An Unexpected Thank You

Greetings!,
Yesterday we received a letter addressed to you and copied below from participants in your Innovative Truth ministry. We are sincerely touched and feel great humility to be part of this journey with you. Thank you for your unending partnership and commitment. YOU ARE CHANGING LIVES! 
                                    With love and respect,

Dear Innovative Truth Partners,
​My name is Kathryn. I am one of the women attending the weekly Innovative Truth meetings. Writing directly to you may be unorthodox but many of us have been talking about wanting to speak to you and I was elected to put this letter together on behalf of the groups. So while I am the one typing, there are several of us sitting together choosing the words. This letter will come as a surprise to Tom & Tonya and we hope they will share it with you immediately.

We became an Innovative Truth small group nearly two years ago. The meetings started with Tonya and just two women. As she and Tom prayerfully invested their love and dedication into helping us grow as Christians, the two women began inviting friends because they felt something very different from the Innovative Truth meetings. Within three months there were regularly over 30 of us. Tom and Tonya (T’nT as we call them) suggested splitting into smaller groups so we could continue to receive individual attention. Now, if you have ever spent time with Tonya you know she has a very particular way. We tell new people to our groups, “If you need things sugar-coated, you should stop by a bakery on your way to the meetings because you won’t get sugar-coating here.” We say it with love but it’s 100% accurate. She never makes us feel unloved or stupid but she also does not hesitate to ‘say it how it is.’ Some of us had been in small groups before, but the leaders were so worried about being politically correct that they wouldn’t even tell us when we were wrong. That’s not the case with T’nT! The reality is our ways of living weren’t working. We needed someone to really see us for who we are, warts and all, and still love us. She did that for us. We wanted to learn about Jesus and live better lives, but life often got in the way. (Or as Tonya would lovingly say, “those are excuses and justification for bad choices.” As usual, she is right.) Many of us have “colorful” pasts and we needed strong leadership teaching us how to have a relationship with a God few of us knew anything about. We didn’t need teachers who placated to us.
We could write a book about T’nT “truthisms” we’ve heard, but the reason we’re writing now is to say directly to you, THANK YOU! Any time we try to thank T’nT for their love, guidance and commitment to transforming our lives, we are stopped mid-sentence. We hear the same thing from them every time; “Innovative Truth is not Tom & Tonya. Innovative Truth is God first, then all the amazing  IT Partners who support the ministry with continual prayers, financial support and unending love. Without Innovative Truth Partners, there is no Innovative Truth.” We heard it so often but we never really understood what it meant. You, the IT Ministry Partner, were a figurative being in our minds. We didn’t understand how the ministry worked financially. All we knew was that for 2 years a Christian group called Innovative Truth sent two ministers to love US! We are a rag-tag group of ex-convicts, former addicts and deeply flawed sinful men and women. Can you imagine? We couldn’t!
They never asked for money. They asked only for us to be open to the call of Jesus. And one by one as we have heard that call, they walked us into the arms of God who welcomed us in and loves us unconditionally. We weren’t Christians. We had no relationship with God. Jesus was not a friend we knew, let alone our chosen Savior. And then we met Innovative Truth. We met the power of your prayers for us. We are strangers to you, yet Tonya tells us every week how you pray for us. They told us you were praying when we started meeting as a defiant, often rude group who like broken children tried to push T’nT away. We were like teenagers testing their love. We wondered if they would really be committed to us for the long haul. They never left us. We grew from just two women to 8 groups of nearly 100 people with very difficult pasts, and they never left us. They taught us about having personal relationships with God but also the importance of knowing He calls us to be a community. And they showed us what that looked like. They attended our meetings with love, passion and silence when needed. They were always there, sometimes by video so they wouldn’t miss, even while they battled Tonya’s cancer, her surgeries, hurricane relief efforts, Tom’s moms cancer, Ms. Betty’s death, even having a video meeting the week of the funeral because one of us was dealing with a painful situation! They take calls at all hours to listen, guide, love, laugh or cry with us. Each time reminding us that you, the IT Partners, are with us and praying for us too.
They told us you rejoiced with us as we were getting to know Jesus. They told us you were reading the Bible in the same way they were introducing His word to us. They said you prayed for us as we were healing our brokenness, reconciling our hearts with God, speaking our sins and thanking Jesus for washing us clean through His death and resurrection. They said you stayed deep in prayer when Tonya took a group of us on a retreat last summer and we gave our lives to Jesus. And while I know they used a false name in a prayer letter to protect my identity, I want to personally thank you for praying for my broken heart as my son Gabriel died last year. Tonya never left my side from the moment I began bleeding, all the way through the labor and death of my precious son. I didn’t know until months later that she had endured her own full-term child’s death during labor many years earlier. I cannot imagine the pain she felt reliving her worst nightmare just so I would not be alone. I asked her recently how she got through it with me and her response was that Tom had gathered more people than we could count to pray us through those two dark days. She said, “the IT Partners were lifting us to God and even though Gabriel died, I am certain their love and prayers lined Gabriel’s path straight home to our loving God.” How can I repay the peace your love brought me?
I wonder if you will ever know what it all has meant to us. Will you ever know the difference you made in our lives? We want to be sure you know at least this; because of your love, prayers and financial support, just like it says on your Innovative Truth website, ‘SCRIPTURE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO LIFE AND WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT, TRAINED AND TRANSFORMED!’ WE ARE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST! WE ARE CHRISTIANS! WE ARE SAVED! AND WE WANT TO JOIN YOU AND REACH OTHERS FOR CHRIST!
Simply saying “thank you’ feels so inadequate. You have changed our lives forever. It felt like your ministry showed up in our lives unexpectedly. Now we know it was ordained by God. What we really want you to know is we are eternally grateful for your prayers and we are praying for each of you now as well! We are no longer pushing our Christian brother and sisters away and we are learning to embrace community. (But no, Tom, I still do not want to be in a video testimonial.)   :)
To Tom & Tonya (the dynamic duo of T’nT) ~
We do not know how you do all you do. Yes, we know, you always say, “it’s not us, it’s God.” Well then on behalf of God, we have a message for you. We know you had some IT Partners who died, lost jobs, or stopped giving in 2018 because of financial hardships, and that your income dropped dramatically putting Innovative Truth in a critical state for 2019. We know you have been praying about what the future in or out of ministry may look like for one or both of you. Well we’ve all been praying about it too, and either of you out of ministry is NOT the message we are hearing from God. You told us God always provides. You told us He will lead you if you are submissive to Him. Well as Tonya famously does to us, we’re going to hold up a mirror to you now. God does not lead a ministry to have the unbelievable two years we’ve all just had bringing our group of misfits into relationships with God, only to pull the rug out. You said He provided manna daily. Hear us now, HE WILL PROVIDE! You both need to stay the course He is leading. We believe He is always faithful. We believe He will touch the right hearts and speak to the right people for the ministry. We believe the current IT Partners will pray for God’s hand to make up the financial need. They are powerful prayer warriors! Their prayers have been heard for us, for Tonya’s cancer as she continues to courageously fight, and for so many others. We don’t know how, but we know God will give the IT Partners an answer. Maybe in increased giving, or introducing the ministry to other new partners. God’s call for the sustained life of Innovative Truth is true! So let me be the first to answer His call. With this letter I am including my first monthly donation. It’s not a lot and I know it will not make up the $2900 per month shortfall, but you showed us that standing on God’s promise is the only place to stand. With Tonya’s help on my resume and her community connections, I am employed now. I want to be an Innovative Truth Partner. I proudly want to be counted amongst the other IT Partners as we together stay the course and “BRING SCRIPTURE TO LIFE” for more lost sheep, as we once were.

Thank you Tom & Tonya!
Thank you Innovative Truth Partners!
All Glory to God!

Love,
Kathryn & the rest of the lost sheep you would not stop seeking