I’m humbled by the work I so graciously am privileged to do. I’m overwhelmed by the gift I get to give to all who I sent to. I’m thankful for all of you, for without your prayers and support, not as much would be accomplished. Below is a photo collage, please print it off and pray over the children and people that you’ve touched in 2007.

My prayers over you are: For you to have the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones) (Eph. 1). For the Holy Spirit to give you the encouragement, boldness, and strength to step in the fullness of that plan.. For it is not by your power, by your might, but by the Spirit of the Lord that you will accomplish what He has planned for you.

Lord, I thank you for all my Faith Friends who’ve prayed and supported me as they partnered with you to accomplish your plans and purposes. That they may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; [That they may really come] to know [practically, through experience for themselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that they may be filled [through all their being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

I ask that You, Father God, to overtake them with your Love and Blessings as we go into the year 2008. May they answer Your call to share the truth about You ~ the truth of Love.

Going to the “outdoor” movie theater (a walk, bike or moped in ~ instead of drive in).
OK… folks, this is really really wonderful…. Many of you have heard about how the nations are being reached with a showing of the Jesus film in native languages. Another wonderful movie is
l’Espoir (The hope). It is a tour of the bible starting with creation up to the infilling of the Holy Spirit. That was the feature film that we showed. As teams would go out and evangelize or minister to children, a crew would be setting up a projection screen. It starts to get dark at approx 6:00pm and when I say dark, I mean BLACK… there is not much light return from cities out in the bush and villages, so it is black…. The evening events would start off with praise and worship music on the screen (MTV has competition), folks would come and by 7:00pm we’d start the feature film. At the point of resurrection, an invitation to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior was given. Many answered the call of the Spirit of the Lord…. In a Muslim nation…. God reaches to touch all the hearts of the people.

I stood looking up at a jet black sky illuminated with millions of stars in awe. Here I was standing in Africa, out in the middle of nowhere, sharing the greatest gift ever given…. Jesus. As I stood after the invitation to receive Jesus, I looked up and realized how the shepherds felt when the Angel’s announced the arrival of the Savior…I believe that you will travel back to Africa with me as you close your eyes and sing this song. To me it is still resounding after 2000 years……

Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and Child.
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Silent night, holy night,
Shepherds quake at the sight;
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born!

Teaching in the morning… Evangelizing in the afternoon… and an invitation to the Cinema for the evening.

First was to teach the church members and minister to the children. Second was to go out into the villages with an interpreter and share the good news and invite others to come and watch a movie at night.

Ministry is so wonderful. Much of it began with the children in song and dance. We also brought soccer balls and bubbles to play. Yes, bubbles, it is something that the children become fascinated with as they have never seen a bubble before. Our last village, Pastor Jan and myself were assigned to minister to the children. It started out with 25, but quickly grew to 100 children. We played and distributed candies (bon-bons). After sharing with the children about Jesus, I asked them if they had any questions for me…. OK… here they come!!! Question 1: Why are you so different from us. You’re kidding, that blond hair, blue eyes, and white skin stands out?????

I was able to share that God created each one of us. All of us were different. That no two of us are the same. For God used the dirt of the earth to create man. There are 5 colors of dirt in the earth: Black, Brown, White, Yellow and Red. I just had more white dirt, but showed them my black freckles and told them that really, I was black. We had a young girl of Hispanic descent on the team, she is brown ~ when you lined us up, you saw the color spectrum from white to black. I told them that if they came to America, they would see people of all colors, and we all look different but were created by the same Loving God. To wrap it up, I told them if any of them wanted a hug, I’d give them one. I had over 100 takers. It is something that is priceless to them for two reasons, 1. Affection is not shown often in the nation. 2. I’m a white person (a Nasala), and that is something that just does not happen. It is one of the greatest joys I get from ministering to the children ~ Dispensing hugs and praying over the children.

This particular village was in the northern part of the country. It is a place where the land changes over to desert and the sand changes from red to a golden color from sun bleaching. It is a place where the truth has been absent and many forms of abuse are so great. To rape and abuse children was normal……to use children as slaves (labor, sex and militia). Many of the people struggle with the oppression/depression that comes from being abused.

They may not “know” that it is wrong, but their spirit knows it is not right. Many children are withdrawn and have no “hope” for a future. They don’t understand where these feelings of despair come from. They just go through the motions. It is inconceivable to many that people live in these conditions…. Here was a place where to beat your wife and children into submission was normal… Hard to believe and even harder to see.
We ministered to a lady whom the Lord revealed to us that her condition was not the result of a sickness or disease; rather, she suffered years of physical abuse from her husband that left her deaf, unable to speak and in need of “crutches” to walk (really sticks fashioned into a makeshift set of crutches). It was what the Lord revealed and then confirmed as we were ministering and was confirmed later through another person. The Love of God overwhelmed us as He touched her body and healed her wounds. She was so grateful that we came… even more grateful that we gave her Jesus and she could experience true “Love.”

There is so much humor in missions…. Some of what I’ve experienced is priceless as we’ve gone into cultures. For this trip, it was sleep performance anxiety. What, you may ask is “Sleep performance anxiety?” Well it is 200 pairs of eyes watching as we tried to go to sleep…. Many of the people in this village had never seen a white person before, so they watched us…. Funny to look up and see all these eyes “watching” you sleep….the pressure is on…