Looking Back

It’s hard to believe how quickly this year has flown. So much has happened, and we have so much to be thankful for.

We got our visas!

We now have visas good for the entire year of 2009. We didn’t quite make 80% of our financial support goal in October, but the mission felt that we were close enough to apply for our visas before the visa laws change. We can legally move any time after January 3!

Support Progress

Looking back over the last year, it’s amazing to see how far God has brought us. Last December we had just 45% of the funds we need to live in England, and almost none of the funds we need to actually make the move. This year we have 78% of the monthly support we need to live in England and roughly 70% of the funds we’ll need to make the move. God has certainly brought us a long way in the last twelve months, despite all that’s happened economically this year.

Bible credits

HCJB Global requires every missionary to have the equivalent of at least 16 college Bible credits. One of the things that Kristen has been working on this year is meeting this requirement. She’s been taking Bible studies at church for the last three years to make up her missing credits. Despite having to juggle being a mommy and a wife at the same time, Kristen completed the last of her Bible credits in November. Since Josh finished his at college, we’re done!

The Road Ahead

Legally, we could move to Bradford and begin serving there on January 3. Policy-wise, we’ve completed all of the pre-requisites for missionary service. The only thing remaining is finances. Before we can purchase our plane tickets and set a departure date, we need to have pledges of at least 93% of our support goal. And we still need about 25 more financial supporters to get to 100%.

• 5 monthly pledges of $100 (or yearly pledges of $1,200)
• 6 monthly pledges of $75 (or $900/year)
• 7 monthly pledges of $50 (or $600/year)
• 7 monthly pledges of $30 (or $360/year)

In addition, we need between $3,000 and $5,000 in special gifts to help pay for shipping our things, plane tickets, and other moving expenses. Can you help us get to England? Could you help with our monthly support or maybe our moving costs? Do you know someone (or some church) who might? If so, please let us know!

Josh & Kristen

On the Home Front

On the right is a fairly standard British electrical outlet. It’s better than twice the size of the American equivalent, and it also provides 220 Volts at 50Hz. Translation: Almost nothing we own that requires electricity is going to England. Take a look around your house. You’ll be amazed (we were) at how many things you own run on electricity.

Life at home has been busy, busy, busy. There has been lots and lots of sorting, packing, and planning. We’ve given, sold, packed, or thrown out a bunch of stuff already. In fact, we had some friends over the other night, and it turned into a moving sale! We now have a growing list of “sold” things, just waiting to be delivered before we leave the country.

Cassia

Cassia is growing like a weed… a tall, skinny weed (no surprise there). She’ll be 2 years old in January and boy is she active! Her vocabulary seems to grow hourly some days, as she attempts to imitate almost everything we say (nothing like a little parrot to help you think before you speak!).

Snow

Since we’ve already had over six inches of snow at our house, she has also discovered the wonder of “no-ss ow-sigh” (snow outside). She LOVES it. Coming back inside is always a traumatic experience. We’ve discovered that “hot” chocolate can assuage some of the pain of coming inside, but that her “spill-safe” cup leaks chocolate all over the house. So… how about some crackers (and a nice safe highchair) with that chocolate?

"At the Office"

Despite our focus on support raising this year, I’ve still been involved in the day-to-day ministries of HCJB Global. This year I’ve spent a lot of time focused on keeping HCJB Global secure. Hours and hours have been spent doing research in order to help HCJB Global deal with the security requirements that come along with accepting credit card donations. February found me migrating to the mission’s website after an anonymous hacker broke in to the old server. WWW.HCJBGlobal.org, as well as nearly a dozen other websites in various languages, are now on a new and much more secure server. In addition, I’ve been serving on the worldwide Information Technology team, and training other missionaries to use various security tools. It’s been a very busy year.

Josh

The Race is On!!

Dear Friends,

photo © Paul Keleher

Raising support for missions is like a marathon, especially in this economy. And in this race, we suddenly have a new contender. We’ve always been competing with the clock, trying to get to England as quickly as possible. But now we get to compete with the British government as well.

If we’ve got your email address, you’ve (hopefully) heard that on November 1, the UK will change its visa laws, making it quite a bit more complicated to get a visa to live there. Mission policy states that we need to have pledges making up 80% of our support before we can purchase visas and set a departure date. And just to keep the pressure on, our visas go into effect immediately, so we’ll need to move as quickly as we can once we have visas in hand.

We are so grateful that we already have pledges for 66% of our monthly budget, but to get to 100%, we need:

• 9 monthly pledges of $100 (or yearly pledges of $1200)
• 9 monthly pledges of $75 (or $900/year)
• 10 monthly pledges of $50 (or $600/year)
• 8 monthly pledges of $30 (or $360/year)

Would you ask God if He wants you to help us reach that 80% goal by November 1 and the 100% goal by January 1?

After you’ve prayed, would you let us know what God told you? No matter what He tells you, “Yes”, “No”, or “Later”, we just want to know God’s will as we pursue this major change in ministry. So, when He does answer, would you give us a call or drop us an email (or even a snail-mail). That would really help us as we gauge whether or not we’ll meet this new deadline. And if the answer is, "Yes", you can easily give online using the link on the left (see "Join Us").

Contacts

This journey into full-time missions has been a long one for us, but we are so excited to finally be “on the home stretch”. However, we still need roughly thirty-six new supporters in order to be able to begin serving the Lord in England.

As you pray about getting involved, would you be thinking of people you know who might be interested in our ministry? We need new contacts, especially church contacts, since the only way to communicate with most churches is through personal introductions. If you know an individual, or would be willing to introduce us to a church, would you give me a call? My number is 574-903-4773.

Thank you so much!

On Security (from my Boss)

photo © Darren Hester for openphoto.net

The following note comes from Marian Douce, the Executive Director of Global Information Technology for HCJB Global. In addition to being a very neat lady, Marian also happens to be my boss, and the person who asked us to move to England to take this new position. She sent this note along to help describe what I do from her perspective, and also to answer the question, “Why England?”

Because Josh Gee does his job as HCJB Global’s Director of Information Security well, a lot of things don’t happen:

• Our 30+ public servers don’t get broken into
• Our web pages don’t get destroyed
• Laptops stolen from HCJB can’t be read
• Our work in sensitive countries doesn’t get interrupted
• Our staff doesn’t have work stopped by viruses
• And I don’t worry so much!

But some things do happen:

• Our supporters’ information is protected
• We have Josh’s expertise overseeing our offices’ data security
• We help protect HCJB Global’s ministries in insecure parts of the world
• Our HCJB Global staff has instruction on protecting their computers
• We are more quickly aware of new problems and how to fix our systems
• Other ministries benefit from the security advice that Josh gives

Josh can do this job from many parts of the world, so why ask him and Kristen to move to the UK?

• It physically puts him in the midst of HCJB Global’s regional offices that have the greatest need for security.
• The UK HCJB World Office has tools for Josh to use in serving those regional offices.
• From the UK, he can easily visit those ministries and experience first-hand what their security needs are.
• What Josh learns there, where ministry security is most important, will help him protect HCJB ministries around the world.
• Iron sharpens iron – moving to the UK HCJB World Office allows Josh to work with UK missionary Mick Leggett. Together they will keep HCJB’s offices in Euro-Asia, North Africa/Middle East and Sub-Sahara Africa running smoothly. What they figure out together will help all of our other HCJB offices run smoothly and securely.

Thank you for your part in the Gee’s ministry with HCJB Global. Through them, you are helping the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ reach many people around the world.

Marian

Cassia

Cassia is growing like a weed, and learning so much. Recently she’s mastered, “eyes”, “ears”, “nose”, “mouth”, “hair”, “hands”, “feet”, and “belly”. And she’s counting (but only up to two).

Here she is looking “too cool” in Daddy’s sunglasses.

Why are we doing this?

Sometimes, it can be hard to understand just why missions need people like us. Why don't all missionaries preach? Shouldn't they all be out on the street corner evangelizing? So we thought we'd ask some of the people we'll be serving about their perspective. Here's what Colin Lowther, Director of HCJB Global UK, and Lee Sonius, Executive Director HCJB Global's Sub-Saharan Africa Region had to say.

What impact does technical support have on your ministry?

I would guess that 75% of my work is related to email, the internet, and computers. If things are not working properly, we are in TROUBLE. -Lee

Technical support is an intrinsic part of mission and evangelism in the 21st century -especially in media missions. It's the backbone over which the ministry happens. Almost every aspect of our ministry requires reliable IT to keep the basics of our day to day work functioning. The technicians who keep these areas running smoothly are as important as the creative people who make the programs. Without them the message would get no further than the page!

Also, with such reliance on email communications these days, any problems with the email system can result in hours of wasted time for everyone and can slow down a whole project. Most people in our office don't understand how email gets from A to B, they just know that it does!

Having an individual on-site to deal with any maintenance issues regarding technical support is literally a Godsend! To be able to talk through a support issue face to face makes all the difference when time is at a premium. - Colin

What’s your perspective on “technical missionaries”?

“It’s like a play. You have the people on stage that are in the spotlight, and then you have dozens of people working as stage hands. You can not put on a good stage production without everyone being involved. ” -Lee

[They] are as much a missionary as any other 'evangelist' or church planter. In God's eyes there is no difference. They are each fulfilling the role that God has given them. Like Paul's illustration of the 'body' (1 Cor. 12), each member is needed and can't exist independently of the others. - Colin

When it comes to computer support, what is your greatest need?

“We just need someone is available to answer questions and solve problems when they come up. ” -Lee

Apart from having all the computers working as they should, we need technicians who are on top of new developments. We want to be as up to date as any secular organization so that the message of Christ can be communicated into the culture of the day with no time lag. The church is often seen as 'behind the times'; IT specialists can help to ensure that our communications and security systems are glorifying to God. - Colin

Josh, What do you actually do?

• Create
Over the past seven years, I’ve worked to create multiple software tools to help HCJB Global missionaries minister more effectively.
• Lead
For two years I’ve lead a group of college students in creating yet another piece of software to help missionaries .
• Teach
During January I trained missionaries from the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America to use this new tool.
• Fight
In February, we discovered that a hacker had managed to break in to HCJB Global’s web server. I spent time repairing the damage that was done and helping the mission set up a newer and more secure web server.

Exciting things are happening!

Cassia took her first couple steps recently and is starting to “toddle”. She’s pretty uncertain of herself, but I think I'll be chasing her before I know it. She uses this little cart that we bought her for her birthday all the time, and if she gets it stuck against a couch, she'll shove it over until she can go somewhere with it. (You can see a video of this on our blog, http://notes.geefam.info.)

She is also trying to talk now. She repeats things like Daddy, ducky, Cassia, shoes, socks. and toes. Though they don't quite come out that way yet. When she says her name, it comes out more like “Dassa”. Daddy and ducky, “duddy”, sound very similar and are sometimes hard to tell apart. Shoes are more like "jooz" and toes are kind of like "doze".

She's such a joy and so much fun. We are really enjoying her.


On a different note:
A church in Michigan decided recently to support us, which brings us to 48%! Praise the Lord!
Also:

• Josh's cousin is speaking with the missions committee at his church about us.
• We have a date set to speak at a church in West Virginia on April 13th.
• There is a possibility that we might speak at a church near Pittsburgh after Memorial Day.
• We are talking with a church in southern Indiana.
• We have three supporters that are scheduling home meetings for us. (If you're interested in having a home meeting, please contact us!)

We are so excited and encouraged about what God is doing with our support right now! We have so much to be thankful for.