mom has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only and that is to support the ultimate career, Amanda. It's a pretty big role. Can be daunting at times. And I can remember feeling like, God, am I doing this right? I can remember early on having littles and I actually dreamed that I forgot to feed them. So we made sure the kids always had bottles and food to go. I'm like, because I am not gonna be that mom that doesn't feed their children what a tormenting dream to have. But I mean, that's the reality when you're in the thick of, you know, when they're younger, you, they rely on you fully and it's an amazing role. But yet, as you said, all the different emotions and I can't be more thankful for the spiritual moms that I know I've had who poured into my life to give me the tools to help me as a young mom along the way. And, you know, there's other ladies in our lives that maybe they weren't our mothers but we celebrate you too in this month of, you know, celebrating moms because we need all of these different facets and there's something amazing, even in the Bible about the generations, you know, the grandmothers speaking into the mothers, the mothers into their children and it's a beautiful thing. We need each other. Right, we absolutely do. And just also wanna quickly acknowledge those women out there who have lost a mom and Mother's Day might be very difficult for you or you've lost a child or your child is estranged or there are prodigals. Like there's just so many different hard things that we face as women and sometimes happy Mother's Day is a little bit harder to really say and actually enjoy the day. Well, today, know that we're thinking of you. We're praying for you. We're believing for God's fulfillment of all of His promises in your life, in your children's lives. And today truly is a day to celebrate all the goodness that women bring to this world. We are life givers because that's who God made us to be. So to you, Amanda and I say, happy Mother's Day. That's right, and we couldn't thank you enough. You know, I know our stats show that more women support Cornerstone television than men. So we know y'all are out there, spiritual moms, you're supporting this network and we could not thank you enough for being a part of something way bigger than any one of us, Anna. That's absolutely right. Yep, we love you. Thank you and enjoy your special day. Amen. Stay tuned for a special gift offer just for you. God spoke to our beloved late founders, Russ and Norma Bixler, this scripture from Isaiah, raise his signal high to the nations. Your giving and support of Cornerstone television network is helping us raise a different signal nowadays, a digital signal through the airways. Take a look at this map. Your donation helps us reach and impact people who watch our programming on our website at ctvn.org and the streaming platform Roku. Here's a list of the countries. USA, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Barbados, the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Czechia, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Turkey, Israel, Kenya, South Africa, India, China, Russia, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. And you know, this is just a list of the many countries that we reach and it's all because of your faithful partnership with Cornerstone. Your gift is helping us to bring hope to people around the world. And we just wanna say thank you for being part of our family. I always enjoy our time together and just seeing what God is doing in and through Cornerstone Television Network and again, appreciating every one of you that have supported our network through the years. Just another gift that we would have for you as a book by Karen Eamon and it's love, listen, love, repeat. I think my husband will be like, yes, read that one. Listen, love, repeat. It's what we need to do in our lives. But just reflecting a little bit on the article that Tom had wrote and us being like that, well-watered plant that we would be blooming in every season, it's so important. But the scripture that God just keeps bringing to my mind concerning that comes from Proverbs in its chapter four and it says, my son in verse 20, give attention to my words and incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. And it's so important that we do keep the word of God center, prioritize God above all else in our lives because His gifting and calling is on your life just like it is ours here at Cornerstone Television and we all wanna make sure we fulfill the divine plan of God. I just wanna thank you once again for the many of you that wrote in. I wasn't even able to read through these but we love to read the mail. When you send it in, it inspires us. So thank you so much. And if you have a God story that happened here at Cornerstone or maybe through the prayer line, we would love to hear your story. So please take a moment to just write into us and let us know the goodness of God was we are celebrating motherhood. I just wanna say once again, happy Mother's Day to all of you. Whether you're a spiritual mom, whether you have mothered many children or you're a mother in waiting, God sees you and we love you very much.