Take Part In A Historic Event To Honor First Responders

Be part of something truly great in thanking our area first responders!

Thunder Outreach and the Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club, Blue Knights PA IV, is working with Lamar Advertising to host billboards on September 27 to honor and say thank you to our Pennsylvania First Responders.

You can take part in this historic event and sponsor these billboards across the Boyertown and Reading Area with a tax-deductible donation of $350. Just click the RED button below!

Helping Local Veteran’s in need

Veterans need our support!
As a US ARMY Veteran and networking with the Boyertown American Legion Post 471 and other area programs we are excited to be a part of helping local Veterans in need this fall.

Our Benefit Concert “For God and Country” will do more than talk about helping local Vets as we plan to try to raise over $5000 this year to be put in a local Boyertown PA. Veteran’s Fund with the help of the Boyertown Multi-Services programs.   You can buy tickets to the event for $20 , or you can make a $50 or $100 donation on line on this website!

We invite you to be a part of putting the troops on the ground and making this need conquered !

Thank you and God Bless!

THANK YOU and everyone with First Responder Appreciation Day for partnering with us…

Dear Mark and Thunder Outreach

I wanted to personally THANK YOU and everyone with First Responder Appreciation Day for partnering with us for our spectacular Annual First Responder Appreciation Day on Sunday!!! Without great partners like you, it would be very tough to have the many great events and games that we have here at FirstEnergy Stadium!

It was AWESOME working with you and Lisa as always! You ROCK!!! And, EVERYONE had an AWESOME TIME!!!

I have attached some photos from your game! Feel  free to use for Facebook, your website, and however you’d like : )

We greatly value our relationship with Thunder Outreach and look forward to a fantastic continued relationship for seasons to come! You guys crushed it!

From everyone here at the Reading Fightin Phils, thank you again for your partnership and we look forward to a great continued relationship for seasons to come!!!

Yours in Baseball,

Anthony Pignetti

Executive Director of Business Development

Reading Fightin Phils Baseball

Proud A.A. Affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies

610-375-8469 ext 223

apignetti@fightins.com

The Reading Fightin Phils’ FirstEnergy Stadium has been named:

•       # 1 Minor League Baseball destination in all of Pennsylvania – Stadium Journey

•       Third-best Minor League Ballpark in the United States – USA TODAY Travel Media

•       America’s # 1 Classic Ballpark in all of the Minor Leagues – Baseball America

•       Best Ballpark in the Minor Leagues – digitalballparks.com

Thank you for coming with the band and being a great part of this great event.


From: Billy Misiti <bmisiti@ironpigsbaseball.com>


Dear Mark and Heaven’s Thunder Band
Thank you for coming with the band and being a great part of this great event.
Your band sounded great and the place was jumping!
We look forward to working again with your Thunder Outreach program and Heaven’s Thunder Band.
Again Thank and have a great year!
Billy Misiti
Lehigh Valley IronPigs
Triple-A Affiliate, Philadelphia Phillies
Coca-Cola Park
1050 IronPigs Way
Allentown, PA  18109
(610) 841-1222

The Philadelphia Soul teamed up with Thunder Outreach and Heaven’s Thunder Band

To whom it may concern,

The Philadelphia Soul teamed up with Thunder Outreach and Heaven’s Thunder Band in conjunction with our First Responder’s Night this season on June 17th.

The band was able to setup quickly and smoothly on our concourse to entertain fans entering our main atrium for the pregame hour before kickoff. The music was clear, high energy and family friendly for all fans to enjoy. The band brought all their equipment and all we had to provide was the electrical outlets to plug into so they could play.

Please feel free to contact me with any further questions. Best Regards,

Joe Bartlett

Customer Service

JBartlett@philadelphiasoul.com 215-253-4900 x 185

10 Local Police Officers are Safer Now!! Thank you!

With your help we have delivered 10 updated Police Body Armor Vests! Thank you!
We want to Thank all the local Companys who helped us purchase these vests for our local Police depts!

Passmore Service Center, Morning Star Fellowship, Boyertown Area Fire & Rescue, Everything Printing & Shipping Center, Denny’s Electric Service and Fred Beans Ford of Boyertown

We are pleased to announce that we raised the funds and have now have provided ten “Level 5 Body Armor vests” for the Colebrookdale and Boyertown Police depts..

These VESTS are the best and highest level that is currently available. We are excited to help make our Officers lives BETTER and SAFER!

We are always very thankful for our area Police departments and this is just one way we can support and protect those who “Protect and Serve” our wonderful community.

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Thank you from the Reading Fightin Phils baseball team

I wanted to thank you and everyone at Thunder Outreach and Heaven Thunder’s Band again for partnering with us for the annual First Responder Appreciation game last night. Without great partners like Thunder Outreach, it would be very tough to have the many great events and games that we have here at FirstEnergy Stadium.

It was great working with you, Lisa, and the entire crew of Heaven’s Thunder. You guys did an awesome job and I hope everyone had a great time!

If you are interested in coming out this season again for any game, feel free to let me know at any time. You and your family/friends are always welcome!

We greatly value our relationship with Thunder Outreach and look forward to working together for seasons to come!

From the Reading Fightin Phils, thank you again for your sponsorship and see you soon at the ballpark!

Sincerely,

Anthony Pignetti
Director of Business Development
Reading Fightin Phils Baseball
Proud A.A. Affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies
610-375-8469 ext 223
apigneti@fightins.com

Christian Y. Leinbach, Chairman – Berks County Commissioners supports Chaplain Mark Malizzi

Quote from the Commissioner:

Christian Leinbach 2013

Christian Leinbach 

“Mark is a man who not only speaks about his faith, he lives it out in the ministry of Thunder Outreach and his daily life. He is focused on the service and sacrifice of our first responders throughout this region. I’ve stood with him at fire companies, rode motorcycle club the Blue Knights in parades and stood on platforms of churches all for the purpose of honoring our first responders. He often promotes the words of John 15:13 NASB “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Mark – Thank you for all you do for Berks County and the region and for living out your faith in Christ daily.”

Christian Y. Leinbach
Chair/Berks County Commissioners
633 Court St. 13th Flr.
Reading, PA 19601
610-478-6136 x3
www.Countyofberks.com

First Responder Appreciation day at GT with Thunder Outreach

THIS WILL BE A VERY POWERFUL DAY !!!
After last events with our friend Pastor Bryan, You will NOT want to miss this!!Join us as we honor our First Responders on Sunday, .Responding in the time of crisis can be difficult. Together we will explore practical steps for coming alongside people when they are facing a crisis.

10am at Kutztown (http://gtkutztown.com/)
9am & 11am at West Lawn (http://gtaog.org/)

Save the date MAY 22- 2016 and help us say Thank you to our area First Responders!

A Message of Hope
BY BRYAN KOCH on MARCH 22, 2016 IN RECENT ARTICLES

June 7th started like any other Sunday. Bryan and Lynn Koch got up and went to church, where Bryan kicked off GT’s newest series with a message honoring first responders. After church, they headed home, had a bite to eat, and then Lynn suggested they go out for a motorcycle ride. The couple headed out later that afternoon to one of their favorite spots… the Pretzel Hut in Lancaster, and chatted about life change and about the new role of grandparent that they’d be assuming later that year.

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Shortly after 6pm, Bryan and Lynn turned onto Grange Road, just minutes from home. Moments later, an SUV crossed the center line, hitting them and pinning Bryan and the bike under its front left tire, and killing Lynn. Bryan was taken by helicopter to Reading Hospital, where over the course of the next 51 days, he would undergo 19 surgeries and receive 36 units of blood while he fought for his life. Bryan’s injuries ranged from broken bones to bruising, but the worst was the amputation of his left leg.

Throughout those 51 days, Bryan’s three sons, Ben, Bryce, and Brett, along with the rest of the Koch family and GT, would wait and pray first for Bryan to pull through each procedure, and eventually, to wake up. On August 8th, his 28th wedding anniversary, Bryan finally went home from the hospital, and on Sunday, October 18th, he preached his first sermon back on the GT stage.

Unknown-4 Despite doctors’ warning him that he had a long recovery ahead and that he might be ready to be fitted for a prosthetic leg around Christmas of 2016, Bryan miraculously reached his next milestone early and was able to walk out on the stage during this year’s Christmas Eve services.

June 7th was a day that changed my life forever. Before June 7th, my testimony included a story about how I lost sight in one eye while playing minor league baseball. After June 7th, that story changed and began to include how I lost my leg and my wife while doing one of the things I enjoyed most…riding my motorcycle.

When I returned to GT on October 18th, I preached the closing message in our fall series, “EPIC.” The series had been planned long before the accident and it just so happened that the closing message would focus on the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Here they were, the entire nation of Israel, at the foot of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army close behind. They where between a rock and a hard place. And what does God do? He parts the sea, and they walk right through.

Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters—a pathway no one knew was there!
If God brings you to it, He’ll bring you through it. All we need to do is remember what
God did in our past, look for God in our present, and trust God with our future. – Psalm 77:19

Fast forward a bit and you’ll find those same Israelites wandering around in the hot, dry desert, complaining that God hasn’t delivered them into the Promised Land, forgetting God’s past provision. The problem is, they were living in the future instead of seeking God in their present. They couldn’t be patient and wait for God’s plan to unfold, and like the psalmist says in Psalm 106, “but soon they forgot what He had done and did not wait for His plan to unfold. In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test.”

The Israelites learned the power of forgetting and the problem with sameness. When you’re in a difficult season, it’s all too easy to focus on your circumstances and what’s happening right now. Trust me, I know! The past seven months have undoubtedly been some of the hardest I’ve ever been through. Facing the birth of our first grandson without Lynn, and then going through the holidays without her was hard. And it could have been easy to wonder where God is in all of this.

But there’s importance in remembering, when you’re walking in the deepest of valleys, the things that God has done in your past. And there’s hope and joy in seeking out the ways God is working in your present pain. If biblical hope is confident expectation and biblical joy is intentional, incarnational, and eternal, then being hopeful and joyful in hard circumstances is a choice. We wake up each day and have to make the choice to find hope and joy in the ways God is working in the present, because whether we can see it or not, He has already made a way through it.

Haba Na Haba

There’s a Swahili proverb that uses the phrase “Haba Na Haba,” which translates to “little by little” and has become something of a motto for me through these past few months. In times of blinding pain and grief, in times of great difficulty, when we reach those hard places, God brings us through. We might not see the big picture and we might not know the path, but little by little, He guides us.

Our Theme for 2016 is:

“Blessing those who Protect and Service our Communities”

We will personally be at Glad Tidings Church in Reading Pa. for 2 special morning services at 9 and 11 for “First Responders Appreciation Sunday” .

Plus if your are a First Responder, We are asking you to bring your teams Fire truck or Police car if you can, and feel free to come in uniform if you like so we can properly Thank you !

and please Pass this on to all the First Responders and their families also! We want to FILL the place and say Thank you in a BIG WAY !!! 🙂

After each service we will have a table set up for you to visit with us and pick up your free tickets to the Special Reading Phils game.

Go to www.thunderoutreach.com for more info!

See you there !!! God Bless

 

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Chaplain Mark Malizzi selected Boyertown Area 2016 Citizen of the Year…

For years, Mark Malizzi has given his time and talents to the Boyertown community, operating in the background, never one to seek recognition for his efforts. “The driving factor is that for years I’ve heard people have time to complain about how bad things are in the community,” Malizzi said. “If we don’t step up to the needs in the community, it’s never going to change, despite his modesty, Malizzi’s charitable work has not gone unnoticed.

He has been selected as the , and he’ll be the special guest at the 62nd annual awards event on April 9 at the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles. “Mark tries to do a lot of things behind the scenes and doesn’t ask for recognition,” said Roger Lehmann, chairman of the awards committee. “I think that embodies what the citizen of the year is all about in that it typically is driven by people who try to help the community out behind the scenes. “Malizzi said he is humbled by the honor. “There’s so many people through our community that do great work to help people,” he said. “And for me to even be nominated, let alone chosen, it really touches my heart very deeply that apparently the things we’re doing in the community are making that much of a difference. “Malizzi, 51, of Douglassville, founded Thunder Outreach Ministries with his wife of 31 years, Lisa.

The ministry, which has about 20 volunteers, helped to revitalize the exterior of the Boyertown Inn at North Reading and East Philadelphia avenues. The historic building is a mainstay of Boyertown’s downtown, and Malizzi’s group helped paint the exterior and repair some of the front columns. “As people come into town, it makes them smile, it brings them back to an 1800s sort of feel,” Malizzi said of the building. “He (Malizzi) put a lot of personal time and effort into it and coordinated the volunteer efforts of all the people who assisted in it,” Lehmann said. “It certainly is a focal point of the community right there at the intersection, and it came out awesome. He did an awesome job. “Malizzi also is known in the community through his job as service director at Fred Beans Ford of Boyertown.

His work with Thunder Outreach includes partnerships with the Boyertown Salvation Army as well as numerous other nonprofit organizations throughout Berks County. And he is chaplain for Boyertown Area Fire & Rescue. “Interacting and working with them is important to me,” Malizzi said of the emergency crews.

Despite the many hats that Malizzi wears, and the many projects he has participated in, Malizzi has a much simpler outlook on what drives him to keep working in the community. “If I go down in history as being one thing, I just want to be known as somebody who cared,” he said. Contact Matt Carey: 610-371-5038 or mcarey@readingeagle.com