It's hard to believe, but after seven years of service here in Elkhart, God is beginning a new chapter in our ministry, and this chapter will take us to the far side of the Atlantic!
There is currently a great need for technical support for missionaries in Euro-Asia, North Africa/Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The mission currently has one person (in England) attempting to support all of these offices. These offices are too far away in both time and distance to effectively serve them from the United States.
In order to meet this need, the mission has asked that we move to Bradford, England (see the map) to assist the office there and to travel to the other offices as needed.
After visiting the team in England, and after much prayer and godly counsel, we have decided to accept this position, trusting God to lead us into this new chapter of our lives and our ministry!
We have been called to use our talents so that people around the world can hear the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. For seven years, that has meant serving here in Elkhart. Now we're excited have the opportunity to follow that calling to England. As my father often says, "It'll be an adventure!"
Next StepsWe'll be bringing you more details about this exciting move in the coming months. Our goal is to move to England in May 2008. This means a thousand decisions large and small as we prepare to move to the other side of the Atlantic. It also means we need to raise a lot of new financial support for our ministry (see "New Goals" for details).
We would really appreciate your prayers as we prepare for this new adventure. We only have a little over 9 months in which to raise our support, make our plans, sell our belongings, and move. It's kind of like the 9 month count-down we had last year, though moving is at least less permanent than having a baby!
New Goals
After years of serving part-time and working part-time, we are excited to begin full-time service. However, before we can leave for the field, we need to raise 100% of our support. This would be a challenge all on it's own, but it's compounded by the expense of living in England.
Currently, we are helping the mission calculate just how much support we would actually need to live over there. As soon as we know, we'll be letting you know. No matter what the number is, it will be much more than we are currently receiving.
With that in mind, we'd like to ask you to prayerfully consider whether God would have you to begin financially supporting our ministry. Every gift makes a difference, and we would like to be your hands and feet helping to take the Gospel to world.
New Baby!
For those of you that only get snail mail letters, we apologize that this is the first that you've seen of our beautiful baby girl. Cassia Grace Gee was born January 5, 2007 at 12:09 pm. She weighed 8lbs 7oz and was 21" long.
It's hard to believe that seven months have flown by already. Cassia is growing fast, and we are attempting to keep up with all the changes she has brought into our lives.
She already has two teeth and is starting to eat mushy foods. She is also trying quite determinedly to learn to crawl. And after months of sleeping through the night, she's decided to start waking up every 2 hours again, which makes for some very tired parents!
New NameWhile we've been getting used to being new parents, the mission has been getting used to a new name. HCJB World Radio is now HCJB Global. Our president, David Johnson explains the reason for the change in this way, "We feel as we move into the future and expand the incredible dynamic between media and healthcare, the HCJB World Radio name did not accurately portray this vision. "
As a result, the mission decided to both change it's name, and to divide it's name into two ministry focuses, HCJB Global Voice is our 75-year-old media ministry, and HCJB Global Hands is our 50-year-old healthcare ministry.
