Fall 2013 Newsletter

Many with whom I speak express their lack of knowledge about those who serve on the Board of Stewards Foundation.  There are currently seven men that voluntarily devote time as Trustees. The motivation for their work is a desire to continue Stewards Foundation’s services to New Testament pattern assemblies of the Lord’s people and their commended workers.

Our two longest tenured Trustees are Ken Hampton and Walter H. (Skip) Elliott III.  I trust that their biographies will be enlightening to our readers and an encouragement to pray for the Board.

Ken Hampton, President

Ken first served as a Trustee of Stewards Foundation from 1995 to 2004. He was re-elected to the Board in 2005.

Ken was born October 15, 1940, and born again in July of 1948 as a result of the ministry of Berlin Nottage at Bethany Tabernacle in Detroit, Michigan.  After graduating from high school in 1958, Ken took a job as a nurse assistant at the Veteran’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  In 1963, he began courses at the Chrysler Management Training Institute preparing him for a supervisor’s position with Chrysler Corporation from 1964 to 1973.  From 1973 to 1980 Ken served with the Detroit Police Department as a school safety officer, then served as the department Chaplain from 1984 to 2010.

From 1967 to 1973, Ken attended Detroit Bible College, later renamed William Tyndale College, which he attended again from 1976 to 1980.

For 34 years Ken has been involved with radio work in the Detroit area.  He began in 1979 with the Grace Bible Hour on WDRT, a Christian station.  Since 2009, he has been the public service announcer at WEXL the oldest Christian radio station in Detroit.  As a result of Ken’s radio ministry at WDRT, Warrendale Bible Chapel was founded in 2009.

In 1960, Ken married Ellen C. Thurman and the Lord blessed them with three sons, Kenneth, Keith and Kevin.  Ken and Ellen have 13 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.

Ken and Ellen are in fellowship at Grace Bible Chapel in Detroit, Michigan where he has been involved in the pastoral ministries of the assembly since 1977 and was commended to full-time work in 1980.

Walter H. (Skip) Elliott III, Vice-President

Skip first served as a Trustee of Stewards Foundation from 1994 to 1995. He was re-elected to the Board in 2002.

Skip was born into a Christian home on June 29, 1955, and has lived in the same hometown of Summerville, South Carolina all of his life.  He trusted Christ as his personal Savior at the age of nine after his parents came into fellowship at Whipper Barony Gospel Chapel in Charleston, South Carolina in 1963.  After graduation from high school, he attended Clemson University and graduated with honors in 1977 with a BS in Microbiology.

In 1982, Skip married Cathy Ann Drost of Yonkers, New York, the daughter of Mr. Edward Drost an elder at Bethany Gospel Chapel.  The couple was blessed with four children (three sons and a daughter) who have all professed Christ as Savior and are in happy fellowship in the assemblies.

Skip’s business career has spanned several different industries where he has functioned primarily in Sales and Marketing management roles.  Before his current role as President of Elliott Marketing, LLC, he served as CEO of a small publicly traded company called Envirometrics, Inc.  In 2001, Elliott Marketing was formed to act as a manufacturer’s agent in the construction products industry.  He continues in this capacity covering the territory of Georgia, South and North Carolina.

In 1991, Skip and Cathy started the Seabrook Conference, a singles retreat, in Charleston, South Carolina.  This conference is held twice each year and is hosted in conjunction with their home assembly, Summerville Bible Fellowship where Skip serves as an elder.

In this edition of our Newsletter you will find testimonials from an assembly that has had several loans from Stewards Foundation, and a senior commended worker that has been a part of HCAP for many years.

In July of 2013, Waynesburg Bible Chapel celebrated 30 years of ministry in the little community of Waynesburg, PA.  The assembly’s beginnings were very humble, and still are by many accounts, but the mighty hand of God has been evident through the years.

It is hard to believe that it all began with four believers sitting in a living room with a desire to not only honor Christ with biblical integrity, but to actually follow His command to “go and make disciples.” These two newly saved couples were attending a local church that had gone astray from following these principles.  With hearts fixed on following God’s precepts and holding up biblical standards, we began to address unbiblical practices that were commonplace in this church.

It became clear after many attempts to initiate biblical conformity that separation was necessary.  Never having been exposed to “New Testament principles,” other than our own reading of the Scriptures, we began to meet on Sunday mornings and follow what we had read from the book of Acts, 1 Corinthians and various other passages.  A simple breaking of bread followed by teaching from the Bible was the way we started.  As we continued to “make disciples” a Sunday School time was added along with a midweek Bible study.  Before we knew it, the small house where we were meeting became too small to accommodate the growing group.

Just when the time was right, a gentleman familiar with “the assemblies,” that had been praying for a fellowship of believers to form in our area, found that we were meeting in a home and following New Testament teachings.  He was delighted to join with our small fellowship and introduce us to Stewards Foundation.

Needing a larger facility, yet not having enough funds to secure a traditional loan, the Lord provided through a variety of ways all that was necessary to secure a loan from Stewards Foundation.  With this loan, the assembly was able to purchase a church building that was being sold in the heart of our small community.  Throughout the beginning years there were untold accounts of “divine interventions” where the Lord provided all that we needed at just the right time.

On two occasions, since paying off the original mortgage, Stewards Foundation has graciously provided loans for major renovations to the building.  As the assembly has grown our outreach has expanded.  The assembly’s ministry efforts now include an international mission organization called Hands & Feet Ministries to challenge believers to “go ye into all the world,” a drama ministry that puts on top-notch productions of skits and full scale plays, and the Agape Project to meet the temporal needs of those in our community through service projects.

The assembly currently has two full-time commended workers that focus on preaching, teaching and discipleship efforts with various age groups, as well as four commended missionary families serving around the world.

God has richly blessed our assembly and we are grateful for His abundant provision.

I was born Maria Esther Diaz in Mexico City on January 12, 1947 and born again on April 26, 1967 through the witness of a neighbor.   Having studied nursing at a university in Mexico, I worked for three years at a public hospital in Mexico City, then for a public school and finally as a private nurse.  In the summer of 1974, I attended an assembly camp in Puebla, Mexico directed by the late Don and Claire Harris for counselor training and to serve as the camp nurse.  The camp speaker was Larry Darling, a widower commended to the Lord’s work from Grand Haven, Michigan.  Larry and I were married in December 1974.

For over 40 years, Larry was involved in Spanish radio work, preaching the Gospel at comps and Vacation Bible Schools, and in an itinerant teaching ministry.  A part of his work in the Gospel was serving as assistant chaplain at the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas.  We spent almost 20 years working as volunteer counselors at a pregnancy center in Houston discouraging women from aborting their babies.  To this day I know young people that were spared abortion through our efforts.

Larry went home to be with the Lord in 2006.  Since his home-calling, I have continued in the Lord’s work being involved in Women’s and Children’s ministries with the Gospel being very much at the heart of my work.  I serve as an Assistant Chaplain at the Harris County Women’s Jail in Houston, Texas where I go two times a week to share the good news with the prisoners.  I also have a weekly Children’s Club and Bible Study for their parents in my home to reach my neighborhood and surrounding community with the Gospel.

Colonial Hills Bible Chapel in Houston, Texas is my home assembly where I am able to help with their outreach ministry.  The assembly has a booth at the local Flea Market where every Saturday I distribute tracts and witness to anyone willing ask questions or talk about their need of God.  All of this work is done with the support and prayers of the Lord’s people.

I thank the Lord for my commending assemblies and for the financial assistance received annually from Stewards Foundation’s Health Care Assistance Program through Northwest Gospel Hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  

“Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you.” II Corinthians 9:13-14