March 2009

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ISP Around the World

Some of you might recognize this flyer that was sent out in January. It is our latest recruiting tool to help people understand how they can be involved with ISP (International School Project) and shows where most of our trips are this year. You can go to our website and sign up…it’s that simple. Our prayer is that the Lord would lay a particular country on your heart that He would guide you to personally reach out to this year.

Barbara, a first-timer to Mongolia, recently shared this story with her team:

"Ten minutes before the afternoon session on Day 2, my interpreter had not shown up for the day. I had severe problems with my stomach. Jenny R. and I prayed and asked the Lord for the interpreter to show up within five minutes and for my stomach to settle down. The Lord answered both prayers instantly. When my group was assembled, I shared with them what had happened. However, before that, Aourine, my interpreter, a Morman missionary to the US, asked me why I was happy all the time. I told her that I trusted and loved Jesus. I also said that I knew she did not believe as I do, but my relationship with Jesus was not a religion of do's and don'ts or rules and regulations. I told her that His love and salvation is a gift that cannot be earned, but must be a choice of receiving Him into her heart. And then I asked her if she would like to trust Him, accept Him and turn her life over to Him. She said yes and I then gave her the plan of Salvation and prayed with her."

It is a privilege to know that, going to work every day, we are making a difference in our world. Here are a couple of prayer requests. When you receive this letter, one of our groups will be ministering in Kyrgyzstan and another will be in Ukraine. Combined these teams will be training around 470 teachers with our Bible-based morals and ethics curriculum. Please pray that there will be open hearts and that the teachers and their students will be transformed by the Good News that they will receive.

With the airlines struggling and fewer flights available, travel continues to be the biggest challenge once a person signs up for a trip. Pray that we would be able to find good fares. Pray that the Lord will raise up more laborers to reach out to teachers in the six countries we are co-laboring with through our short-term mission trips.

Our Adoption Adventure

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. - James 1:27

Over the last five years or so, God has increasingly put “orphans” on our hearts. Whether by the death of their parents, lifestyle choices that make their parents unable to care for them, or because of extreme poverty, children are left without families to care for them and call them their own. We’ve gotten involved in ministries that help get these kids adopted by Christians and support those who are adopting. It has been on our hearts to take some of these kids in ourselves and give them a forever family. God has finally told us that now is the time!

After much prayer, we feel the Lord is leading us to adopt from an orphanage in Haiti that is run by a friend from our church. Watching the videos of the poverty in Haiti and the dirt biscuits they eat just to fill their stomachs made our hearts cry out to help. Then, seeing the light of Christ and the joy on the faces of the children in the orphanage, we knew it was a ministry we wanted to support.

Now, we are also in the process of adopting a brother and sister who were just brought to the orphanage last month. Yrederline, 7, and Prince Antoine, almost 4 ½, are two of the most adorable children! Susan is leaving March 23rd for a few days in Haiti to meet them. Paul and Matthew (12) will meet them in June when they travel to Haiti as part of our church’s mission trip.

We are just one family of many in our church adopting from this orphanage. Over the next two years, at least 25 children will be joining us here. We have a great network of support and the kids will have friends from their home country around them, as well as plenty of families that look like theirs.

All of our children are supportive of adopting, but Megan (9) is especially gung ho! She has wanted us to adopt a sister for her for several years. As soon as she heard we were moving ahead, she made a collection jar and dumped her savings in it to help pay for the adoption. Now she’s baking 12 loaves of bread a week, which she sells for $5 each, to help out even more. With the help that Campus Crusade gives and grants we will apply for, and Megan’s bread fund, we don’t expect to have very many out-of-pocket expenses, except for maybe our travel to visit the kids.

The hard part of all of this is that it can take two years to bring the kids home. Bonding for a few days in a hotel room, then leaving again, may be excruciating for all of us. But we will leave pictures and presents and they will have Papa Pierre, the wonderful nannies and their friends to bide their time with. We will also have pictures and memories of hugs and plenty to keep us busy here. Please join us in praying that the Haitian government speeds up this process so all these kids can quickly join their forever families!

October 2008

Trusting God When Things Look Scary
I've never been one to enjoy being scared. Our family doesn't celebrate Halloween, but we know there are people who enjoy it and like being frightened. But what about when the fear is based on very real things that are happening now, or could happen in the near future? With the elections approaching and the trouble with the stock market, have you felt any fear? I have heard it in the conversations of my Christian friends and even felt some myself.

Last month, we found out about a couple friends who would have to stop supporting us financially because of the impact the economy was having on them. After hearing about the 2nd one so soon after the first, I realized this could be a trend that continues - that as people are affected by this downturn, we might be the first place they cut back. Before I could even quite get to the panicky stage, God reminded me that those people do not provide for us, He provides for us, and I immediately felt His peace. Within a week, another friend told us out-of-the-blue that they were going to be financial partners with us. But what really struck me was another supporter who said that his wife's oil wells were doing well and they were going to increase their giving! What a reminder to us that "He owns the cattle (and the oil wells) on a 1000 hills." Psalm 50:10 He is going to provide what we need and we are not to fear.

Whether you are fearful of the economy or of what our future leaders may do to our country, remember "The Lord says, 'I will rescue those who love Me. I will protect those who trust in My name. When they call on Me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them.'" Psalm 91:14-15


Opening Armenia
Our Int'l School Proj. (ISP) team has returned from a very successful first-ever project to Armenia. This is a land of hot weather, mosquitoes and limited internet access, yet over 100 Armenian teachers attended our conference. One of our delegates was able to share about the death of her parents to her group through her life map. Two of the women in the group became very agitated. One shared that since her mother had died 20 years ago that she had carried a huge burden of guilt because she hadn't been as attentive to her mother just prior to her death as she felt she should have been. A second woman then shared a similar burden surrounding the death of her husband. It was an opportunity to provide a depth of prayer ministry that these women had never experienced and God lifted the burden of their lingering guilt. They loooked like new people afterwards! It was exciting to hear the teachers make plans to use the curriculum at the end of the conference. One woman in her group had already planned to use a lesson in the curriculum on the first day of school!

What a privilege to take our morals and ethics curriculum based on the life of Jesus to the public school teachers, who are instructing the next generation in this country! The Armenians feel that they will play a significant role in bringing Jesus to the Moslem nations surrounding them.


Prayer & Praise

• Though we have now lost four financial supporters in a month, when we would normally maybe lose that many in a year, we are trusting God to make up the difference and to help us be frugal and wise with what He's given us.

• This fall ISP has 7 groups going out to Russia, Ukraine, Guatemala and Mongolia. Pray for their safety and effectiveness.

• Pray for our nation and for the elections coming up. Please vote!

• Susan was able to attend the women's retreat this year. It was awesome to be in the mountains and learn more about being intimate with the Lord. God answered her prayer and gave her words for each of the ladies in her small group that were encouraging and meaningful.

• We are all healthy and the kids are doing well with their various activities. Megan is still doing ballet, soccer just ended for Tyler and Matthew, and Nathan had his last cross country race last week. The week before he set another personal record by almost a minute and a half! He would like to make the varsity team next fall as a senior, so pray that he will run consistently the rest of this year.