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.