Hospitality to missionaries

As we traveled across the US on our current furlough we were able to stay in homes of some wonderful and gracious people.  They had signed up to host missionaries in their houses for a night or two as needed.  This was such a blessing to us - first saving us money on hotels and meals.   But also to have a loving sister or brother in Christ ask us how we are doing and listen to our story.  They also were a blessing to our children as well!  So if you are interested in housing missionaries as they travel - keep reading for more information and you can sign up too!!

Friends In Action, Intl.  -  Hospitality Network

In Genesis 18:1-15 we find God disguising himself to test our faithfulness to him.  Romans 12:13 is a command of Scripture to; ‘share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality’.  Also in I Peter 4:9 says to ‘Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling’.    All to say; you might be entertaining angels (messengers)! 

This is an exciting ministry for those servants who can’t GO or financially GIVE to missionaries.  The Lord’s work must go on.  The missionaries who still need assistance with their travels is where you can be of help by opening your home for overnight stays and save them a hotel expense.

Why is hospitality so important?                                                                                                                                                                              1. It offers a test of the practicality of our faith.                                                                                                                                          2. It opens doors for the gospel.  It is saying, ‘I care about you’.                                                                                            

The Hospitality Network receives many requests during the week.  Many of those requests I can’t fill and this leaves me very sad.  I, Linda, thank each of you who are already on our Hospitality Network and serving in this way.

You may contact me at hospitality@fiaintl.org or 417-924-3220 Ext 21.  Check our ministry out at fiaintl.org   

 

Florencio

Message from Vicente (our co-worker)

 

Saludos

In San Juan this past week we finished the Chronological lessons. I believe that God put in my heart to give a review of  all that we had taught in the Chronological lessons (Creation to the Christ).  Florencio interrupted me to tell me that he wants to follow God.    This Guarijio man

accepted Christ as his only and sufficient savior.   While I was teaching he told me he was struggling a little because the people in the village were making fun of him, and others were saying bad and offensive things.  He told me that all this was happening because he had decided to follow Christ.   But what encouraged me was when he told me this phrase “Ipakórume no´o na´ereori na´nairoma peichí neega Riosí,”   Which meant “Although the people make fun of me and treat me bad I am always going to follow God.” When I heard this I was so encouraged. 

This Thursday in San Juan I’ll start teaching in the book of Acts.   This will be a great encouragement for this brother in Christ because in Acts we can see what Paul suffered for following Christ.  

Please pray for us and the rest of the Guarijio because they are struggling with water.  There is very little water and the people get angry at each other for using too much but there just isn’t enough. 

San Juan has heard the Gospel!

C

San Juan is a neighboring village that we have been teaching from Creation to the Cross.

 

 


Pull up a rock and join us!   This man on the left is clearly understand and is probably already a believer.

 

This man always has a lot of good questions afterwards.

 

 

 

Dennis just taught on the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

 

To some it's so new, they'll need to hear is all again.  But they are definitely thinking about all Dennis is teaching.

 

We actually teach in two locations in San Juan every Thursday.  Uptown and downtown!

 

 

Pray for the people of San Juan!  Pray the Holy Spirit will be working in their hearts!

Dia del Ninos

Yesterday everyone got together to celebrate Dia del Ninos.

Waiting their turn to hit the piñata that they all made.



Jenna and the piñata.



Enjoying their candy! :)



Taking home two of the arms from the piñata.

Everyone was all dressed up with their hair done and earings.



Anita looking though her candy bag.

 

Re-entry Stress

Soon we are going on a year of furlough.  I’m trying to prepare myself for re-entry stress also known as reverse culture shock

These are excerpts from a good article I found by Alison Palmer :

“Very often the process of re-entry into the home culture is difficult for a missionary.This can be true even when the missionary wanted to return.The extent of the difficulties, and the time it takes to adjust, depend on a number of factors,eg. how long the missionary has been away, how deeply she was involved in the host culture, the circumstances of the return, her personality, how quickly she gets into another occupation, and the effectiveness of her support system.

The sense of loss can be like an “amputation.” There are physical losses - the adopted culture, familiar surroundings, home, and close friends. There are other, often deeper, losses: a job or ministry, or an identity and role.

Missionaries often live in situations where their physical appearance or accent marks them out as different. They often feel that they have a valuable contribution to make and feel valued by the people they work with. This can make them feel quite ‘special.’ But at home they may no longer feel valued - if they stand out at all it’s probably as misfits. A busy, useful lifestyle on the mission field may have been replaced by a protracted period of seeming uselessness, and with little obvious purpose to everyday life. There may be a real identity crisis.

As a result of multiple losses, many missionaries exhibit signs of grieving - over

emotionalism, loneliness, a sense of homelessness and lostness.  Few people understand, few people want to hear about it, and the missionaries themselves may not understand what is happening.”



To find the full article:  

http://www.sgm.org.nz/Research%20Papers/Issues%20Facing%20Returning%20Missionaries.pdf

A Day In Jenna's Eyes

 

    I asked Jenna what she liked to do everyday and here is her response. 

"I like to play with kittens!"

" I can climb high in our trees!"

"It is fun to swing really high on the swing."

" I like to twirl this rope around the post. then I hang on to it and jump!"

"It is fun to do tricks in our Lila tree."

"Take a picture with me and Zacky."

"In the morning when all the chickens lay their eggs I help get them."

"Look! I found an egg!"

"Sometimes I like to play in our trash pit!"

"Here is me and the chickens. my favorite one is the black one. His name is Tiny and she lays the best eggs!"

 

 

 

Chihuahua

     We had a nice 12 days in Chihuahua.  We had been so exhausted and worn out.   It dawned on us that we haven’t had a furlough in 6 ½ years – other than short trips to see family.   So we have notice symptoms of burnout in ourselves.  All that to say that in Chihuahua we were so blessed to be loved on, encouraged, prayed over,  invited over,   listened to, and understood by so many different families.   We tried to pack those 12 days full of people as that is what we had been missing in the tribe.

      It was so HEALING to be with these folks.  These other missionaries have stood in our shoes.  They’ve felt the same emotions.  They know about isolation.  They are not shocked or judge us when we tell them how we are feeling.  They just nod in agreement as their eyes fill with tears.  They KNOW.   And we are so thankful for them.

 It also did my heart good to see our children enjoying the other missionary children and getting their emotions cups filled up with good friends. 

Here are some of the people that loved on us....



Amy came over with tea for me one morning when the kids were in testing.  The message is for Renee.  She also took out the girls for shaved ice when the testing week was over.



 

 

 

 

 

These two are two peas in a pod when Lydia is in Chihuahua. They get together almost daily .

 


This family is such a blessing.  Jenna loves Naomi,  Natalie plays great with Caleb, and Lydia and Brooke enjoy little Judah!  They are family away from family.



 

A local park has a little town for kids and they were lending out bikes - for free!

 

 


John and Linda always bless us when we are in town with a great meal and lots of love and understanding.



 

 



This is an old picture I stole off facebook.  The oldest is Brooke's age.  They've had two babies since this picture.    We love getting together with the VanWormers.  The kids all have a friend their age and they disappear into the recesses of the house for hours - and I can visit with Maria!



 

This is a recent picture of Bonnie Van Wormer - with Brooke and Lydia.

 



Pam and Rich are our Rook buddies.  They came over twice.  The second time Pam won the Rook game - and won the grand prize of an Almond joy!

 

 

 



We are now back in the tribe in Chiltepin.  Our trip was thankfully uneventful! 

  Not too much carsickness this time, thankfully!  My kids say that chili flavored chips are the best thing for car sickness.  Whatever works~

Gift

 

 

It's been a hard week of spiritual attack.  One of those weeks when you have to keep reciting truth to yourself every minute - even when you can't see it or feel it.  I 'd been remembering the verse about streams in the desert and asking God to find the 'Lo, a spring of Joy I see.'  I was kind of wanting some tangible way to show that God was listening to me.  Well,  this was my gift from God.  A whole bag of lime/oranges!   In the desert with very little produce a whole bag of oranges is a 'over and above' - stream in the desert type of gift.  Thank you Lord for listening and loving me. 

 

 

Electricity

In the past year electricity has been hooked up to several villages.    The first village the government actually wired into each house a few lights and plug ins.  Then in our village they wired two houses.  From now on people are on their own to wire houses.  
Everyone has been asking Dennis to do the work.  But Dennis saw this as a great opportunity to train Macario (baptized believer) to make some income as well as being trained in a trade.  Last week they were wiring houses for 3 days - this week one day.  Macario is learning well - although he lacks confidence and often questions his own choices.  But he's doing fine.  He also has work making adobe bricks and soap.  Today we talked about  God has been providing for his family - even without planting the *****.   Praise God for taking care of their needs.

Recently Macario was told that their 1 year old baby is sick because she hasn't been baptized the Guarijio way (they do this for all babies).  But the family is saved now and didn't baptize their little girl.   Not to mention that the whole village is sick with colds and flu and their baby was no worse off than the rest!     Macario asked Dennis recently if we baby baptized our children.  I believe he knew he was doing the right thing - and just wanted to be able to say - well Dennis didn't baptize his babies either!  Macario is an unlikely leader .  But God is using him for some major trail blazing in his culture.  Pray for him!

3 months

 Some have asked us how we are doing without our partners here.  Yes,  we are doing well.  We’ve survived 3 months!    The first 8 weeks were very hard with a lot of spiritual attack..  I do appreciate your prayers as though there was attack I felt that I was able to keep truth in my thought life.  The feelings took a while to catch up – but during that time I felt the prayers and the truth of God’s word- despite struggling with the anger and depression of knowing we were being left without partners.  

 

  But I’m happy to tell you I’m doing so much better now.   The Indians are very private, stoic people who don’t talk about feelings.  But even so I look to them more for friendship than I did before.   I look forward to talking to them – even about the weather – since I have no other outlet!    I’ve also been so blessed to see our girls depend on each other for friendship more than they have before. I’ve seen them grow closer and build bonds they may never have built otherwise.   So I’m seeing God’s hand in it!  I can actually say that God has taken care of us and blessed us in the midst of what I  thought  was an impossible situation.  God be glorified!   We really appreciate all your prayers! 

 

Dental Clinic

Thanks for praying! It was the best dental clinic we ever had!  God gave me the idea of signing up people ahead of time for appointments.  I was unsure if it work since in the past anyone who wants to just shows up.  Well Praise God it worked!  We signed up 20 people a day and squeezed a few extra in.  So we saw 25 people a day.  75 total people with a total of 119 extractions!      
I got to be the assistant (Dennis was glad to let me - since he doesn't enjoy watching what the Dentist does in a person's mouth.)  I could gross you out and tell you that most of the folks had black rotted teeth.  But I won't go into that.
Doesn't this gal looked thrilled to be a the dentist? She'll thank us later when the pain is over with. 

The first day of the dental clinic we also took a break at 11 am for church. 

I just love these kids from Children's church.  Not the best picture of me though!

Dental Clinic

This Sunday (Jan 11) through Tuesday we invited some missionaries to pull teeth here in Chiltepin. 

This is the most dental care the Guarijio get around here.  Fillings - cleanings?  No,  just yank it out!   It's a relief to them just to get rid of the pain.

Please pray for those three days.  Some 100 Indians will be milling around our houses waiting for their dental appointment or just hanging out for the fun of it.   We want to help the ones who need it the most. But we can only have 60 appointments.  Please pray God will be glorified by all of it.    Pray for our kids to have patience as they won't be getting much attention during those days.    Pray for Dennis as he traveled to go pick up the dental team.   We need your prayers! Thank you so much!