Trusting God to meet our needs.

So thankful that God see's the Big picture of our lives and knows every curve ball, strike or homerun that we will be thrown. He alone knows when we will cry tears of sadness,experience bursts of joy and happiness and the days that He will carry us because our own strength will not be enough. So thankful we have that promise of His help and strength! If you are going thru something today that seems just too much for you to bear, remember that if you let Him, Jesus will carry you and give you the strength you need to make it thru. His strength is perfect when our strength is gone, He'll carry us when we can't carry on! Thank-you Jesus for that promise and for the times in our lives when we have been 'carried' by you!

   May we share some needs with you to help us pray about? When we look at these financial needs, the current economic situation of low un-employment and uncertainty make them seem impossible. However we know that God LOVES to work in impossible situations for His honor and glory! We know that God has called us to Haiti to minister and serve there and that where He guides, He always provides! So, keeping that in mind, we want to share the following concerns with you:

1. A work trip is planned for Dec. 10th-17th for Danny,our Regional Director and 7 other men. These men will be doing the cabinetry in our kitchen and bathrooms, hooking up the plumbing and getting our house ready for us to move into in January. $1,500 is needed to cover this trip for the food and transportation expenses while they are in country. We are so thankful that they are willing to come and get our house ready as we are beyond ready to move into our own home!

2. We have had to re-new our 4 children's passports to the tune of $420. This cost comes out of our monthly support and causes us to have a tight month living on the $2,000 a month support we receive.

3. As of right now, we are scheduled to fly back to Haiti on Jan. 14th. We need finances to fund this and to cover the cost of shipping the rest of our belongings. Missionary Flights International charges $1.50 a pound for all items shipped.

4. We spoke about the desperate need for an inverter in our last Oct. newsletter. Having an inverter  will mean that we can have more consistent power to run our few appliances and our kids will be able to keep their dvd players charged so they can do their schoolwork. An inverter will collect the power while the generator is running and when we shut off the generator then the inverter kicks in. This will save us a lot of money in the long run and is a better and wiser way to run our power system. Cost to get this going is $5,000. To break down this cost, the inverter itself is $2,500. The batteries for this system cost $160 a piece and we need 12-16 to run it efficiently.

5. Lastly, the immediate need remains for a vehicle for our family when we move to Grande Riviere. We have had lots of interest in teams coming to visit, work and minister and we will have to hire a tap-tap's services to get everyone around in. Paying for a tap-tap will get expensive over time. We have a Vehicle Fund that we are working on raising $26,000 to buy a KIA 1 ton 4x4 truck in Haiti. Buying new is the wisest way to get a vehicle as used ones are in too bad of condition and shipping one in will be very high as customs can charge up to 80% of the vehicle's worth in fees to us! Plus, they may hold it for as long as they wish and we may never get it out of customs.

Thank-you for helping us pray about these BIG needs. We know that we have a BIG God who will meet them in His time and we are excited to watch how He will do it! Perhaps He wants to use you and your obedience. One thing we know for sure is that we cannot out-give God and He has many blessings that He is waiting to pour out on those who are obedient to His leading! Trust and Obey is the only way to be happy in Jesus!

 As always all donations are tax-deductible with Hope International Missions.

FYI: We are receiving mail at our IN address until end of Dec. if anyone wants to send us a Christmas card. PO Box 62 Craigville, IN 46731

 

Update on Caleb's Appointment and why we are feeling hugged!

  For those of you who are not on Facebook, I will update you on how Caleb's appointment went at Riley Children's Hospital. We thank God for once again going before us and working it all out! We were happy with our neurologist and she relieved a lot of our fears. She answered several questions that we have had as well. Basically, Caleb has been diagnosed with a rare nerve disease called Neurofibromitosis. This a a degenerative disease and as of now, he has a mild form. We will need to have yearly MRI's and eye tests done to check on the disease's progression. We were concerned about the spot on his brain and she said that a lot of kids have spots on their brains that go away as they get older. It  is just part of the brain's maturation process. We are going to have another MRI done in the States before we go back just to make sure everything is ok. She does not anticipate any problems at this time and we continue to trust that God is in control whatever the outcome. We had anticipated a large down payment on our bill but they did not require anything that day ( The bill will be in the mail soon, no doubt!) The whole day ended up just costing us a $2 parking fee :o) We left there feeling relieved and thankful! All the praise and glory to Him! We are praying that his MRI can be scheduled now while we are here and will not delay our return to Haiti, Lord willing.
   Now, the reason why we are feeling hugged is because of the sweet kindess and generosity of our friends. One sweet couple who are expecting their first baby allowed us to stay in their guest house when we stayed in Indy so we did not have the cost of a motel to worry about while we were there. Thank-you Jesse and Jennifer! Then we drove to our long-time, good friends Tom & Gale Wheatcraft in McArthur, OH to stay the weekend. We had a wonderful time visiting, riding their 5 horses, baking, eating, goodwilling and relaxing. Tom and Gale are so sweet to let Danny and I sleep in their very comfortable King-sized bed when we visit and we really appreciate all they do in opening their home to us! It truly feels like home there! Thank-you for everything Tom, Gale, Trish and Katy! love you all.  Sunday evening we had the privilege of sharing with the Unionridge church an up-date on how God is working in Haiti. We really enjoyed sharing and it was fun to go over to Pastor Rob & Lydia Raines house afterwards. Great to visit with them :o) Thanks for the refreshments, Raines!                           
     We are currently staying in Warren, OH visiting our good friends at the Warren Bible Methodist Church. We arrived yesterday afternoon and it was so nice to see our friends, Pastor and Sis. Young with Ashley and lauren again! We went out for delicious mexican with the Youngs and then we got to help Sis. Young can some apple pie filling :o) I have grown up doing lots of canning so it was fun to do it again. They have a cozy fellowship hall that they are letting us stay in and the church people have been so kind to make sure the kitchen is stocked with food for us while we are here and there was a pretty 'Welcome fruit basket' to greet us as well ;o) Regina Zeigler does a wonderful job keeping everything clean and looking nice! Her husband is in the hospital and we appreciate her having our beds made and everything else she did to prepare for our stay, even though we told her not to worry about it! Bless you, Regina!  We truly feel like we are stepping into a giant hug when we visit here! We are blessed to have such sweet, generous friends! We are staying the week here and then heading to VA to see some more of our good friends that we have not seen in way too long of a time! Very much looking forward to seeing Mike, Tiff, Brooke, Kori and Bianca Summers! See ya soon guys!
  If you have not guessed, we are having a wonderful vacation! Thank-you for praying for us! Exciting things are on the horizon for God's ministry in Haiti!

Thankful for God's provision and protection

We have been back in the States since Oct. 17th. We spent a fun weekend in Hobe Sound and then drove to Pensacola to visit our family. We had a wonderful time with G-pa and G-ma Dunn visiting the beach and some other fun places. G-ma took the kids to a pumpkin patch and they got to pick a pumpkin, bring it home and carve it. They all let their personalities shine through the carvings and G-pa and G-ma's front yard was lined with a cool dude on a skateboard with his ipod, a princess carriage, a truck and a flower. I will let you guess who carved what?! ;o) Thanks for everything Lee & Edna!
  We left Fl. and arrived in IN late Mon. night at my parents house. We were only here two days when my 55 yr. old dad suffered a heart attack. It was a mild one and he went to the ER after realizing that something was wrong. His quick action saved his life. He ended up having a heart cath done that showed a 95% blockage in his main artery! The Dr. was able to put in a stint and he spent 3 days in the hospital. He is home now and recovering well.
  As you can imagine, this was a huge shock to our family and we are so thankful not only for God's protection on dad, but also for allowing us to be here when it happened! I cannot imagine how hard it would have been to receive that news in Haiti or even down in FL. But God knew and went before us and worked it out for our best and His glory! My dad is a wonderful, dedicated Christian man who we all love very much. Realizing how closely we came to losing him makes us appreciate and love him even more! Please keep him and my mom in your prayers as they have a lot of life changes ahead to help dad get better. He also has another small artery that is 75% blocked. The Dr.'s are hoping that his meds will clear it up, but if not, then they will need to put in another stint.
  We continue to ask for your prayers for Caleb's up-coming appointment at Riley Children's Hospital this coming Wed. around 9 am. Please help us pray specifically for answers to what is going on and what we need to do to help him. Once again, this is in God's hands and we rest in that fact. God is so good and has never and will never let us down! Can we ask for anymore than that?! Lets make sure we share about our amazing God to a hurting world who needs a savior! Blessings on you all!