Peyi pouri

Spent the day yesterday in the beautiful mountain area of Peyi Pouri. Had a great time visiting with friends there.

To all my missionary fiends

Missionary Impossible by Jim Plueddemann

JUL
8
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Missionaries
Jim & Carol Plueddemann

What makes an effective missionary? While most missionaries dread evaluation, church mission committees themselves aren’t sure what questions to ask—or what exactly they’re evaluating. A church’s attempts at evaluation can be sadly comical. On a home assignment from Africa, our supporting church’s missions committee members couldn’t think of anything to talk about, so they asked if we had any snake stories.

Another time, a Christian foundation director asked Jim, “How many people did you win, and how much money did it cost per soul? If we fund this project, how many people per dollar will come to Christ?”

The snake story episode reveals wasted chances to ask probing, meaningful questions about the essence of our work. Instead, the committee mired in trivial things irrelevant to assessing our effectiveness. The cost-per-soul discussion revealed crass materialism and a behavioristic mindset for what only the Holy Spirit can bring about.

So how do you evaluate missionaries?

“Vision-driven, outcome evaluation” considers everything according to the kingdom vision God has given the missionary, rather than simply judging a missionary’s work by a checklist. For example, instead of focusing on how many times the missionary showed the Jesus film, a vision-driven evaluation asks, “What difference will the film’s message make in people’s lives and, what are the next steps for those who have viewed it?”

Here are seven vision-driven development points to move missionaries to reflect, plan and be highly effective in their lives and ministries:

1) Spiritual: Are you growing in grace or stagnating in your relationship with Christ? What’s helped you grow? What’s hindered you? What needs to change? How does your missionary experience enhance or detract from your spiritual growth?
2) Family: How is your marriage? Your relationship with your children? What specific things have you done to build both? If single, how have you nurtured healthy relationships with others?
3) Mental: Are you growing in wisdom and knowledge? What have you done this last year to gain professional, language and cultural skills? What could you do specifically to continue developing your mind?
4) Physical: What have you done to maintain physical shape? Would more rest, better diet and consistent exercise help?
5) Relationship: Have you developed strong cross-cultural friendships? How are your relationships with missionaries and national co-workers? What has helped or hindered the growth of loving, trusting relationships? List ways you will prayerfully develop love and trust within your team this year.
6) Vision: What are your hopes and dreams for God to use you in others’ lives? If God were to richly bless your ministry, what difference would it make in other people and the church? What indications show that God has been using you to make an eternal difference in others’ lives?
7) Activities: How has God used your ministry to fulfill the kingdom vision? What have you done to hinder fulfilling it? What belongs on your “to-do” or “stop-doing” list?

This evaluation helped a missionary at one of our Kenya seminars. He found the root of his many frustrations with his work was the mismatch in his ministry. He was doing administrative tasks, but his real passion was to teach Bible. As a result, he moved to a Bible college to teach. Later he told us that this exercise greatly improved his ministry, personal life and marriage. Another missionary went through this process and moved from Bible teaching to the ministry of financial administration which more closely matched his gifts and passion.

For ten years we’ve traveled to 56 different countries, challenging and encouraging missionaries to evaluate their lives and ministries for the kingdom’s sake. We hope these seven habits may guide mission committees to move from snake stories to vision-driven evaluations that further the kingdom cause. We invite missionaries to prayerfully reflect on them to evaluate the past and plan for the future. Discuss your findings with a mentor and with your church missions committee.

What’s been your experience with evaluation? Let us hear from you as we seek ways to be highly effective servants for the kingdom.
 

Snake Hunt

 

The imagination is a beautiful thing! A nother manifestation of the creators love for diversity. It is also a vital part of developement of the human mind. Not only is it vital for developement of the mind, but it is vital for the survival of human life. Without imagination, not one of us could live and make provision for ourselves. Because pro vision, or in other words, (foresight) is a product of our imagination!!! We truely are fearfully and wonderfuly made!

This picture is of three boys at the childrens home, with their imaginations running wild! This is an intense snake hunt! Yesterday they saw a big snake in a ream of bananas. Now today they are out in hot pursuit, weapons in hand, of any snake that might possibly challenge their snake hunting abilities!!

Journal Clipping

April 23, 2013

 Today I was reminded once again of the greatness of God. I was on my way to the border to do some shopping, and was thinking of all the trouble the officials gave me the last few times. So I just prayed and dedicated the trip to God. When I arrived at the first checkpoint, an officer motioned for me to stop. I stopped, and he asked me where I am headed?

 I responded, Jimani.

 He said me to, could I have a ride?

 I responded, Sure no problem!!! This was an answer to my prayer five minutes before!!! No other officer will bother me when I have an officer in the seat beside me!!! We drove through the whole boarder, waved at all the officers and they waved back, Never once stopped us for questioning!!! Our God truly is awesome!!!

THE CRY OF BLOOD

 - BY AMY CARMICHAEL
The tom-toms thumped straight on all night, and the darkness shuddered round me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:
That I stood on a grassy patch, and at my feet a ravine broke straight down i...nto infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.
Then I saw forms of people moving toward the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very edge. She lifted her foot for the next step... Then, to my horror, I saw that she was blind. Before I could say anything she was over, and the children with her. Their cries pierced the air as they fell into the inky blackness of the ravine!
Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all walked straight toward the edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound.
Then I wondered, with a wonder that was sheer agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I couldn't even yell; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come out.
Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals.
But the intervals were too large; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the ravine yawned like the mouth of hell.
Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees with their backs turned towards the ravine. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them, it disturbed them and they thought it was a rather crude noise. And if one of their group started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down. "Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven't finished your daisy chain yet. It would be really selfish," they said, "to leave us to finish the work alone."
There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and sometimes there were no sentries for miles and miles along the edge.
Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for awhile; but no one was sent to guard her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls. Once a child grabbed at a tuft of grass that grew at the very edge of the ravine; it clung convulsively, and it called - but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which her friends reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; "The gap would be well taken care of!", they said. And then they sang a hymn.
Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew that it was "The Cry of the Blood".
Then a voice thundered. It was the voice of the Lord, and He said, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground."
The tom-toms still beat heavily, the darkness still shuddered and shivered about me; I heard the yells of the devil-dancers and weird, wild shrieks of the devil-possessed just outside the gate.
What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years. Why make such a fuss about it? God forgive us!
God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin!
1 John 3:17
Paraphrased by Amy Carmichael
"But whoso hath the gospel of Jesus Christ, and seeth the heathen lost and dying in their sin, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"

Hello friends and family,

 

As I sit on my front porch, overlooking the lake, with a beautiful breeze coming across the water, I find my mind wondering over a sea of thoughts. Thoughts of the present, thoughts of the future. Thoughts of pleasure, and thoughts of saddness. Thoughts that could strike fear into the heart, and thoughts that encourage a weary soul! Then putting all these things in context , by the knowledge of a Holy God that knows the very thought and intent of my heart! I prepare a plan of action for my life based on that knowledge of who my God is, and what he has asked of me as one of his redeemed. Our God is searching this earth for men and women who will go the whole way with him. A people who will do more than just talk about Jesus, but will LIVE Jesus!!! And live him to the fullest! The words of a song come to mind, Take the world, but give me Jesus. What have I to ask beside? There is just nothing else that will change our lives, like him! Oh that we as the people of God would awake out of sleep and be set on fire by God to be a light to a DARK world!!! Lord help us???!!! God has been setting this fire in my heart, and I trust that he will finish the work he has started. Please pray that the trials of life would not dampen the flame, but fan then to a brighter blaze!

Praise the Lord

Praise the Lord!!! He is still working miracles today!
The Lord has been doing a work in the lives of people through the revivals here this week. The has been a really good turn out every night, and the people have been very attentive.
 Last night we saw God at work here when the man involved in the robberies here last summer, came to the alter and recommited his life to God! Please pray with us that he would go the whole way and break free from the bondage of satan. Pray that even if this is just a gesture to get on better terms with the mission, that God would not let him go with that but would use it to bring him to the end of himself. Pray for us that we would be willing to give him a nother chance to prove that he is changed, and that we could show him the love of God by our lives.

Is Jesus Enough

 Is Jesus enough, that we would not need anything else to depend on through life? Is the word of God enough to keep us on the straight and narrow way??? Can we put all of our confidence in him, and him alone, or do we ask him to share the throne of our hearts with earthly provisions in case he does not come through???!!! Can we put everything on the alter for the sake of the Glory of his name??? These are questions we all must ask ourselves! They determine our relationship with God! Are we working for his kingdom, or ours??? You are alive today for the glory of God.
 The thought is a challenging one. What am I living for? Am I living for the glory of God and the advance of his kingdom, or my own ambitions?
 The fact is, Jesus Christ is LORD of ALL!! There is no other in this world, who is all powerful!!! If you dont beleive this now, one day you will when he makes his glory known to all the world. The question is will we fall at his feet now, while his hands of Grace are still outstretched, while he still offers to remove our transgressions from us, or will we wait till his Holy wrath falls on us for our refusal to do what we where created to do? By the way, he is the one that created each one of us!
 Our God is looking for men and women who are not willing to risk putting there trust in earthly things!!! But a people who will confidently put their trust in him, knowing he is the author of all things!!!
                              We have a God to Glorify!!! Go Serve our King!!!

Carrots Eggs or Coffee

Grandmother Says... Carrots, Eggs, or Coffee; "Which are you?"

A young woman went to her grandmother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first, she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs and the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.
...
In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, "Tell me what do you see?"

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they got soft.She then asked her to take an egg and break it.

After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The granddaughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma. The granddaughter then asked. "What's the point,grandmother?"

Her grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity--boiling water--but each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her granddaughter.

"When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?

Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another level?

---AUTHOR UNKNOWN

 

Haiti update

Hello everyone!

It has been a long time since I sat down and gave you all an update!!! First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone that supports me, may it be in prayer or some other way! The most encouraging thing to me, is to know that there are people all around the world praying for the work here, of which I am a part. To think of an army of God marching forward without turning to the left or the right, but keeping one goal, one focus, JESUS CHRIST, and the Glory of his name. But this army is not an army as you may think. This army is not fighting for a victory. This army is marching for the Glory of their commander, the one who won the victory over the enemy by giving his life as the ultimate price for our redemtion. Then, defeating death, he rose and asks us to surrender our lives, accept his victory, march in his victory march, and carry it to the nations. This is the duty of every believer! If you are a believer, you have a call to duty. Either get in the bucket, and go down into the well, or hold the rope for the ones that go down!!! Thank you!!! To my rope holders!!!

God has a way of using trials in life to make us into the people he wants us to be. Thinking of this being the first time I write to you all in 2013, causes me to reflect over the past while. The last few months have been very difficult for me. Many a day I wanted to find a hole and crawl in it and hide till things change for the better. I was like Jona, wanting to sit back and relax and enjoy the favor of God. Not wanting to do the work of a servant, but very willing to pronounce judgement and condemnation. Willing to carry the message of the gospel, but living it is a nother story!!! God has been teaching me a lot about himself and the life he is offering me!

For those of you who follow the mission blog www.internationalfaithmissions.blogspot.com or Facebook page www.facebook.com/InternationalFaithMissions you may have seen things about the work in the mountains. We are working on some new projects in some other areas. Pastor training seminars is one thing we have done. They were a great blessing to the pastors involved. A reforestation project is in the making also in this area. It is an area that has been badly deforested to make charcoal to servive. Being in an area without a road has its challenges. It is a two to three hour hike from the road at an elevation of four to five thousand feet. A beautiful area and friendly people. Shea is behind a lot of these projects. He has a heart for the people and passion to see them move forward in life.

We just got finished with a remodel project on the clinic. We remodeled the old part of the clinic. Done a bit of reinforsement work on the structure, and repainted everything. The girls have happily moved back into the new pharmacy!!! It is amazing what a little rearranging can do to give more space!

We are looking at what the possibilities are for us as we see the lake continue to rise, giving us less than a year to stay where we are. The shop is now a lake front shop with no way to get vehicles into it. What is not water in front of it is mud! In just a short time, the water will be lapping at its doorstep.

With all of these things in mind, and all the people involved, we ask that you, as part of the Army of God, would call out to the Father, that his Kingdom could be advanced, and that the whole world could see the Glory of the Lord!!!

For more information about IFM Go to www.ifmhaiti.org

-- To God be the Glory!!!

Austin Martin