Hello and a happy New Year!

To all of you who have been with us during our preparation to leave for Congo: thank you for all of your many prayers, as well as your emotional and financial support! To all of the new recipients of this letter: we hope that the vision that the Lord has given us will become your vision as well (to those who He would call and raise up to join in partaking in this adventure of His). Since this is the start of a new year, I thought it would be a great opportunity to re-cap all that the Lord has been doing in our lives this past year, and to give an update of happenings at the Pioneer Christian Hospital.

Though Michael and Danielle had been praying behind my back for an additional eight months, it was last October when I felt God’s tug on my heart, calling me to go into the mission field. With no direction and even less of a clue what we were doing, we began taking small steps of faith in a new direction: away from home. While the Lord gave us numerous clear signs that we were doing the right thing, we thought we would be going to Papua New Guinea.

By February, He had closed the door on that road and introduced us to a new vision. That was when we learned of the needs at the Pioneer Christian Hospital in Impfondo, Republic of Congo. We joined up with Global Outreach Mission and began the long (still going) task of preparing to leave our life in America behind, and move half-way around the globe, to serve God in the middle of the jungles of Africa!

In April, we started the deputation process, spreading our vision and searching out those who would join our mission as prayer and/or financial supporters. The beginning was extremely slow and unfruitful. It wasn’t until the end of July that we saw our first financial support come in! In the months to follow, things started moving along a bit more quickly. We currently have 1/3 of our needed support, along with nearly 100 committed prayer supporters. Statistically, we are doing well. When every day is spent looking forward to being there, it’s taking way too long! We also applied for our passports in April. They didn’t show up until the end of August, but now we have them.

In June, we had a huge yard sale that God definitely blessed. We now sit on metal folding chairs at our folding card table to eat dinners, and the only furniture we own is our beds and dressers. Most everything else we have is what will go to Africa with us. That is, except for the house. We put it up for sale at the end of June, and we all know how the housing market is right now. The sign is still in the yard. Despite conventional wisdom, we know that it will sell whenever the Lord decides that the time is right. Soon would be nice.

In September, we went to Colorado to attend three weeks of cross-cultural training at Mission Training International. When we signed up for it, back in May, we had no money and no idea where it would come from. The training cost roughly $4,500 including traveling expenses. By one week short of the deadline, the Lord had provided completely what was needed! The time spent there was wonderful, and the training was so valuable. We also made many new friends (all new missionaries heading to their fields) that we will continue to keep in contact with.

December marked another milestone in our journey. We are finished with our vaccinations! The rest of the month was filled with Christmas-related things, and spending time with family. All of our mission-geared things slowed right down for the holidays. We are looking forward to speed picking up again, now that the new year is here.

For those who don’t know, the Pioneer Christian Hospital is the only mission hospital in the entire Republic of Congo. It is a full-service hospital, reaching out with God’s love to a people in great need. The people of Congo have a life expectancy of 32 years, due to AIDS, and lack of clean water and vaccinations. Government-provided healthcare is non-existent, and no one could afford to utilize it if there actually was any. They also have virtually no exposure to the Gospel, but live in tribal communities practicing animistic religions. The PCH is there to help change some of those things. Healthcare is provided free to the people of Congo, along with a full, personal exposure to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The chapel at PCH has daily services for the patients and their families, and we heard that in the month of September 169 patients and family members gave their lives to Jesus at the hospital! We’ve also learned that the team there is growing, as God is raising up medical staff to add to the skeleton crew that’s been there. There are now 2 long-term doctors (and another on the way), instead of just Dr. Harvey.

We are so blessed that God has called us to be a part of what He is doing in Congo, and we can hardly wait to be actively involved there! It’s already been 2,000 years since Jesus opened the door of salvation to the entire world, and we’ve wasted so much time that we can never get back. Souls are passing into eternity every day without ever even having heard the name of Jesus. It is our prayer that He will send us quickly, so that we can be used to reach as many as possible with His love, and His good news. If you feel the same way, I would ask that you prayerfully consider joining us in our mission to reach out to the people of Congo, in whatever way that the Lord directs you to participate. If you are interested in learning more about the needs in Congo, how the Lord is using PCH, or what you can do to be involved; please contact us. We would love to share more with you, or even to give a presentation to any group (or church congregation). We’ve included a prayer card with this letter, which has a reply card attached to the back. Please don’t discount responding regarding prayer support; we would very much like to know who is praying with us. Also, if you would like to continue receiving our updates, we need to have some response from you. Even a phone call or e-mail would work, to get on the mailing list.

Again, we thank all of you for your prayers and support! May you have a Christ-centered and blessed New Year!

Hello friends and family,

Merry Christmas! We hope that you are enjoying this time of family get-togethers and gift-giving. Most of all, we pray that this time finds you thankful for the greatest gift of all: Jesus! As our family reflects on this, we yearn daily for our approaching opportunity to give the gift of Jesus to people of Congo. Every day is a struggle between our desire to go and the realization that we need to patiently wait on the Lord’s time for our departure. In case you’re wondering about the house, we’re still waiting there as well. The couple that was expected to put in an offer last Thursday still hasn’t made a decision. They are a young couple, and his grandmother has offered to help them get a house. As it turns out, there are strings attached to her helping them. Grandma will help, if they get the house she chooses for them. They both really want our house, but Grandma already has a place picked out for them… and it’s not this one. From what we can tell, they are trying to figure out how badly they want her help. They may still put in an offer, but it’s all still up in the air. Please keep praying, it’s not over yet. Maybe it’s not God’s time for the house to sell yet, but maybe this is a spiritual battle that we need to get past. If that’s the case, we really need all the prayer we can get!

We would like to thank all of you for your continued prayers and support. The Lord is preparing the way for us to get to Congo, a little each day. We know that the progress we’ve made would not be possible without the financial investment and (most of all) prayers of His people. Thank you for sharing in the vision that He has put on our hearts; we can hardly wait for the time we can share the fruits of our labors with you! God bless and keep all of you. Merry Christmas!

Dear Friends & Family~<

It’s November.  Since the last update, we’ve completed our three weeks at MTI for pre field training.  We had two weeks at home to recuperate, and then spent a weekend in Virginia for a visit and deputations.  Other than those few things we’ve had nothing but time on our hands!  Or something like that, anyway.

Our training at MTI was a lot of fun.  We got to meet around 50 new people, and really had our minds stretched concerning our expectations for going to a new culture.  The time away was also very relaxing and refreshing.  After about two weeks, we were starting to be ready to go home.  After the third week, it was definitely time to go home.  We missed being home and sleeping in our own beds.  And we missed the dog, too.  It was very difficult to say goodbye to everybody, after we had basically lived with them all for the last three weeks.  However, when we got home, it just didn’t feel like home.  Everything seemed so foreign and empty.I think it took all of us the better part of those two weeks to feel at home again.  Then it was time to go again.  This time it was off to Leesburg, Virginia.  We had been invited by John and Alice Zoller to do a presentation for a small group as well as speaking at their church on Sunday morning.  Another family in the church (Paul & Joan Feeney) offered to put us up for the weekend in their beautiful home.  Our stay there was very comfortable, and we were very grateful for their hospitality.  It was wonderful to reconnect with the Zollers, also.  John used to be the pastor at Geneseo Baptist church, where Art attended many years ago.  In fact, about 16 years had gone by since he last saw them.  During our time together, we took in the air and space museum at Dulles international Airport, spent some time with their whole family, and had a few meals together (and ice cream…  lots of ice cream).  Our small group presentation at the Feeney’s house went very well.  There were about a dozen people there, and there seemed to be quite a bit of interest in our mission.  There were also some great desserts and some good fellowship!  Sunday morning at Mt. Hope Baptist church also went very well.  The congregation seemed to be quite supportive and in interested in what we’re going to be doing in Africa.  They will be voting next weekend regarding supporting us financially.  This is a real blessing, since we do still have a ways to go in raising support.  We also had another handful of people sign on to be prayer supporters.  Praise God.

Throughout both of these trips are travel was safe and mostly enjoyable (other than are behinds getting sore from all the riding in the car).  For now, we are back home again.  We’re currently putting together our next couple of speaking engagements.  We look forward to updating you again, after this next stretch.  In the meantime, please pray with us for the sale of our house and the growth of our support network (both prayer and financial).

Back tracking so everyone can catch up on our lives 

Friends & Family ~

The Lord is GOOD!! This past Sunday evening Art had the opportunity to share what is going on in our lives up to this point at our home church. As most of you know we go to a small country church (which we love)! This small church has given us so much support. At this past business meeting they agreed as a church to support us financially. This past Sunday we realized how much prayer support we are getting. After Art spoke Pastor Dan invited the church to come up to the front lay hands on us and pray as I glanced up I noticed almost the whole congregation coming towards us!! The support is overwhelming at times. They prayed us as individuals and as a whole. The blessings that this small church have given us are AWESOME!!! LaGrange also took a love offering up for us during both the morning and evening service. The amount that they were able to gift us with, will be a huge help in paying for our costs for the trip to and from Colorado this week. This last Saturday evening we celebrated Michael’s birthday a bit early so that family would be able to spend some time with him. The Case’s were great and let us have it at their house as we don’t have enough furniture any longer for people to sit on. We had a wonderful time and Michael got tons of cools stuff including a new digital camera to take to Congo with him.

As most all of you know we are heading to Mission Training International on Friday night. We will be gone for 3 weeks and are really excited to not only take part in this training but to take a trip half way across the country. Art’s last official day at work is tomorrow . While he can go back part time when we return he hopes to not have to. This time in our lives is very exciting yet scary all at the same time. When we first started this process we were told by Global that Art should quit his job when we have about 75% of our support in place, Joe said about 50%, at this point we are at about 15% and yet we have still taken that step of faith that our support will be in place before the end of the year. We also still have not sold the house as of yet. So not only do we not have our support in place but we still have many financial responsibilities to take care of. We do have a trip scheduled when we return from Colorado. We will be heading to Virginia to speak to people from the pastor of Art’s church he grew up in. The Zoller’s have graciously set up both a home group presentation time for us as well as speaking briefly at their church on that Sunday morning. We hope to be able to make a stop in South Carolina (this is a long shot right now) and North Carolina while we are down south. While we are at training we will be able to receive emails so drop us a line.

During this time of stepping out in faith we need prayer support as the attacks are coming more frequently and ferociously now as we strive towards the final leg of getting to Congo. This last week while letting the dog back in the house at 4am he chased a bird (yes I said at 4am) onto the porch and it hit the outside pane of glass on the sliding glass door and shattered it. I was just reaching to open the door from the inside. Needless to say my heart stopped for a second. We have cleaned up the mess but will need to take care of this before the house is sold. We are attempting to just replace the piece of glass but may need to replace the whole door.

Our prayer requests:

1. For traveling mercies as we drive to Colorado this weekend and then back in 3 weeks

2. For a time of spiritual building and refreshment while at training

3. For the sale of the house

4. For financial support many people who have verbally agreed to support us still have not sent in anything so we are not sure where we really stand at this point

5. For continued protection from attacks (though as long as we are being attacked then we know we are on the right path) So not Protection From but Protection Through attacks

I pray for each of you and hope to hear from you all soon.