Two Weeks and Counting!

Well we are down to two weeks before we leave. Today we tried to bump things up a gear. We have a lot of packing and sorting to go, but we did make some headway. The hard part is trying to decide what you can't take even though you really wish you could take it.

The other issue is trying to think of all the little things to do before leaving home for three years. Accounts to close, bills to get paid off, handing off bills that still have to be paid while we are gone. It gets a little overwhelming at times and I have to sit back take a deep breath, and try to stay focused.

And thanks to the guy from Nigeria who tried to blow up a plane this week, things are changing a lot for security reasons. Some European airports will not let you travel with any liquids or toiletries at all in your carry on bags. Also, for international flights, the last hour of the flight you can not get up out of your seat. Tell a three year old "Honey, you will have to hold it for another hour before you can go to the potty!".

Glad we serve a great and mighty God who is in control of all these little things!

December Newsletter

Bradsher's To Namibia

Our New Address in Namibia:

P.O. Box 1122, Grootfontein, Namibia



God is Faithful!

December has been an emotional month for us. We are preparing to leave our family for the next three years, anxiously awaiting Kristen’s mammogram results, and the passing of her Grandmother Cibos. All of this happening within a few days of each other and during Christmas.
God has gotten us through it all! Our families are all 100% supportive of God’s call in our lives. Kristen’s mammogram came back clear and cancer free. Kristen’s Grandmother Cibos was a godly woman, solid in her faith and has been praying to be with Jesus for some years now.
So we are praising God for His unfailing faithfulness to us as we continue down our road to Namibia. He has used you all through your prayers, love and encouragement of our family!

We have Tickets!

It is finally official! We have now received our plane tickets for Namibia! We will be leaving from Raleigh/Durham airport on January 11th at 10:30am.
We have a long three day journey before we get to our new home of Namibia. We travel to Washington, D.C., Frankfurt, Germany, Johannesburg, S.A., and finally Windhoek, Namibia. We will then have a six hour drive to our home in Grootfontein, Namibia. So four plane rides, a long van ride, and three days later and we will be home.
I will be loading an air tracker program on our blog just before we leave so that you can follow our travels. The address to our website/blog is listed above under our names. Please check it often after January 11th, as we will be loading videos, pictures and daily accounts of our ministry. The kids also have a blog as well, and you can find the link to it listed on our blog to the right. This will give you an idea of a day in the life of a 5, 4, & 2 year old in Africa! Be sure to share it with your kids!

Newsletters

If you have been receiving our prayer letters by snail mail, do not fear. We have a wonderful person here in NC that will continue to help us in mailing out our newsletters. We will be sending a newsletter out every other month. But if you have a computer please be sure to follow our blog for more detailed communications weekly.

Also notice our mailing address for Namibia above!!!

Come See Us

If you would like to see us before we leave, please come on by. We would love to see anyone that would like to stop by. We live in Durham, NC. Just give us a call or shoot an e-mail so that we will know you are stopping by. Don’t think it will be a burden, as we will be gone for three years! 

Prayer Requests

* for safety in travels
* for health of the family
* for open hearts to hear the gospel in Namibia
* for getting settled in to our new life
* for our families we are leaving behind
* for God to be glorified in all we do each day

Many Thanks to all for your financial support of our family!

Remit Donations to:
SIM USA
PO Box 7900, Charlotte, NC 28241
Or at www.sim.org/giveUSA
Our account: #024621

Plane tickets in the mail!!!

It is finally official. We now have our plane tickets for Namibia purchased, and in the mail.

We leave out of Raleigh/Durham January 11th at 10:30am and we set foot on Namibian soil January 15th at 9:30am eastern standard time or 4:30pm in Namibia.

We are praising our Lord and Savior for how He has used you all in so many ways to finally get us to Namibia. God is so good and we are thankful for the calling that He has placed in our hearts and for the road that He has led us down to get us to today.

Yes, we thank Him for every good day and even for the very tough days. We know that He has used both to draw us closer to Himself, to strengthen our faith and trust in Him, as well as to prepare us for hard days to come in the field of ministry that we are soon to begin.

Many blessings to you all!

Kristen's Mammogram Reports

We are praising the Lord this afternoon! Her reports and scans all came back clear of any cancer or abnormalities!

Please join us in praising the Lord for His greatness!

Thanks to you all for your prayers.

We will be reporting this great news to SIM today and once we get clearance from the medical team, plane tickets ordered and departure dates, we will let you all know.

Many Blessings!

Honoring a Wondeful and Godly Woman

Early this morning Kristen's Grandmother, Catherine Cibos, was called to glory by our sovereign God. Today is both a day of great joy, but also a day of sadness.

Joy

Joy, in that Nanna Cibos has been ready for a few years now to meet her savior face to face. Only a woman who has had a close walk with the Lord, could have been as ready as Nanna was. So today, I can only imagine what that moment was for her when she got to see King Jesus for the first time.

The amazing awe to be in His presence, joining with the multitude of heavenly hosts and other believers that have been called home, all in one united worship together. Praising with their voices, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God almighty!". God has given her a new and perfect body. A body that aches no more, that hungers no more, that is weak and failing no more.


Sadness

Our sadness will only be in that she is no longer here with us. Here to encourage us with her faith and trust in God. Here to offer her love and kindness in the many ways that she did. To see how much she cared for those so close to her, and her great joy that she had when her grand children and her great grandchildren walked in the room.

But we can not be sad for long. We will grieve today, but with the comfort that can only come from the Lord and the comfort that comes with trusting and knowing that today she is with God himself.

So we will not be selfish today, we will be joyful today. Heaven is where she was called to be. Heaven is where she wanted to be. And Heaven is where she is rejoicing at today.

God, we thank You for all 95 years of the life you gave to Catherine Cibos on this earth you created. We thank You for all the many ways that You used her in the fulfillment of your purposes for her in her life here with us. And God we thank You that we too can have the same hope that Nanna Cibos had before you called her home today. The hope that we too can one day join with her and You at your feet in worship of the One who loves us so much that you gave your Son, Jesus, to die for us on the Cross. This is where the hope came from that Nanna Cibos had. Thank You for answering her prayers and calling her home today to be with You!

2 Timothy 4:7

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

We love you Catherine (Nanna & Nanny) Cibos!

Pray for Kristen

Kristen has a mammogram this coming Monday at 2:30. We are praying and asking for you to pray also, that it comes back clear. If everything is clear then we will be cleared to order our plane tickets for Namibia the next day and scheduled to leave by January the 11th.

Our most important concern is Kristen and her health. So we ask that you please pray for her this weekend and this Monday that the Lord will make sure that she is still healthy and cancer free.

Thanks in advance for remembering her this weekend.

Christmas for the Bradsher's and other Thoughts

This Christmas is mixed with many emotions for us this year. We are sad that this will be our last Christmas with our families for the next three years. Excited in that we are getting ready to leave for Africa in the next coming weeks. And filled with Joy for what Christmas truly means to our family.

We have no clue what Christmas will be like next year in Namibia, but we have been told that it is nothing like here in America. I am really glad that is the case.

We have missionary friends in South America, and in his last letter he talked about what a joy it was to not have another commercialized Christmas. I think about how we as Christians get pulled into the commercialized side of what are tremendous Christian holidays.

Easter

The celebration of the death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior. The greatest event that ever took place in the history of man. When God allowed His son, Jesus, to be killed for the sins of many, that they might one day be with God himself in Heaven if they believe in Him.

But we can't just have Jesus at Easter, but we bring in Mr. Easter Bunny. Lots of colorful eggs, gifts and candy for the kids.

We get the Easter Bunny from the German fertility goddess Eostre.

Reformation Day

Lots of people do not know much about this day, and they should, but they better recognize it as Halloween. Some also celebrate "All Saints Day" on Oct. 31st as well.

The reformation was a day when Martin Luther was fed up with the poor doctrine of the Catholic church of his time. Allowing people to supposedly buy people out of purgatory and into Heaven. You can read more on this here. But this day is important as it was the founding of the Protestant Reformation to which today we have our Christian denominations, i.e. Presbyterians, Baptist, Methodist, Lutherans, etc.

But in America, people send there kids out dressed up and again candy is given.

And at last Christmas

We know that at Christmas, Christians celebrate the fulfillment of prophecy, through the birth of Jesus. God sent His Son to earth, to live and die for a fallen world full of sinners.

But we have good old Santa Clause, Christmas trees, spending lots of money on gifts, parties and you know everything else that comes with the holiday.

All of these holidays are marketed towards kids! Kids getting eggs, getting candy, and getting gifts from Santa.

I for one am excited about being in Africa, where when Easter comes along, we will only celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, and when Oct. 31st comes along we will celebrate how God, through a simple man, began the Protestant Reformation and the accounting for sound doctrine and giving God the glory for His work on earth for His purpose and not mans.

And at Christmas, I look forward to just celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Not hoaxing up a jolly big man in a red suit, that has miraculous flying reindeer, fits through all size chimneys and gives gifts to good boys and girls. Not sure how we ever felt good about lying to our kids like that. We never have because, well we are teaching our kids not to lie, and we also want them to only focus on what Christmas is truly all about. Even though there was a Saint Nicholas way back when, he didn't fly around the world in a sled by reindeer and that is not what Christmas is about.

I know I may step on some toes with this, but we need to get the "world" out of Christian celebrations. God wants all of the attention on Himself, He always has and He always will. Read the Bible and that is quite apparent.

Just think about it. Pray about it. And just focus on God and give him all the glory on these wonderful days of the year. He doesn't want to be shared with Santa, Eggs and dressing up for candy. He wants all of our attention, our worship and efforts on celebrating Him.

Great Christmas Gift Idea

Last year for Christmas I asked for the ESV study bible. It was the best gift ever! Well it is on sale again this year at monergism.com for 40% off, which is a great deal.

Here is a link to the site.

ESV Study Bible Sale Link

Visit To Winston-Salem, NC

This past Friday we traveled to Winston-Salem, NC to visit friends before leaving for Africa.

It was a great weekend, and we packed it to the brim. I hate it that we did not get more pictures, but here are a few that we did take.

Thanks to everyone for the time allowed to visit with you, eat with you and share a few more laughs as well.

We love you all and will miss you over the next few years, and could not possibly be making this journey if not for God using you all in so many special ways to support our family!

God bless!

Hymn Melody in Afrikaans

One of the things that I am doing now is studying Afrikaans on-line. In my lesson tonight for pronunciation I had to listen to some songs. Well one of the songs that I listened to sounded very familiar, well the tune did.

Take a listen to this great melody of hymns in the language we will need to learn while in Namibia. It is really great! I had to listen to a few times myself.

Hymn Link

Slashed My Finger!

Today I slashed my finger and ended up getting 6 stitches in my hand. While laying in the hospital applying pressure to my hand to keep it from bleeding, I wondered what the scene would have been like in in Namibia.

Well, I know that God is good and that He will take care of us. Even today I sat in the hospital triage area for an hour trying to stop the bleeding while I waited on a doctor to finally look at my open wound.

I am doing better, but will take a week or so to get complete use back with my finger.

I must say that I have never seen all five members of my family get into the car and out the driveway as fast as we did this morning. So no more excuses on Sunday mornings!

October Newsletter

God Is Faithful!

Our God is faithful, and this month He has answered our prayers! Our permits in Namibia have been approved! Please join us in praising God for this answered prayer. We can not thank you all enough for praying along side of us for so many months for this to finally happen. We are hoping to arrive in Namibia sometime this coming January.


“What I am doing now you do not understand;”

Over two years ago, God began to call our family into full time missionary service internationally. When you answer the call to go into full time ministry, you might think that since God is calling you that He will make the path easy. One thing that we have learned in the past two years is how strongly Satan is against anyone trying to advance the gospel. Here is a small list of how Satan has tried to divert our going into the mission field:


• Our house being on the market for two years and still not closed.
• Being laid off from work.
• When re-hired the new job paid much less and longer hours and less time with family.
• Having to move away from close friends to live in missions house.
• Running out of money due to permit not being approved.
• Kristen finding out she had breast cancer.
• Having to work long hard hours on a farm to barely make ends meet.
• Kristen getting an infection after first surgery only to have another surgery.

This is only a small list of some of the things that Satan has used to try and distract us, frustrate us and even try to draw us away from what God is calling us to do. Our God is much bigger and victorious over the powers of Satan, and anything that Satan tries to use to prevent us from spreading the gospel.

We know that God could have prevented all of these bumps in the road, but we also know that God allowed all these bumps to strengthen our faith and trust in Him. These trials, we know, were meant for our good in order to prepare us for the trials that we will face in Namibia. But we also know that our lives are not our own, that we were bought for a price and that was the death of Jesus Christ.

Therefore we are humbled and are thankful for God allowing us this growth. Take a moment and read John 13:1-11 where Jesus is washing the feet of the disciples and His conversation with Peter. The feet back in Peter’s time were considered dishonorable members of the body. So dishonorable that the Law considered them unclean, and outside of the immediate family, the only ones to clean the feet were slaves and/or non-Jews. But here Jesus is cleaning each and every foot of the disciples. Peter argues with Jesus at first and does not wish for Jesus to touch his feet. Jesus says to Peter, “What I am doing now you do not understand, but afterward you will understand.”

This has been true for us. Over the course of the last two years we have not understood the road God had us travel. The lesson in this scripture for us is that the Christian life will mostly be spent trusting Jesus now and understanding Him later. God does not generally find it necessary to explain in the beginning why He is doing something the way He is doing it. Like Peter, when it looks wrong or confusing to us, we are inclined to object to the Lord’s will.

God understands our confusion and our wrestling with grief and is patient with us in this. Yet He still wants us to trust Him, and to not grumble. God’s ways are not our ways. His will for bringing, or not bringing, things to pass usually extends way beyond us, and maybe even generations beyond us.

So, like we have had to do over the past two years, I encourage my friends to remember the words Jesus spoke to Peter, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Some things we now understand about the wait and God’s timing, other things we still question, but in our questioning, we also trust. Our trust is in the great God of the universe, the Great I Am, and if we can not trust Him, then I dare ask in whom could we ever trust.


Prayer Requests For….

•our families as we say good bye for three years.
•continued health for Kristen and our family.
•all the busy work we have to do before we leave.
•the stability of our monthly support for our first term.
•the hearts of the people we will minister to in Namibia.
•the closing of our house in Winston-Salem, NC.
•God to be made much of in the land to which He sends us to.


Family Updates

Kristen

Kristen had to have another surgery in September due to an infection that she got in the surgery site. Since then she has been doing much better, the infection has healed and she says that she is now feeling like her normal self again. We praise God for her healing and strength through this entire ordeal.

She is going to have a minor surgery November 5th to have some of the skin repaired from previous surgeries. We thank you for all of your financial support, and prayers for us during this time of dealing with Kristen’s cancer.

Kristen is also homeschooling the kids, taking good care of the house, and good care of herself.


Brian

Brian has continued to work many odd jobs to keep our cash flow at a point where we can pay for food, gas, and utilities. God has been so faithful to us in supplying him with jobs. The strawberry farmer has continued to allow him to work weekend markets in Durham through November. He has been working on a pumpkin farm on weekdays during October parking cars, picking pumpkins and taking kids on hay rides. He has also had some painting jobs at a local church as well.

He also got a chance to go with a pastor friend to Haiti for a week. This was a humbling experience for him. The place where they stayed had no running water, very limited electricity and the weather was hot and humid. He came home overwhelmed with many emotions for the people living in Haiti and the church they served while there.

Cameron

Cameron is doing well. He turned five in June. He is doing well in his kindergarten studies with his great teacher (mom). He is learning to read, write, and with his studies he has morning devotionals each day. That is the cool part of homeschooling. Kristen is using Sonlight, a Christian home school curriculum.

He got the opportunity to play on a recreational soccer team this fall. He has enjoyed it a lot, is learning the basics of the game and even scored a goal in one game, which he was very excited about. He continues to love catching bugs, and caring for his pet box turtle who he named “Grassy”. He is excited about getting to Africa soon, riding the airplane and he wants to learn how to play cricket when he gets there.


Hannah

Hannah is quite the princess of the family. She is beginning to do some pre-school lessons with Kristen. She loves to play house and dress up. She also loves Awana and has earned her jacket and three patches so far. She looks forward to going each Sunday.


Corbin (AKA “The Fury”)

Corbin turned two in September and lives up to his nick name. He has no fear of anything, loves to pester his brother and sister, and thinks he can do anything that they can do. He certainly tires out Kristen most days, but he is full of love and we are certainly full of love for him. He is learning a lot listening to Kristen teach the other two kids and can even count to twenty. He will be the one chasing lions and handling black mamba's in Namibia!

Many Thanks to all for your financial support of our family!

Remit Donations to:
SIM USA
PO Box 7900, Charlotte, NC 28241
Or at www.simusa.org/giveUSA
Our account: #024621

Permits APPROVED!!!

Most of you may have heard the great news by now, but we have finally gotten approval for my work permit for Namibia! We are now working on the details of our departure date. As of now it looks like it will be the second week of January.

As for Kristen, she has been doing a lot better and healing from the surgeries that she has undergone to have her cancer removed. We would not be moving forward if she was not feeling ready for the trip as her health comes first. But she assures us that she is ready and excited to get to Namibia.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support of our family over the last couple of years as we have been waiting for this time to come and praise the Lord, He has answered our prayers!

Keep an eye on the the blog as we will be adding much more field material by the end of January.

Many Blessings!

Kristen Having Surgery

Please be in prayer for Kristen. She got a really bad infection in the previous surgery site and is at this time in surgery. The doctor said that the surgery should not be as bad as the last, and that the recovery should be less than a week. But surgery is surgery!

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!

SIM Mobilize - www.simusa.org

This short video gives a brief history of SIM (our mission agency) and the overall global mission of the agency.

Brian's Job

Well, I can hardly believe that the summer is almost over. Even with that, it is hard to believe that I have been working my farm job for almost 4 months now. God has truly been good to us though. The job was a blessing that was just in time, paid our monthly bills and much more.
We never know why God puts us in the places that He does, but it is always for a great reason that only He understands and has purposed at the right time. I had the great opportunity to work with many college students and high school students on the farm. I love working with young people, and that is why I will be a youth pastor in Namibia once we get there.
One of my gifts from God is understanding and connecting with youth. I can not say that I always understand, but over the past five years God has helped me to be a good listener, to be slow in my frustrations, to always share the gospel in simple ways, and to forgive, forgive again and forgive some more!
When I first started working with youth five years ago I had to learn patience. I got so frustrated with the kids at the beginning, because of their lack of attention during lessons, lack of zeal for the word and disrespect that one night I flew off the handle. But God used one young lady in the youth to share with me that I came across wrong and that not everyone was being the problem. Since that time I had learned and continue to learn how to connect with youth in a way that draws them closer in relationship, rather than push them away.
And that has been the ministering part of working on the farm. All the kids there are from different walks of life. All are having their on struggles, and many are not really sure what God is all about, and what God has to do with them. But they have at least heard about God, the gospel and why we are willing to give up everything here in the US to go to Africa for three years.
The neat thing was that this past Sunday night I had a worship service at Olive Grove Baptist with the help of good friends of mine, and five of the kids from the farm came! There were lots of other things that these kids could have been doing, but they came! Did they walk down an isle? Did they profess then name of Jesus before leaving the church? No, but they heard the word of God in song, from the Word, and from my testimony that night. To me that was the best part of working outside all summer long on the farm. The toil, the sweat, the hot and long 15 hour days was worth seeing these kids come to church. Knowing that all summer long they heard about God, Jesus, His love and what He can and wants to do for them also. Seeds were planted and now we pray that God will allow those seeds to take root and through His mighty power, save them from the bondage of sin and reconcile them to Himself!
Never question why God has you where you are! Just go with it and ask God how to best use you where He has put you.

Update on Kristen

Sorry it has been a few weeks since posting. It has been pretty busy for me since Kristen had surgery three weeks ago. Working three days a week, but 14 hour days. Helping with the kids, trying to get a lot of chores done in three days, and now preparing for a worship service that I am leading this coming Sunday night.

As for Kristen: She is doing a lot better, getting her energy back and the recovery seems to be coming a long a lot better in the past few days.

We did find out that she did have some invasive cancer cells. The good news is that they got it all out and they had not attacked the lymph nodes yet. The bad news is that she may have to take a couple of medications for a couple of years along with the thoughts of Chemo in the very near future.

We will not find out about the chemo for about two weeks when some blood work comes back. So please pray for her, the blood work to come back to where she will not need chemo. Chemo is not good on the body and she really does not want to go through that.

Thanks for the prayers and cards and food! It is all greatly appreciated.

Many Blessings to all!

My Job

Well most of you know that I have a part time job now to help make ends meet.

Well I work for a farm in Creedmoor, NC. Basically I run a produce stand outside near my home. I sell fruit and vegetable all day long. It is a hard job, long hours, but God is teaching me a lot through this all. I praise Him for the job, for the people I meet at the job, and for the opportunities that the job has given me to share Christ to people.

I start around 7am each morning by loading my truck up with fresh fruits and vegetables that we grow at the farm. I then make it to my stand around 9am and unload my truck and put all my produce in a neat and orderly fashion. Then from 9am to 5:30 I have around 150-200 customers come by and buy produce from me. At 5:30 I load what is left in the truck and mosey back to the farm to once again unload. By the time I leave it is near 7pm and it has been a long tiring day.

Anyway, that is what I do these days. Attached is a picture of me at my local produce stand. If you are ever in the area of Butner/Creedmoor, NC, come by and see me.

Advance 09

June 4th -6th, here in Durham, NC they had a Pastors Conference for the Resurgence of the Church. It was a GREAT conference, with some well known Pastors challenging us in our theological prejudices, our conveying of the gospel, and leading our churches for the glory of God and not for man, and so much more!

Desiring God has posted all of the messages as well as the Q/A panels. I have attached the link here. I am very partial to Pastor John Pipers two messages as he is discussing the need for international missions, so I think you can guess why I am partial to that.

I do hope you get a chance to listen to these over the next week or so, as I think that God will use them to convict you, shake you up, and encourage you in many ways as it did for me and other of my peers that were there also.

Link to Advance09 Messages Here

News About Kristen

Well, things have not changed much since the last blog. The initial mammograms that were taken got lost in the mail, to which we waited two weeks for them to show up. They never did, so the new doctor that Kristen has chosen is going to have new ones taken tomorrow.

They will then do some other biopsy's to see if they can do a lumpectomy, rather than a radical mastectomy. So we hope to hear the news later this week as to what approach will be taken. So please pray that God will allow the surgeon to do the lumpectomy which would be a lot better for Kristen.

Sorry the blogs are few far between, but our next residence does not have cable or Internet hook ups, so we get very little time on the Internet when we go to different peoples houses. Hey, we better get use to that before we get to Africa, right??

We hope to inform more later.

Thanks for all the prayers, cards and encouragement.

Also take a look at the kids blog, as they have added some new stuff on their site as well!

Blessings!

God Will Be Glorified Through This Cancer!

For the last year we have been preparing and praying for our call to the mission field in Namibia, Southern Africa. Well over the last few months we have all been praying for my permit to be approved. We have been struggling to figure out why God has yet to allow the home affairs to give us their approval. Well this weekend we got at least one answer to our question.

We found out yesterday that Kristen has breast cancer. I can not tell you how difficult it is to write this, but I can tell you how strong and mighty and loving our God is. He knew all along that this was the road, that we as a family, were heading down and hence at least one reason why He has not allowed us to go to Africa yet.

God is so good, He truly is and now looking back over the last few months we understand all the things that He has been doing to prepare us for this new battle.

In all things to God be the glory and we are to always boast in His goodness. Here are some of the God things that we now see as His hand preparing us for this.

1. The permit and visas not being approved yet. Had we taken our family to Africa and then found out about this, I can only imagine the stress this would have added to our family and many other things I can not imagine we would have gone through..

2. We ran out of funds, yet God supplied me a job, and us a free house to live in that is less than ten minutes from my family.

3. Health insurance!! Well we had a temporary insurance plan that was inexpensive, but had a $10K deductible, as we never imagined anything like this coming at us. But two days before Kristen went to the surgeon, God opened a door for our group health insurance to start. God is AMAZING and always on time!

4. Finally, God allowed Kristen to find the cancer, or the lump, way in advance of it spreading, so even though the measures needed to rid her body of the cancer are great, the chance of beating it is very high!

So we ask you to lift Kristen and our family to the Lord, our Great Physician, in prayer that He will be glorified in her having cancer and the way that He will heal her body in the time that He has chosen. Second, we ask you to give God all the praise for how He has given us the comfort of knowing that He is in charge of this cancer, that He is the ultimate Healer, that He has allowed this to happen to her and us for a reason, and that in this we will give Him all the praise, glory and honor in and through this ordeal because He is God, and He is good, and He loves my wife and our family, and we know that He knows what is best for us even in the worst of situations. And lastly pray that God will show Kristen and us how to best use this for His ultimate glory.

I am studying through prayer now more than ever, and as I was meditating on the Lord's Prayer this morning, God showed me something. He said to pray "give us this day", not tomorrow or next month, or next year, but "give us this day". God show us that you have blessed us with "this day", and that you will provide our every need today, and He and only He knows tomorrow and it is all in His hands. So we are to rest in Him today, we are to glorify Him today, we are to praise Him today, no matter what the circumstance, and not even think about tomorrow until tomorrow becomes "this day".

I am so glad that we have you all behind us to pray for us to encourage us and to love us during the next few months. Please, if you get a chance, send Kristen a word of encouragement, as it will mean so much to her during this time as we follow God's leading in the hands of the doctors that will be working with her.

Our mailing address is:

2071 Will Suitt Road
Creedmoor, NC 27522

Many blessings to you all!

In the hands of a Mighty God,

Update on our Situations

Well, I just noticed that it has been quite a while since my last post. Well there are many reasons for that, but the main one has been access to the Internet. The new mission home that we moved into a couple weeks ago does not have Internet access, so I have not had the late night opportunities to write.

I have also began three weeks ago working again on a farm to help pay our monthly bills until we leave for Africa. I work from 7am to 7pm and that leaves no room for stopping by the church here and getting on the computer.

We still do not have any word on our work permits, so we continue to trust in God's timing and for His provisions for our family and the ministry He has called us to in Namibia. So please continue to pray with us for this to happen soon, but also for our family to understand why God still has us here in the US.

We thank you all for your continued support of our family and for taking us to the Lord in prayer. God is so good and He does hear the prayers of His people, and soon we will be in Namibia serving this great and mighty God for His glory!

Great Daily Devotional

As we have yet to get my Work Permit approved in Namibia, I have been struggling with my faith and trust in the Lord's timing. Well, God's timing is always perfect, and I know that God is using this time to teach me a lot.

One such thing of His perfect timing was a book that I won on facebook from SIM. The book is "The Andrew Murray Daily Reader". God is teaching me a lot through this book and the daily writings from a missionary to South Africa by the name of Andrew Murray. It is a MUST read for any Christian. See the link below for the book. I STRONGLY recommend it. The link below is to Amazon for used copies at .36 cent!!!!

Book Link Here

Our Perspective

Cameron loves to take pictures and tell stories about his daily happenings. So I have created the kids a blog so that they can share their stories and pictures of our life in Africa. So if you have kids that are young, and you keep up with our ministry, check the blog from time to time to see what the kids think.

To the right of our blog page will be a link to their blog.

Hope you enjoy!

Our Blog Link

Isaiah 53:2-6

I usually prefer the ESV translation of the Bible and the NKJV, but this morning I was reading Isaiah 53:5 in different translations, and the translation called The Message really spoke to me a lot.

Isaiah 53:5 (The Message)

2-6The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.

If only I could have a "mustard seed" of faith, or character of Christ, what a difference there would be in my life, such as the way I treat my relationship with Christ, or the way I treat my wife and my kids, or even my desire to help others in ways that normally I would overlook.

For the last 24 hours I have had one of by bi-monthly headaches, that really ruins my day. When I get them I am quite miserable and tend to be in a grouchy mood and snap at people, OK snap at my wife and kids. But I have to think about how Christ reacted when he was in the ultimate pain during his death on the cross.

Christ was torn to pieces when he was beaten, had to carry his own cross on his shoulders after being beat, had a crown of thorns pressing on his temples, people were spitting on him, people laughing at him and calling him names, and then he was nailed to the cross he carried. And what does he do while he is hanging on the cross? He never says one bad thing, never passes any blame, but He asked God to forgive everyone because they did not know what they were doing.

Makes my headache very insignificant, and my reactions, while having one, quite the opposite of how my Heavenly Father expects me to act.

Happy Easter

Today, as we should all days, we celebrate the death of Jesus Christ. Why would anyone celebrate the death of a person, especially this man? We celebrate because we are made new, and our sins washed clean by the blood of this man Jesus! Jesus, a sinless man, free of all guilt, died on the cross in my place, and the place for all persons that place their trust and faith in Him, so that we might become righteous before the Almighty God. Through this death, through this atonement and washing of sin, through His resurection, and this becoming righteous, we know, through the promise of God, that we will one day be with Him in Heaven. No more pain, no more suffering, but new glorified bodies made perfect to worship and glorify the name of God for eternity. We all cry Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty!

Isaiah 53:5
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

Trying to Sell Our Van

One last asset that we have to sell is our minivan. So if you or someone you know is looking for a good used minivan, please let us know.

The attached link will get you to the Craigs list for our van. Of course we are needing to sell this fast so we are very willing to work with the price.

Craigslist Link to Van

If we had the money to pay off the van, we would probably pay it off and keep it at our parents house for when we come back, but we do not have the funds to do so and hence the need to sell it.

Thanks!

Pilgrim's Progress

This week while in Philly, I visited a used book store. I asked for the religion section, and it was quite small, very unorganized, and had very few books in the Christianity genre. But as I looked, I came a across a treasure! I found the "Little Pilgrim's Progress".

Of course as you may know, Pilgrim's Progress was written by John Bunyan, but this is re-written by Helen Taylor for kids. So I started using it as bed time story reading for our kids. The chapters are very short, usually two-three pages, and I am able to make them in to devotions. The kids LOVE it! Cameron came in last night and was ready to find out what was going to happen next with little Christian.

I would recommend this to any parent with young children. Below is an excerpt that I read to them tonight. As I read it, my eyes started to swell up as it made me visualize what Christ did for us on the cross, and about how big His love is for His children.

Hope you enjoy!

To set up the scene, young Christian is at the house of Interpreter and he is lead down the gentleman's hallway to show him a picture that he has.

It was the picture of a Man whose face was more beautiful than anything that little Christian had ever imagined. He was walking over a mountain path. All around Him, among the rocks, grew briars and thorns, which had torn His garments in many places, and His feet were bleeding, for the rough stones had wounded Him. In His arms He Carried a little lamb. It was tired and had laid its head upon His shoulder, and He was looking down at it with gentle, loving eyes. Underneath the picture, in letters of gold, were written the words:

"HE SHALL GATHER THE LAMBS WITH HIS ARM, AND CARRY THEM NEAR HIS HEART."

"Was the lamb lost?" asked little Christian.
"Yes," replied the Interpreter; "lost and ready to die. Do you not see how tired it looks, and how its fleece is torn and soiled? But the Good Shepherd heard its cry, and He never rested until He found it, and then He brought it home in His arms."

"It must have been a hard path," said little Christian. "The stones have cut His feet."

"It was a very hard path, but He did not mind that, because He loved His little lamb. I have shown you this picture first, because the Good Shepherd is our King's own Son, and just as a shepherd loves his flock so He loves the pilgrims. The little pilgrims are like the lambs. You can think of this when you are sad or frightened, and remember who is watching over you."

"I am a little pilgrim," said Christian looking up at the Interpreter.

"A little pilgrim, and a little lamb in the flock of the Good Shepherd."

Our Visas

As many of you know, our visas have been in process since last July. We now are at 97% of our monthly support needs for our first three years, so SIM will allow us to leave. But we still have yet to have our visas approved.

So we are asking for you to all please pray that God will lay it on the hearts of those involved with the approvals so that our family can make our way to Namibia and begin the work that God has planned for us.

We appreciate every ones support and prayers.

Chosen 300

Tonight I had the privilege to preach at a homeless ministry in down town Philadelphia. The ministry is called Chosen 300. Brian Jenkins is the founder of the ministry and the Lord is truly using his family to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of homeless people in center city Philly. See there website HERE.

It was an honor to be able to speak to the people there tonight about the love of Christ. To know that my God, loves people of all types and places. That He does not require us to be of any certain status in life, just to be willing to humble ourselves, admit and repent of our sinful nature, and to allow Him to take us in the direction that most glorifies and honors Him.

What do you tell 300 people that have nothing, no home, no job, no money about a God that will give them hope? Well I struggled with that this week as I prepared to speak with them tonight. God laid Romans 5:1-11 on my heart, and the meat and potatoes of this scripture is that God allows us as Christians to go through rough times.

Becoming a Christian in no way promises you a wonderful easy life here on earth. It actually promises the exact opposite. The Bible specifically tells us that life as a Christian is hard, and can get even harder. But in this scripture Paul tells us that struggles give us endurance and strength, and that endurance gives us character, and that gives us hope, and this hope does not bring about shame, but victory.

Victory in what??? If life gets worse how is that victory?? Well, the victory is the other promise that God gives us in the Bible, and that is if we believe with our hearts that God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins, and we ask God to forgive us for our ungodly life choices, and turn our lives around and work to make choices that honors God, and believe that Christ came back to life, then God promises to allow us to live with Him in Heaven for eternity. Not only that, but He will give us a new life in Heaven, new bodies that do not hurt, die, get tired, but are perfect bodies.

This is our hope! This is also the same hope that I shared with the people I spoke to tonight. Tomorrow those people will wake up under the same bridge, in the same dirty and smelly clothes, still homeless and searching for a place to get a meal just like they did today. Becoming a Christian will not change there social status in the eyes of the world overnight, but what becoming a Christian does offer them is that if they do believe in Christ, tomorrow they will wake up under that bridge, in those same smelly clothes, but with HOPE that one day they will have a home, a new home, a new body, and socially accepted by their heavenly family in the presence of God Almighty!

We as humans tend to be so finite in our thinking in that we are so focused on this world as our home, that we try so hard to stay in it as long as we can. We worry about our health, our 401K's, and retirement, things in the future, a future that may or may not come depending on God's will for our lives, that we miss out on the hear and now. What can we do right now, that will impact someones life for the glory of God, and for their future eternal life? Does it even matter? Of course it does! People need Jesus! They need hope! And this world has no hope for anyone! It's only outcome for all of us is a certain death, be it today, tomorrow, or 50 years from now. Only Jesus can give us a hope that far out lasts yours and my time left on earth.

So look to Jesus! Jesus is so much more refreshing than anything that this world has to offer. This is what I told the homeless people tonight, but it is not just the message to homeless people! It is to the people that are comfortable with there nice cozy home, good job, the nice life. Well tomorrow you could be the one sitting in the homeless shelter needing a hot meal, and if you were, would you have hope?

Look to Jesus! Look to Jesus! There is HOPE in Jesus!

We are in Philly.

Well we arrived in Philadelphia March 10th around dinner time all safe and sound. Was a long trip, but uneventful.

This past Sunday was a great day. Our family was commissioned in one of our support churches, Chelten Baptist. It was a very special time for our family as all five of us had elders of the church lay hands on our family and pray for God's hand upon us and our ministry in Namibia. We were commissioned in both services.

We had a surprise in that Chelten was having a Baby Dedication service that day, and had one family that could not make it, so we were able to dedicate Corbin to the Lord in the second service.

For the last week Brian has been serving at Chelten Baptist working with the food pantry ministry. The church gives food to close to 150 families a week. The local Trader Joes donates food five days a week. So every morning Brian goes in and collects the days food, sorts through it all and gets it ready for the distribution for the week.

It was great to talk with the people that came in to get food last week. All types of people, all types of situations, and all very thankful that the church is helping them out.

On Monday March 23rd Brian will have the opportunity to lead a service during Chelten's "Chosen 300" ministry in down town Philly. Chosen 300 is a homeless ministry in inner city Philly where 300+ men, women and children are fed, have a worship service and get a chance to hear the gospel. Brian went to help serve food with this ministry back in November of 2008 and it was a blessing to help serve these wonderful people.

Well that is enough for now.

Many Blessings to All!

Picture from Chosen 300 Ministry

Kids are Back Healthy

Well, the kids are all back to being healthy. Was quite a week, and an expensive one at that. Our temporary insurance is not as good as what we had at my job, a bit expensive for two kids doctor visits and meds for both of them. But praise the Lord that they are all back to being healthy again.

Tomorrow we head to Roxboro, NC to speak at the church that my cousin (Joel Bradsher) is on staff at. So we will get to be extra early tonight, considering we lose an hour of sleep tonight!

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers for our little ones this week.

Blessings!

Mission Trip Grootfontein, Namibia

The attached video is of our vision trip back in March of 2007. This is where we will be moving to this coming April. The children singing at the beginning are some of the youth we will be working with. The video clip after that is when we were preparing to feed the 300+ kids we fed that day at one of the schools in the town.

Home Place Retirement Home

Yesterday I had the privilege of sharing our calling to Africa at Home Place Retirement Home in Burlington, NC. My Great Great Aunt lives there and when I went to visit her the other day, the Activities Coordinator asked me to come back and share about what our family will be doing.

So I shared our video, some slides of our trip two years ago, and they asked lots of great questions. It was a blessing to spend time with them yesterday and to see their interest and encouragement in what we are getting ready to do.

They also decided to adopt our family and bake and sell cookies to help us with our postage costs for sending out our monthly newsletters. Isn't that great! What a blessing!

The pictures below are of me sharing our video and one of me and my Great Great Aunt Margie Wilson.

Facts on Namibia

The following are facts in regards to the country that we will be serving in. This gives you a pretty good idea about what the country is like and a little background as well.

Location:

Namibia lies in Southern Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean, between Angola and South Africa.

Land Boundaries:

Angola 1,376 km, Botswana 1,360 km, South Africa 967 km and Zambia 233 km.

Geography:

Size 825,418 sq km, slightly more than half the size of Alaska, US. The terrain is mostly high plateau with the Namib Desert along coast and the Kalahari Desert in east. Namibia has a desert climate, it is hot, dry and rainfall is very sparse and erratic. The lowest point is the Atlantic Ocean at 0 m and the highest point is at Konigstein which measures 2,606 m. Namibia is the first country in the world to incorporate the protection of the environment into its constitution. Some 14% of the land is protected, including virtually the entire Namib Desert coastal strip.

Population:

Almost 2 million people live in Namibia, it is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. Birth rate is on average 4.6 per woman. 21% of the population is believed to have HIV/AIDS.

Languages:

English 7% (official), Afrikaans is actually the common language of most of the population including about 60% of the white population. German is spoken by 32% of the population. Indigenous languages include Oshivambo, Herero and Nama.

Ethnic Groups:

Black 87.5%, white 6% and mixed 6.5%. About 50% of the population belong to the Ovambo tribe and 9% to the Kavangos tribe. Other ethnic groups are: Herero 7%, Damara 7%, Nama 5%, Caprivian 4%, Bushmen 3%, Baster 2%, and Tswana 0.5%

Political History:

South Africa occupied the German colony of South-West Africa during World War I and administered it as a mandate until after World War II, when it annexed the territory. In 1966 the Marxist South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) guerrilla group launched a war of independence for the area that was soon named Namibia, but it was not until 1988 that South Africa agreed to end its administration in accordance with a UN peace plan for the entire region. Namibia won its independence in 1990 and has been governed by SWAPO since. Hifikepunye Pohamba was elected president in November 2004 in a landslide victory replacing Sam Nujoma who led the country during its first 14 years of self rule.

Economic Overview:

The economy is heavily dependent on the extraction and processing of minerals for export. Mining accounts for 20% of GDP. Rich alluvial diamond deposits make Namibia a primary source for gem-quality diamonds. Namibia is the fourth-largest exporter of nonfuel minerals in Africa, the world's fifth-largest producer of uranium, and the producer of large quantities of lead, zinc, tin, silver, and tungsten. The mining sector employs only about 3% of the population while about half of the population depends on subsistence agriculture for its livelihood. Namibia normally imports about 50% of its cereal requirements; in drought years food shortages are a major problem in rural areas. A high per capita GDP, relative to the region, hides the great inequality of income distribution; nearly one-third of Namibians had annual incomes of less than $1,400 in constant 1994 dollars, according to a 1993 study. The Namibian economy is closely linked to South Africa with the Namibian dollar pegged to the South African rand. Privatization of several enterprises in coming years may stimulate long-run foreign investment. Mining of zinc, copper, and silver and increased fish production led growth in 2003.

Video on Missions and Fasting

This attached link is to a video of Michael Oh who is a missionary to Japan. He has a great message in regards to missionaries and what missionaries give up, or as he refers to as fasting, in order to follow God's call in mission service.

See the one titled Missions and Fasting once you go to the link.

Michael Oh Link

Centerpoint ARP

Yesterday I had a great meeting with Pastor Bob Wilson. He is the pastor of a church plant in Clemmons, North Carolina. His church is part of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

If you have never heard of the ARP churches, you can start by checking out Pastor Wilson's churches website linked below.

Centerpoint ARP

Sermon's On Blog

I have started to post my sermons on the blog for anyone interested in listening to them. If you look to the right side of the page and scroll down, you will see "Sermon Player". You can click on play to listen to the sermon. The one posted is from this past weekend where I preached at Living Word Baptist Church in Creedmoor, NC.

I will use this a lot more once we get to Africa to record and play sermons that we here or that I preach while in the field, and also for any other audio that I think may be of interest to anyone.

Radio Segment

Last week we had the opportunity to be interviewed for a half our segment on the Truth Radio Network. The interview will be aired this coming Saturday, Feb. 28th at 3:30.

In the Piedmont Triad Area the station is 830AM, and in the Triangle Area it is on 1030AM. And if you are not in North Carolina you can listen to it on the Internet. Click on the link below for the Internet site for Truth Radio.

Truth Radio Network

Hope you get a chance to listen in.

Siloam Missionary Homes

OK so you have heard about where we are at, seen some pictures of our community here, but I have not told you too much about the founders Larry and Joyce George.

They started this ministry 17 years ago and God has truly blessed their ministry and the many missionaries that God has sent through here. And each day our family is blessed by the ministry in many ways.

So I have attached a link to the website for Siloam Missionary Homes.

Siloam Missionary Homes Link

Please visit the website and learn more about Siloam MH.

Also, if you would be interested in bringing a youth group, or church group here to work on the many projects, contact the office. There are many ways in which you can help serve the missionaries here and this ministry to them.

How to Support the Bradsher's

There are a couple ways that you can support our family. The most important is through prayer. Prayer for the Namibians that we will be working with, for our health and safety, and for our financial needs.

The second way is to join our financial support team. You can be a monthly, bi-annual or annual supporter. You can also make one time gifts, and all are greatly appreciated and a blessing to our ministry in Namibia.

To support our ministry financially, you can mail a check to the following:

SIM USA
14830 Choate Circle
Charlotte, NC 28273

Make the check out to SIM and on the subject line of the check, or in the envelope on a sheet of paper, put for Brian and Kristen Bradsher Acct# 024621.

Or you can go the following link and contribute on-line.

SIM Giving Link

If you ever have problems or questions on giving, you can e-mail us, or call SIM
at 1-800-521-6449 and ask for the donations department.

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart,
not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

A Good Lord's Day

Today was a really great day. We got up and drove an hour south of Snow Camp to Broadway, NC, which is near Sanford. A good friend of mine, Mike Hall, is the pastor at Juniper Springs Baptist Church.

Mike and I graduated High School together, played on the high school B-Ball team, and both attended NCSU.

Mike has been the pastor at Juniper Springs for five years. Truly a wonderful church, and the message that Mike gave today was very convicting. It is awesome to see how the Lord is working through Mike and his church in Broadway.

One cool thing that we found out was the name of our children:

Mike's Kids: Cameron, Hannah Katherine, Carter

Our Kids: Cameron, Hannah Catherine, Corbin

We should have discussed the third child's name better! :)

You can find out more about his church at the following link.

Juniper Springs Baptist Church

A Day At Siloam

You might wonder what goes on here in the community in a day. So here is a little bit of what our days are like.

The kids get up every morning at 6am! Way to early!!

Brian has prayer and devotion time each morning at 8am with all the men.

From 9-1pm Brian works on correspondence, checking e-mail, contacting churches interested in our ministry, studying seminary work, and working on upcoming sermons.

During 9-1pm Kristen Homeschooling Hannah and Cameron, and chases Corbin around the house.

In the afternoons, Kristen works on seminary studies, and Brian takes the kids exploring.

By this time is is 5pm and we work on supper and family time together.

A full day in deed. Below are some pictures of the day.

Pictures from Siloam

I wanted to post a few pictures from our new missions home here in Snow Camp. So here they are! Included are:

Our Chapel where we have morning prayer each day, Mocha the Community Dog, the Missionary Store where everything is free, like eggs, cereal, fresh milk from a local farm, mac and cheese, and just about everything else you can think of. All of the items are donated from local people and churches, thechickens that the kids enjoy feeding scraps to every day, to which also supply us with the free eggs, our portion of the duplex that we live in, to which is also fully furnished, and my new office area including the youngest missionary at Siloam. :)

Missionary Home

Well, we are finally moved in to our new missionary home in Snow Camp, NC. What a wonderful ministry Siloam has here. There are missionaries from all over the world here.

It is out in the country and has lots of room for the kids to roam and play. The kids love to feed the chickens, we like to eat their eggs, and they also enjoy playing in the woods.

This is a short one, but wanted to thank everyone that helped us move and also for the many prayers as well.

Look forward to sending pictures of us all very soon.

Many Blessings!

OK, Long Time No See

I can't believe that it has been six months since I have posted on this blog, but a lot has been going on since then and I or we are back.

This is just a short post to let you know that we are moving to Snow Camp, NC this coming weekend as we take a step of faith, trusting in our Mighty God. My last day of work is this coming Wednesday.

Now that we are three months from the field and I will have a little more time on my hands, I am going to get our blog back up and running so as to keep you all well informed of where God has us.

We still have 8% more to raise in monthly support, but feel that God will bring that in the next couple of months, if He hasn't already.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support over the past 15 months. It truly means a lot, more than you will ever know, to our family.

Many blessings!

Bradsher Family