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.