Blog 2 The World

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Operation Christmas Child in Suriname

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      Many of you are familiar with a program in the churches in America around the holidays called Operation Christmas Child. You may have experienced the joy of packing a shoebox to take to your church on a designated Sunday.   Maybe you have shared in the privilege of providing the items , packing the box and thinking about the face of the child who would receive it. We pray and we ask God to use our gift as a way to share the love of Christ with children in places around the world. I don’t know about you, but for us, dropping that box off at our church was as far as our story goes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     This year, for the first time, we have had the privilege of seeing what happens from the other point of view.  We were very surprised to learn that there is so much more beyond the child receiving the gift.  It has been an eye opening experience and we are more excited about shoeboxes than ever before! 

Suriname received 5000 shoeboxes in January. Most of those were used right away but some were still remaining. So in March, some churches were contacted and received a number of the boxes to use for outreach in their communities.   Two of the Baptist churches we are associated with here in Suriname, have been part of the outreach program.

 First there were hours of training for those churches who will participate.  It is an opportunity for outreach, evangelism and discipleship as the children are invited to come to the church.  The volunteers receive literature and time is taken to review it. 

Then it all starts with a walk around the neighborhood to invite the children….   And that also provided an opportunity to share the gospel with many people we met. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Followed By a PARTY! 

 

There are about 50 children who were not previously attending the churches, who are now participating in the 12 week study. Some are accompanied by a parent who is attending the regular worship service while their child attends the study. So the opportunity is not only for the child but it has created evangelism opportunities for the parents. 

I’m asking for prayer, that the seeds will fall on fertile ground and these children will hear and believe the good news!


 

 

 

We were so happy to be part of this and to be able to share the story with you! 

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The Love of Jesus

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If you have spent any time at all driving around the city of Paramaribo, you can’t help noticing the number of men who walk with crutches, and not a day goes by that you don’t see at least one man who is missing a leg.                                   This could be due to the many motorcycle accidents that occur here or the cause can be diabetes or they have suffered a stroke. They don’t have an opportunity to work and they are not able to afford a walking cane or a crutch. They use a stick or an umbrella, or whatever they can find.   Last year we started carrying walking canes and crutches in the back of our car and we have had several opportunities to help someone who is in need.   It is always a blessing for us. 

                                                                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it can be inconvenient to stop what we are doing in order to help someone else. Their circumstances may lead us to say, “God, what good can I do?”   Just like the people in the parable of the Good Samaritan, we often choose to look the other way, walk on by, find a reason to avoid getting involved. But that is not what Jesus taught us to do. 


This is our friend Darrel.  About 15 years ago he had a stroke which left him paralyzed on his left side.   Last year when we returned to Suriname we began to see him often, walking very very slowly, using a small stick for support.  Following the stroke, he lost his job and had been living and sleeping on the streets for the past 10 years.  He is the person God used,  to show us the need to help others, by carrying canes and crutches in our car.    When we stopped and gave him the cane, he threw down his stick and said, I won’t be needing that anymore! 

 

 

 

Darrel spends most mornings on the street corner, begging for money. We see him often and we stop and talk and pray with him. On Sundays we pick him up and he goes with us to church.  He has been able to save enough money to rent a small room and he now has a safe place to sleep and bed instead of concrete to sleep on.  

 

I took this picture because as I was watching these two men sitting here talking I could see the transformation in Darrel’s face.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was last Sunday.        

Darrel confesses that Jesus is the only way to God, there is no other way.  He relies on Jesus to get him through each day.                                                              You never know what God has planned or what he will do. But, if we are just willing to step out of ourselves to help someone else in some small way,

                                                      God will show you how His love can make the difference.  

2 Corinthians 4:7 

But we have this precious treasure ( the good news of salvation) in earthen vessels (of unworthy human frailty), so that the exceeding greatness of power is shown to be of God, and not from ourselves. 

To God be the Glory 

 

 

 

 

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January 2024 Newsletter

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January 2024 started off with a bang!!!! Unless you have been here for New Years Eve its hard to describe. The party begins the day before and goes on night and day for several days with fireworks so numerous it sounds like a war zone!

Once we recovered from the lack of sleep…it was back to doing what we love. 

Darrell is continuing to meet with a group of men on Tuesdays to study the book of Hebrews together, verse by verse. 

The sewing ministry continues to grow and we are grateful that God has provided ladies who can teach others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We traveled to 2 new villages to share God’s Holy Word and we gave each family a water filter, a bible or an audio bible in their language. 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Pray for Nete

 

Please pray for Nete and Afonsonsuwa, 2 new believers in Christ Jesus. We have asked the pastor of church in a nearby village to follow up with them and encourage them to attend bible study. Many in their village will try to discourage them in their faith and lead them astray. They may face persecution from others in village, including family members. 

 

 

 

 

My sister Candace was here for about a month. While she was here she taught the ladies how to crochet and how to make soap.  In the future we hope to have opportunities to do more classes like these both in the city and in the villages.                                                                                                             

                                                            

 

 

We attended a meeting for volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse, Operation Christmas Child after 2 large shipping containers arrived in Suriname full of shoeboxes!  We are very excited for this opportunity to help with the distribution of the Shoeboxes that have been received here in Suriname.  We have been on the packing side of this ministry as I know many of you have. Now we get to see this ministry on the receiving side! So we will be excited to share more about this with you soon! 

 

 

We thank God for allowing us to serve him in Suriname. So many blessings. More than we could ever imagine. 

 

God is near to those who walk in faith

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Last night we were on our way home from sharing a bible story in a small village outside of the city. We were just coming back into town when we saw a police officer on a motorcycle pull up next to us and he told Darrell to pull over. We pulled over and the officer just told Darrell, follow me. Then he turned around and drove back through traffic and turned off on a side road.

Darrell followed him and pulled over where he was directed to.  They asked for his papers. Then after looking at his drivers license they asked him how long we had been in the country. Then they told him he cannot legally drive here after 2 weeks in the country on an American license. That is something we had never been told before even though we have been stopped at check points numerous times.

Then they told him to pull the car over and park across the street.     We parked across the street, then another officer came over and told Darrell to get out of the car and come with him.  And then I was getting a little concerned.   I called Randy, our friends and neighbors, and told him what was happening and he and Shanta got in the car and headed our way.  I also contacted another friend of ours and asked them to pray about what was happening.

Darrell was gone for quite a while. Then when he came back to the car, he said they made him pay a fine and then wrote him a ticket.  When the officer handed  Darrell the ticket and had taken the money for the fine, Darrell asked the officer if he could pray with him and the man agreed. Darrell prayed for the man, his job and his family.   Then they came back and Darrell got back in the car.   

Darrell asked the officer if he was going to let him drive the car back home. At this point we weren’t sure how we were going to get back home with the car.   The officer walked away and then after a minutes,  he came back and  asked for the ticket back and said he had made a mistake and needed to correct it.  So he took the ticket back and asked Darrell to get out of the car again and he took Darrell back across the street.    As he was redoing the ticket,  his carbon paper slipped behind the paper,  which messed up his copy, meaning he would have to start over and fill everything out again.    He took the ticket and said, I am not going to do this again, I wont be giving you a ticket today. He handed Darrell back the money for the fine and told Darrell where to go to get the proper license and said, just go home, and in the morning go and get it taken care of.

We knew for sure that God came into that situation and just turned everything around and turned a negative situation into something good. And we were on our way home, with no ticket and the money back, as if it never happened.  And when we contacted everyone who had been praying for us, they were amazed just like us.

We were all praising God for the way He stepped in and took that situation and just turned it back around!

End of the year Blog 2023

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    The last few months have been busy with ministry in the capital city of Paramaribo, working with believers from the local churches. We always look for ways to share the Gospel message with those who don’t know Jesus.  We want to share a few pictures to give you an idea of the ministries we are currently involved with when we are in town. We are always happy to have my sister here. She supports and encourages us in so many ways.    

She always joins in and is a valuable part of the team no matter where we go. 

 

Our Sewing ministry continues to grow.  

We are very excited to see what the future holds in this area.

 We are excited to see that God has called this young family to serve in Suriname.

We pray for ways  we can partner with them to build up the Kingdom of God here. 

Darrell is leading a mens bible study on the book of Hebrews, verse by verse.

The group has been steadily growing. 

Darrell and Pastor Allen are stamping contact information on the back of gospel booklets

Pictured above we are on a street corner across from the central market.

There were several members of Immanuel Baptist church who joined us.  

We talked with people, prayed with them, and handed out gospel tracts and a few bibles.

   

 We recently were introduced to a family, Patrick and Hanneke Tank and their 2 children, who manage a home for the physically handicapped in the city. We pray we will be able to work with them in the future in order to see how we can give spiritual support and    encouragement. We will be sharing more about this in the future.

 

 

 

 


In order to update our visa stamp we had to drive  to the border then travel by boat over to French Guiana. When we returned they  stamped our visa for another 30 days. We are praying for a better solution for that as we will have to go try to do that again in January.   

   

 

               We thank each one of you for your prayers and encouragement. We are especially grateful for our church family in Christoval Texas and for our family and friends who always stand by us in prayer as we go out and share the Good News of Jesus.  

October 2023/ Go to Grow

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This month we have spent time in the city, visiting several church’s.  We are encouraging the believers to stand firm for the truth and to continue to grow in their knowledge and faith.   Darrell has taught the lesson in a different church each Sunday.  We have also participated in men’s groups and women’s groups, children’s ministry and community outreach.  Our hope is that we will be an example to believers here to take every opportunity to share the gospel message with others.  We are scheduling training days to help identify ways they can GO outside of the church in order to GROW the church. Activities on street corners and various public places, inviting the churches to join us over the next two months. 

Pictures from the Kwinti villages of Makaja Pingo and Paka Paka where we stayed for one week. We shared the gospel message, bible teaching with believers, giving everyone water filters, bibles or proclaimers.  We plan to return to this area later this year to continue to build relationships and disciple believers. 

We shared the gospel message and demonstrated the water filters to two families. One young man replied, you mean we never have to buy water again!
Sharing the Living water

 

We demonstrated how to use and care for the water filters and we talked about the living water of Jesus.  One young man replied, we never have to buy water again! 

 

 

Several trips into the bush are being planned for November in order to continue to reach new villages with the gospel message.      

We were blessed with a donation of new sunglasses for the ministry. For some of these ladies this was their first pair!
New Sunglasses

 

We were blessed with new sunglasses to share in the villages. 

For some of these ladies this was their very first pair! We received a donation of reading glasses and Sunglasses to take with us to the bush. For some of these ladies this was the first pair of sunglasses they had ever owned.

 

 

 

 

A parade of praise and worship all the way down to the river as we are leaving. 

Jesus Christ is Lord!

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Jesus is Lord.  All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. The wages of sin is death.  God demonstrated His own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.  Christ does not condemn us, we are condemned already.  But in Christ we are saved.  If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.

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Sawyer Water Filters change lives

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Hello Friends,

I want to share with you some of the stories about how something as small and simple, as if 0.1 micron filtration is an easy thing, as a water filter can change the life of an entire generation.

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Clean Water For Life!

We have for the last 2 trips to the interior of Suriname, South America, taken Sawyer inline filters to give to the people in the villages.  This has been a huge blessing.  The people are amazed that something so small and easy to use can have such a huge impact on their lives.  One sixty-something year old man, after I helped him setup a filters on a 20-liter bucket, said, “You mean to tell me, I never have to drink dirty water again in my life?”  I told him that is correct, and that his children and even his grandchildren would never have to drink dirty water again.  As long as he took care of the filter and backlashed it as I showed him.  He just smiled and laughed, at the thought of it.

IMG_1062Living Water.

August 2016, we took more filters with us, and again helped the people set them up and begin using them.  We showed them how to backlash the filters.  Then we shared a story or two about how Jesus can wash their sins cleaner than the water coming out of these filters.  The response was more than we expected.  God called 13 men and women to follow Jesus, in a village of about 130.  A village that only 3 years ago was unreached and unengaged by any evangelistic efforts.

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We give God all the Glory, He alone is worthy of our praise.  He provided the right people to help us build relationships with a few of the people.  He provided the way for us to visit the village and meet a few more of the people.  He provided the opportunity for us to find out about these wonderful filters.  He provided the people who would donate filters for us to take.  He provided the money for us to travel to take the filters.  Then He glorified Himself through His Son Jesus, and provided the way for these people to come to know Him in a personal way.