Question & Answer
Benjamin Murphy
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Our Adoption Update

A Message from Ben Moll:

Mandi and I would like to thank everyone who has supported our family financially and through prayer during our journey towards adoption. We also wanted to update everyone on where we are in that process and all the things we have seen God do over the last year.

For almost a year we have been working on our dossier. This consisted of our home study, adoption trainings, physicals and blood work for Mandi and I, a 600 question psych eval, bank statements, background checks and fingerprinting, documents from The U.S Citizenship and Immigration department to approve us for adoption, a personal letter written to the Haitian government requesting to adopt from their country and about a dozen other items that are required to adopt from Haiti. We are excited to announce that it is completed and has made it safely to Haiti. Any day now we should be notified that our dossier has been “legalized” by Haiti's foreign affairs making our dossier officially registered and that will put us in the waiting period. It is uncertain how long we will be waiting for a referral. While we wait we still have a lot to do. We have more adoption training that needs to be completed. This training will help us better understand some of the difficulties we might face with adoption. On top of this training, we have documents that will expire and need to be renewed and updated. So even though our dossier is complete we will still be working to keep everything up to date. Another item on our list while we wait is finding a pediatrician who specializes in international adoption (preferably Haitian adoptions). Once we have a referral we will have 2 weeks to review and either accept or decline. Having a doctor lined up to review the medical documents of the referred child is necessary. We also will begin to prepare our home for this child. Since we won’t know the age or gender until we have a referral there’s not a lot we can do but we have started collecting some furniture and also studying Haitian cooking. 

Over this past year we have seen God work in some very amazing ways. I’d like to share a few of them with you. As most of you know, international adoption is very expensive. Early on in the process while talking with our Pastor I mentioned ideas of refinancing our house or other loans to pay for it. Our pastor quickly shot those ideas down and said God will provide. We chose not to pursue loans or borrowing money and decided to trust God to provide. We started a fundraiser at Adopttogether.org and sent it out to friends, family, our church and social media. We were blown away by the response. God provided! Within the first couple months around $30,000 was raised. Our church did a “Soup and Sweets” fundraiser and raised another $4,000. On top of that, multiple people have sent us money to put towards our travel fees for when we go to Haiti to meet our future child. 

Gathering all the needed documents during the “pandemic” proved to be very difficult. Every document needed to be notarized and then sent to Harrisburg to be State Certified. Hiring a mobile notary to follow us to every appointment, meeting, or business to have dozens of documents notarized would have cost a fortune. But God provided! Not just one but two of our close friends were both willing and able to help us, sometimes with only a few hours notice. We were able to get almost all of the documents notarized for free.

Once we completed everything on our end we had to overnight the dossier to our adoption specialist in Texas. There ended up being a mix up with her address and after a week our dossier still had not arrived. We were able to find the mistake and fix it. After waiting another week the package had still not arrived. Mandi made some very frantic phone calls to the carrier to find out where it was. They informed us that they delivered it to an address they determined to be correct based on our adoption specialist last name. This was not the correct address and the carrier could not/ would not help us any further. So at this point every bit of our personal information that we spent almost a year gathering and spent $20,000 on had been sitting at a strangers house in Texas for almost a week. We contacted our adoption specialist and waited for a response. After what seemed like an eternity, in reality it was a few hours, we received an email saying she had the package! God protected it! The address it was delivered to was only 15 minutes from her and she was able to drive there and retrieve the unopened package from a very nice old lady.

This last story still gives me chills. Late last year, before the fundraiser took off, I purchased a vehicle that needed the engine replaced. The idea was to fix and sell it to help fund the adoption. That project got put aside due to how busy we were working on the dossier and the success of the fundraiser. This past May, about 6 months later, as we were finishing up with the dossier I decided to finally fix the car. It took a few weeks to get everything repaired on it to the point I could sell it. It was up for sale for a while with many people interested but still hadn’t sold. I was getting very frustrated with people not showing up. One Friday I had driven the car  to work and had a guy message me who wanted to see it and he could come right then. I got the car cleaned up. The only thing left in the car was an envelope. In that envelope was the title to the car and our approval letter from the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Department saying we had been approved to adopt from Haiti. When the guy showed up to see the car I noticed he had an accent. I couldn’t tell exactly where he was from so I asked him. He responded “We are from Haiti”. I was shaking when I pulled the letter out and showed him the final document to our Haitian adoption dossier. After introducing me to his wife we stood and talked for an hour. They were extremely excited for us and offered to help us any way they could. God provided! He provided something we didn’t even know we needed. He provided us with Haitian friends that after only knowing for an hour felt like family. A few days after selling them the car my new friend and I sat down and talked for over an hour. He told me a lot about Haiti I never knew. He also promised to help us with travel arrangements when we go to Haiti. And it turns out his wife teaches French and Creole at a university. She will be able to help us with translating once we bring our child home. God bringing our families together when he did is just one more example of how He has guided, protected and provided for this adoption. This is only the beginning. We look forward to what God has planned and thank Him daily for all he has done.

Please continue to pray for us, our future child and for Haiti. And please share our fundraiser with others. We are very close to our goal! Once we have a match there are many more fees and travel costs.

Thank You All

-Ben and Mandi Moll

10 Years? Are You Sure?

I’ve been having a really hard time recently figuring out how 10 years have already passed.

I was 17 when this church launched- but for me, the story of Harvest Pittsburgh North goes even further back. It started in the spring of 2010, when Pastor Jeff announced to me and the congregation of North Street Christian Church that he was following the Lord’s call and joining the Harvest Bible Fellowship church planting effort.

And before that, when Pastor Jeff was my youth leader. And before that, when He was my Pioneer Club teacher starting in 3rd grade. And before that, when he led VBS (he threw me off of a boat at very young age, but we don’t have to discuss that!) And before that, when I was a baby and he did ministry with my grandmother at the local old folks home!

Here’s the thing: I’ve known Pastor Jeff my entire life. He and Erin were alway part of my life, and Owen and Cade were some of the first kids I ever babysat! Over the years he went from Pastor, to like-family, to personal mentor. So, when he told us he was moving to Chicago- I was pretty upset!

But, when we learned that he was assigned to come back to plant the church in Pittsburgh- I knew I had to be part of it! It wasn’t a question of “if”, but of “how.”

Please enjoy this photo of us from 2009. While I am positive there are older photos of us in existence, this one was the most readily available. If you’ve seen the TV show “Psych”, you might get the reference.

When they moved back to Pennsylvania in the beginning of 2011, I was 16. Still in high school, didn’t have a license or a car, and zero idea what was ahead. I just knew I wanted to be involved. I attended the first informational meeting about the church, held at the 4 Points Sheraton in Cranberry. You could call that “Day Zero of HBCPN.”

I wasn’t there every step of the way pre-launch. (Hey- give me a break. I didn’t even have a car!) But as launch approached, my dad and I was were ready to jump in and serve wherever we could! In the early years- that usually meant everyone serving everywhere, every week!

We would roll up to Marshall Middle School with the truck and trailer at 8am to begin set up. I can’t tell you how many trips the facilities team made on and off the trailer, up and down those halls with our giant blue bins. 2 for Hospitality and Harvest Kids, and 5 for AV. If we were into counting steps in those days, our trackers would have been through the roof!

I would work with the stage crew. We would set the sound system, assemble the drums, and build the projector screen. My dreams are still haunted by the smell of the vinyl screen we would have to stretch out every week! And don’t get me started on the very precise button pattern for the skirt that hung under the screen! I would with help wiring the instruments, and sit in for worship rehearsal to make sure the lyric slides were correct. Then I would run the computer during service. I used to have to sit behind the screen, backstage by myself because we didn’t have a cable long enough to move the computer out closer the the sound board. Eventually we got a longer cable, and I got to sit with whoever was running sound that day (usually Dan Thompson).

There was a solid 2 years where I was the only person who knew how to run ProPresenter, so I ran it every week. But that was the case for most of the volunteers in those “lean years”. We all had a specific skill set, and we were all needed every week! The “lean years” were vital. The few of us who were here really became family. We felt the weight of the weekly kingdom responsibilities on our shoulders, and worked tirelessly to make it happen every week.

First Group-International Mission Trip: Romania, 2015. Also: my very first mission trip. A construction-based trip and I was the last qualified person in this group to be there.

The “lean years” were followed by (what I would call) the “turbulent years”. We had multiple summers where we had to relocate because of school renovations. We launch some new ministries. And we had a season of growth, but we also lost some founding families. Plural. Multiple families who felt integral at the time, left the church for various reason.

See, that’s the thing that I never expected with church planting: the amount of people who would come and go! At the first Harvest University event I attended, the speaker stressed that “Building Strong Leaders Requires Enduring Commitment.” So I would be disappointed any time someone dropped off. “Where’s your enduring commitment?” I would think.

Now, with the luxury of hindsight, I can see that regardless of how long they were with us, every person that served here helped us get a little further down the road. And I’m so thankful for every person that God brought through Harvest, for whatever amount of time we were able to serve with them. God used them all in a mighty way, and they were faithful to answer the call!

The “turbulent years” continued as we moved into 12330 Perry Highway. The chaos of moving in and turning it to be a church lead to the chaos of needing to renovate and expand. Twice!

“The Next 3”

“The Next 3 Expansion”

“The Next 5”

2020 Arrow Missions Trip. Many, many sleepless hours have been spent at this Retreat Center in Saxonburg. Good times, I’ll tell you what!

For me personally, a lot changed leading up to the relocation as well. I was in college, so I wasn’t as involved. We had more help, and I started feeling less of a strain to serve. I got to serve in a rotation on AV, instead of being in charge of it. Dan tricked my into helping with Arrow, and I got involved with that leadership team. I interned at Northway one summer, and starting thinking about ways to use my production degree at Harvest as well.

As we settled in our new location, I found things to do to stay involved, but knew I really didn’t have to! “This is good,” I thought. “Now, if I take a production job that takes me away from Pittsburgh, they won’t miss me.”

No sooner after that thought crossed my mind, does Pastor Jeff bring me in and offer me the Administrator position. Really, God?!

At this point I was one month away from college graduation and beginning job searches. I thought and prayed about it for a couple days, but really believed that this was absolutely God calling me to stay involved. So- I accepted the position, and right after graduation I started my new job as Administrative Assistant to Pastor Jeff and HBCPN.

Now, our personal relationship had evolved once again: From Pastor, to like-family, to personal mentor, to Boss!

Being on this side of the ministry has been an eye opener for me! There is so much more that happens “behind the curtain” that the general congregation will never know. And not only just the time spent planning services and special events- but the intentionality with which Pastor Jeff leads this church. Do you know how much he thinks and prays for you? How much time he devotes to studying the scriptures every week? How he bends over backwards to make sure he can take every phone call and meeting that people request? How much his family sacrifices for all these things to happen? It’s absolutely inspiring, and makes me want to do more, serve more, and care more just by his example.

So, it’s appropriate that our 10th Anniversary fell in October- which is also Pastor Appreciation Month. Because these last three years that I’ve gotten to work directly with him, I have gained a whole new appreciation for him that I didn’t think was previously possible.

I told him on October 3rd, when we celebrated our 10 year anniversary, that I wouldn’t rather have spent the last 10 years serving with anyone else!

I don’t know how much time we have left before the Lord returns, or what is next for me in my life. But I am confident, that every year we as Harvest have left will be spent doing exactly what we have been doing faithfully for the last 10 years.

Glorifying God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission, in the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

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A Sense of Urgency

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When it comes to youth ministry, time is not on your side.  To be clear, time does bring experience, which is hugely important.  After having just completed my 20th year in youth ministry, I have learned a lot in that time.  However, with most of this mission field, I have only seven years, at best, to minister to these young people.  That alone leaves me and my leadership team with a unique sense of urgency to our ministry.

However, there is another sense of urgency for students that affects the body of Christ as a whole, but especially the parents of these students.  Pick just about any area of teen life and you will find a growing darkness gaining more and more ground.  

Take schools.  Are these typically beacons of hopefulness?  Not hardly.  Decades of teaching that we are cosmic accidents whose morality is whatever the wind brings that day has taken its toll.  Confusion and purposelessness abound.  Not to mention that we are selling a rat-race life to students that most of us don't really believe in ourselves - you have to get good grades so that you get into a good college, so that you can get a good job, so that you can list that on a resume for your next job (repeat as needed), so that eventually, you can retire, so that hopefully you are financially independent enough to do something you actually enjoy.  Who could be depressed?

Ok, but for young people, they have their whole life in front of them.  True, but look at what life has offered them over the past 1/6th to 1/9th of their lives.  A global pandemic gorging on fear; a divisive, country-wide vitriol that makes even the most civic minded of us sick to our stomach; a government, a media, and a business world where the ends always justify the means; an economic roller-coaster ride that doesn't seem to have an exit station.  The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades 😎.

But at least teens have their friends, right?  Well, yeah, but social interaction has "evolved" to require a small, bright screen.  Social media, which can be more addictive than narcotics, has created psuedo-friendships that typically take more than they give.  Likes, streaks, and followers fuel society more than relational nourishment.  How much emotional support can you get from an emoji anyhow 🤗?

Teens should have their families to fill these gaps.  But we all know how measurable the breakdown of the family is.  Even with a strong Christian foundation and a solid parental marriage, every one of us parents knows we are busier than we'd like to be to provide the added support.  We often aren't even taking care of our own needs well enough.

The Church can be a final bulwark against this onslaught.  It can and often is, but the statistics of young adults giving up on the Church are staggering (that does include churches that aren't preaching the Word so not, in those cases, eh 🤷‍♂️).  The Church won't be important to teens without concrete intentionality.

Kids will be the first to tell you how much harder they have it than their parents.  And even though this thought is foolish, ignorant narcissism, it actually is supported by the facts.  However, if it's good for the goose, then it's good for the gander.  We, parents, then have a harder job mothering and fathering than previous generations.  And while that brings little comfort, it hopefully brings a sense of urgency.  Our kids need Jesus.  Well, first we need Jesus.  Then, we need to need our kids to need Jesus.  And, by God's grace, with much prayer and hard work, our kids will need Jesus.

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

Proverbs 22:6 ESV

So, if you are a parent, you have a tough but amazingly important job ahead of you.  And if you aren't a parent, you know people who are that would appreciate your encouragement and patience.  There is a sense of urgency as the formative years evaporate faster than our ability to perceive it.  But, God knows the best investment strategies.  He said to invest the Word of God in our young people and to do it as often as possible.

"You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."

Deuteronomy 6:7 ESV

Redeem the mundane.  Reap eternal consequences from temporal moments.  It is the desire of the Arrow Student Ministry Leadership team to partner with parents to train and teach these students.  

"Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth."

Psalm 127:4 ESV

We want to help parents to shape these arrows so they fly a straight and narrow path when you launch them into the world.  

So, to leave you with a final sense of urgency and my call to action, every student associated with Harvest Bible Chapel needs to be at the Fall Retreat this November 5-7th.  They will hear the gospel preached boldly and urgently.  They will have the opportunity to be impacted eternally.  They will be shown in word and deed how the student small group (Arrow) can measurably affect their walk with Christ (including beginning that walk).  I've seen this happen over and over for the students who go on this retreat.  There is no event we do at Arrow that is more important than this weekend.  

If you are a student - your job is to come to this retreat. To come prepared to listen and be changed.  Register here.

If you are a parent, relative, or friend of a student - your job is to get that student to come to this retreat.  Beg, bride, or demand.  Take away the excuses.  Find a way to get them there, and you will not be disappointed.  We cannot have the same impact on the students who don't go.  Register here.

If you are either of these or anyone else - your job is to pray that God would accomplish His purposes through the preaching of His Word.  That barriers to attending would be demolished.  And that lives would be changed.  

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."

Romans 1:16 ESV

I appeal to this church with a sense of urgency.  Because who knows if Jesus will return before next year's retreat?  I'm certainly praying that He does.


Dan Thompson

-Arrow Youth Ministry Leader
arrow@harvestpittsburghnorth.org




Q&A Day Questions We Didn't Get To: Whatever Happened to the Sabbath?

QA 6:21.jpeg

"Can you help us better understand what it means to “keep the Sabbath holy”? It seems like we (Christ followers) are very focused on the other nine commandments, but not much is said regarding the Sabbath commandment. Can you help us understand why we recognize Sunday instead of Friday or even Saturday (7th day) as our day of worship? (Please excuse my typos/grammar- please edit as you see fit. :)”

(Answered by Mark Ort)…

Keeping the sabbath holy is one of the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20:8, and repeated in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. In addition to these, there are many other references to ‘sabbath’ in the Bible. It evidently holds some importance to God since it occurs at least 135 other times in His Word.

What Exactly is the Sabbath?

The Scriptures indicate that sabbath is a period of rest scheduled at regular intervals. It occurred on the seventh day (Exodus 16:25-26; 31:15; Leviticus 23:3), or the seventh year (Leviticus 25:4; ). The literal meaning of the word ‘sabbath’ isn’t complicated. It simply means to ‘cease from working’. After God created the heavens and the earth in six days, the Bible says that He rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2). The fact that He rested does not mean He had grown weary. God doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t wear out. It simply means that God completed the creation process and thus ceased from it.

When Moses received the Ten Commandments in a dramatic Old Testament event, we see chiseled in those stone tablets: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Exodus 20:8). As we move through the Old Testament, we find that the people considered the sabbath day to be at the end of their week, the seventh day. New Testament saints however chose Sunday as their day of rest (evidence suggests about 100 years after Christ). The church began calling it the Lord’s Day because it is the day of the resurrection of Jesus. There are theories that say Christians were trying to break the ceremonial and legalistic bonds that were placed on adherence to the seventh day. And legalism did indeed abound!

Jewish rabbis took the command to keep the sabbath holy to such a detailed level that they created a list of 39 categories of forbidden labor, containing hundreds of very specific forbidden activities. In the Mishnah Shabbat, there were prohibitions against trimming your fingernails and applying makeup on the sabbath. You weren’t allowed to throw an object more than four cubits, unless a person or a dog could catch it before it hit the ground. And what if you wanted to climb a tree on the sabbath? Forget it. No tree climbing! Why? Because you may possibly break a twig or branch which is considered harvesting or reaping, a type of labor prohibited on the sabbath.

It sounds over the top, but Christians are guilty of doing the exact same thing! Only a few short decades ago, cutting the grass on a Sunday afternoon was an abomination. Sewing fabric was almost a mortal sin. You would be anathematized for wearing jeans to church and no self-respecting Christian would be caught dead at a shopping center on Sunday. These sorts of rules for Sunday are nothing more than high pressure tactics to train the mind to think mechanically about how well we can keep an organized task list of forbidden activities. They are rules without reasons, which often lead to resistance and hypocrisy.

So, what exactly does it mean to keep the sabbath holy?

When something is designated as ‘holy’, it just means it is set apart for a special purpose. It is different. It is not like anything else. And so when God told His people to remember the sabbath and to keep it holy in Exodus 20:8, He was saying, ‘it is important for you to set aside a day that is unlike the other days’. He specifies exactly what He means in the following verses (Exodus 20:9-11) when he says, (and I paraphrase), ’OK people, you have six days to work, and on the seventh day you will rest. You will not do any work; neither shall your kids, nor your servant or even your animals’.

Theological Considerations

It has been said that the command to keep the sabbath day holy is the only one of the Ten Commandments that isn’t repeated in the New Testament. So, since Christians live according to the New Covenant, are they to disregard the Fourth Commandment just because it isn’t quoted anywhere from Matthew to Revelation?

Since the intent of this Old Testament command is for God’s people to cease from labor for a season, we must remember that “the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). It sounds like there is some benefit to us by utilizing the sabbath as God intended, doesn’t it? Let’s look at a passage in Matthew and one in Hebrews to gain some insight into what ‘rest’ looks like to the believer today.

Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” In this oft-misinterpreted verse, Jesus is making an appeal for people to stop in their striving for salvation. No one can obtain forgiveness for sins with even the slightest amount of work. Human achievement will NEVER purchase one’s salvation, regardless of how hard one works physically, or how much spiritual and intellectual effort is exerted. You will weary yourself scratching and clawing and grasping for every shred of righteousness. You will wear yourself out, because it cannot be obtained in that manner. Jesus is basically saying in this verse, ‘cease from your striving… stop… REST… come to Me, because I did all the heavy lifting’.

In Hebrews 4:9, we read, “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God”. The writer of this part of Hebrews harkens back to the children of Israel, making several references to them entering (or not entering) into God’s rest. After a long time of being slaves in Egypt, God delivered the Israelites from their bondage, promising them a land flowing with milk and honey. During their long journey from Egypt to the land of Canaan, the Lord showed them that He was to be trusted when they took a day off every week and there would be consequences for breaking the commandment to rest (see Exodus 15:32-41). Because of Israel’s repeated disobedience, God swore that they would not enter into the rest that was offered to them in the Promised Land (Hebrews 4:3). Numbers 14:22-23 says that the people spurned God by ignoring His Word to them. As a severe consequence, most of the Israelites would not see the land… but Caleb and his descendants would take possession of the land because they followed God fully (Numbers 14:24). The children of Israel and their promise of entering into the land of milk and honey is a foreshadowing of what was to come with Jesus’s offer of eternal rest. One group of people entered into the Promised Land… and one group did not. Similarly, there are people now who are entering into their rest because of their faith in Jesus Christ. And others, sadly, who have rejected this offer. The point in Hebrews 4 is that we do not want to be like those who stubbornly hardened their hearts back in Moses’ day. If we hear His voice, we must respond in faith and obedience… today! And when we do, Christ becomes our rest!
And because Christ is our rest, maybe we should seriously re-evaluate how we view Monday through Saturday, not just Sunday.

Practical Considerations

There is a practical reason why God wanted his people to set aside a day to cease from work. The human body and mind is frail. We get tired. We suffer from exhaustion. We’re physically and mentally drained at times. It is exactly why we say TGIF, why we highlight the next holiday on the calendar and why we always long for our next vacation. We know deep inside that we must rest from our labor.

Having a day of rest each week is a GIFT from God! Far from the obligatory nod to our checklist, using God’s gift must be something to embrace with gladness! Sunday has traditionally been designated as the day of rest. But what about people who work on Sunday? Easy… pick another day! The point being: you must rest at regular intervals, or you will burn out and eventually suffer physical and mental ruin.

Do you need help in deciding how to use your day of rest?

  • Give extra time to the reading of God’s Word and to earnest prayer.

  • Visit some friends and just hang out to encourage one another.

  • Do some family things! Talk to each other. Play games. Go for a walk together.

  • Enjoy God’s creation: do some hiking; take a drive; enjoy the sunset.

  • Turn off the news and social media for a while.

  • Breathe. Relax. Think. Take a nap!

  • Climb a tree. Trim your fingernails. Throw a ball, even if your dog can’t catch.

These aren’t hard concepts to grasp. They’re easy to understand, but maybe much harder to do. Busy schedules and vain pursuits have stolen our day of rest. Take your special day back and use it wisely for your benefit and for God’s glory!