A WORD FROM OUR MISSION IN BANGLADESH

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Untitled from Michael Martin on Vimeo.

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OUR TSAILE VBS MISSION TEAM

The first two days our VBS at Tsaile has averaged in the sixties, which a total enrollment of 81. The VBS has gone very well but has had to contend with the mud and the water of the early arrival of the monsoon season in northeast Arizona.

The team has reached the midpoint in its ministry at our sister church.  They will be returning to Landisville Saturday.  On Sunday, July 24, 2o11, the Team will be leading both Sunday morning services and will be sharing their experiences representing Christ and our congregation on the mission field.

Bulah Dougherty tells the kids how to become a Christian using her Evangicube

Be sure and join us for worship on July 24th to hear their God stories.  We promise you a memorable morning with the team and the Lord.

 

RAINSTORMS AND TSAILE

Our Tsaile Mission VBS Team is now at work in the mountains of northeast Arizona. The 26 member team arrived in Tsaile AZ on Saturday evening, July 9, 2011 after a 19+ hour journey from Landisville. They traveled by air from Baltimore to Albuquerque, then in vans to Tsaile located roughly 5o miles north of Window Rock. They are working with their sister congregation, Tsaile Community Church and its Pastor Everett Teller. The team is being housed at nearby Dine College.

This is characteristically a dry season in this part of Arizona and very hot. Temps have been in the low sixties overnight and rarely higher than 84 in the daytime.  It is, however, uncharacteristically wet.  The team drove through two thunderstorms as they crossed New Mexico and have experienced several thunderstorms daily since Sunday afternoon.  The thunderstorms have kept things slippery on mud-covered clay roads.  Nonetheless, the first day of VBS saw 80 students.  Monday has typically been closer to 40 in attendance.  The Navajos have thanked the team for bringing the weather from Pennsylvania because it is much-needed. You can learn more about this Mission Team at our church’s photoblog WE ARE THE CHURCH OF GOD OF LANDISVILLE.  www.landisvillechurchofgod.blogspot,com.

WHAT IF WE ALL JUST GAVE?

KUYASA KIDS IN CONCERT PALM SUNDAY

Join the Church of God of Landisville in a unique and memorable Palm Sunday celebration as the Kuyasa Kids from South Africa will bring their music and dance, praise and God stories to our worship gathering. There will be only one service April 17th at 10:00 am featuring these children who are AIDS orphans under the care of Horizon International. A carry-in dinner open to the public will follow at 11:30 in the MPR. We still need host families for 2-4 children and people to sign up to bring food. Here is a preview.

PRAYING FOR BROOK …

Brook Sarver, our missionary to Thailand, posted this Sunday. His transparency needs the encouragement of our prayers ….

“Some things are easier to admit than others.  We all have issues  (some of us more than others… (I’m probably one of those “some of us”)) but admitting them isn’t easy…

We started our journey in Thailand nearly 5 years ago when Sara and I came to Thailand as college students looking for a 6 month internship overseas.  It was that several month experience that broke our hearts for the people of Thailand.  We’ve never been the same since.  From that point on everything that we did was pushing us toward the goal of getting back to Thailand.  We were young in our marriage?  Fine, we spent three years in counseling and preparing ourselves for life together overseas.  We were inexperienced in ministry?  No problem, we invested nearly 3 years (which in reflection isn’t all that much as a 27 year old) as pastors at our home church back home.  We grew a ton and learned a lot about ourselves and working with people in ministry.  We had a mountain of debt to pay off for our collective 8 years of private, Christian higher education?  Fine.  We’ll wait and pray for that to come together also…

All of these things helped prepare us for our lives here in Thailand this past year and a half, yet all of the sudden we find ourselves running on empty.  The daily grind of life in a new culture, language and being so far removed from all of those whom we love and miss has gotten to us.  Now, we’ve studied the books, had classes specifically devoted to burnout as part of our 4 year degrees in Missions from Huntington University and are aware of the warning signs of burnout; yet it still found us.

The stress we experience here in Thailand isn’t anything so acute that we can’t stand it.  We still tackle each day as it comes.  It’s more of a dull stress that accumulates over time.  The feelings of inadequacy, frustrations in language learning, and general sense of being lonely eventually gets to you… …no matter how much you’ve read or prepared.

Which brings us to now.  Some time ago everything that I did came out of a deep passion for doing that thing, but lately I feel like I’m operating from a place of emptiness.  Where did that passion go?  Where’s that thing that when all else fails, pushes me to keep doing what I am doing?

These are questions that I’ve come to understand that nearly every missionary experiences at some point.  But I miss it…  I miss feeling like I’m accomplishing something.  I miss feeling like I’m good at something…  I miss that passion I had to do what I am doing…

 

UPDATE FROM THAILAND

Operation World publishes an annual prayer guide for each of the nations on the planet. This year it has a DVD format. Michael Brook Sarver and his wife Sarah are the missionaries we support in Thailand.  Here is the prayer report. You can also read more at: THAILAND

THE EYES OF AFRICA

Wednesday night Jeremy Moyer began sharing with the kids at Burn about jis trip to the school in Ghana.  Over 135 of the children no longer have sponsors and he is talking them and others about helping with this need. Today on Facebook Jeremy posted a photo series called “The Eyes of Africa.” Here are a few of those photos.

Jeremy and some of the boys of the school

The School Children

The whole school in Ghana

HURRICANE THOMAS HITS

Thomas has hit already hard-hit Haiti with torrential rains.  According to our field director  at Project Help, Steve Mossburg, everything is shutdown-schools, banks, businesses. Even the food vendors in Montrois did not open today.

We have had no FACEBOOK updates from Lynn Byers, working at Adventist Hospital in Port-au-Prince since yesterday. Keep Lynn and her colleagues in your prayers.

CHOLERA UPDATE FOR OUR PRAYER LIST

From our mission director in Haiti Mossburg ….

 

CHOLERA UPDATE

12 year old who died from blood clot

15 day old preemie weighs one kilo 

WHAT’S NEXT ?

Shirley and I arrived back in Haiti on Sat. 10/23 I had been expecting this trip might be different and we could start establishing a mission routine not so filled with drama. That was not to be as I received an e-mail on 10/20 informing me of the cholera outbreak in the Artibonite valley where we live. As more and more cases were showing up at the hospital in St. Marc the largest city in our area we made plans to set up a cholera ward in our PH-H clinic in Pierre Payen. On Friday the day before we arrived they treated 20 patients by noon on Tuesday the number was up to 112. Fortunately we had already scheduled a medical team from Pennsylvania to arrive on Oct. 23 rd so we quickly asked them to resupply with IV fluids and antibiotic. Some reports are showing the epidemic is slowing down and from what I have seen from my travels this may be true.

Our medical team had been scheduled to do surgeries ( general & Ortho) , we also had two ultrasound techs come to train and do exams and a gynecologist. They have kept busy not only doing those things but with several emergency patients including car accidents, examining babies such as the little 15 day old who was born in the 7th month of pregnancy. The mother has been very sick so she was unable to breast feed but the baby has hung on by getting a little bit of formula down.

Perhaps the most disturbing was the 12 year old girl referred to us from the Mission of Hope at Titayian. She had fallen off a donkey 2 weeks ago and was not getting any better so they brought her to us for a possible surgery. Our lead surgeon examined her and felt she had a broken or fractured femur and possibly a lacerated liver. He scheduled her for an ultrasound and Xray. I told the ambulance driver and nurses who brought her to go on back to MOH and we would contact them later with the results. I had just finished eating lunch and someone came to tell me she was dead I at first couldn’t believe it so went over to see for myself . I was shocked to see that someone who 15 minutes earlier had been sitting in a wheel chair eating a cracker had died. Our doctors felt terrible about this but suspect a blood clot broke loose during her 45 minute ambulance ride up to Pierre Payen. Even though we are able to do a lot of things to bring better health care to Haiti it is still disturbing for me each time someone comes to our facility with hope that we can help them and they die at our hospital.