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!