January - February 2010 Report

Dear Ones,

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” (John 11:25)

February the first marked two years since J.C. left this world. We would have been married 55 years this August 6th, so I have had many more years of living and working with him than I have had without him. Probably “independence” will never actually come. I live with the continual awareness of his presence, and of the knowledge that his commitment to a need and a goal laid the foundation for the work that we who are “World Evangelism” team members continue to do and to enlarge. If those who are in that eternal world have knowledge of what is going on here, J.C. must be extremely happy to see the good that has been done in these past two years. I remain so thankful for the Barriers, with whom we have worked for more than 25 years, and for the Bates and the Rushmores whom God provided in the fall before J.C.’s death the following February.

Of course we view death through the promise Jesus made to His hearers at the site of Lazarus’ tomb, and we live in full trust and expectation. But I have wondered how the Lord’s followers must have felt as His body was taken from the cross and laid in Joseph’s tomb such a short time after He had raised Lazarus. He was their hope of resurrection, yet He, Himself, lay dead. How muddled their minds must have been, not knowing how to interpret events or what to expect; wondering what might have been literal in His promises and what might have been only figurative. And as I think on the questions they must have had, my mind goes back to the events at Lazarus’ tomb. It must have been with His own death in mind that the Lord deliberately waited not only until Lazarus had died but until he had been in the grave long enough that his body was evidencing decay before answering the sisters’ urgent call for help. Knowing that they would shortly be bringing spices for His own body, He stood at Lazarus’ tomb and boldly spoke the words, “I am the resurrection ….” I read recently that there was the belief among the Jews that the person’s spirit hung around the body for three days, in the event that it might be possible to re-enter the body and make it live. By the fourth day, decay had set in so that the spirit left the vicinity. The thought is put forward that perhaps this was the reason Jesus waited four days to go to Bethany, so that no superstitious belief could be used to explain how Lazarus’ body had been brought to life again. Perhaps so. In any event, surely the demonstration of Jesus’ power to raise Lazarus, such a short time before His own death, coupled with His confident words, must have given hope to His followers.

And now, we all share not only the hope but the full confidence and expectation of never-ending life beyond the grave. What an exciting future!

Tragedies

Just this morning they are telling of the 8.8 earthquake in Chili and of the devastation there. Of course, for the past several weeks we have been reeling with the graphic pictures of the destruction in Haiti, with the terrible toll in loss of life, hunger and starvation, homelessness, and the obliteration of the infrastructure throughout much of the country. Millions of dollars have been given by governments, companies, and compassionate individuals, to aid in the recovery.

Since we had so recently appealed to you for help in Myanmar and then in the Philippines, we were hesitant about asking for funds for Haiti, even though the need is so great and the devastation is in our own hemisphere. However, after receiving a number of emails and calls from various ones of you who wanted to help but did not know how, we contacted some who have done long-term work in Haiti and made arrangements to funnel money into the recovery projects they are undertaking. At the end of this report we will list the contributions and show something of what is being done there. From our own experiences with other natural disas- ters, we realize that there is an immediate need for food, water, and money, and then there is the longer term need for funds to help people re-establish their lives and homes. Because none of our team was in position to go personally and help with the first needs, the money you and we have given will be used in the on-going recovery, particularly of Christian families.

Events in Winona

Along with us, most of you have experienced a very cold winter. In spite of being as conservative as possible, our heat bills have been higher than usual, here and at the office. But spring must be just around the corner, and Mother is already talking of a little garden. She will be 89 this June. She lives with me and is a great blessing in my life and a partner in whatever she is called on to do for the work’s sake.

Brad and his family came from Pleasanton, CA for a few days in December and early January, and Sheila and her son, Alex, were here during the same time. Darla and Dave were not able to come because of his work, and Steve and Melinda were dealing with family tragedy so they couldn’t come. Melinda’s father, Charles Salmon, spent the last three weeks of December in the Little Rock, AR hospital in terminal stages of Merkle Cell cancer. Her mother, Helen, was admitted to the same hospital on December 25 with chest pains and had two stents put in on the 26th morning. Melinda’s father passed away that night. You can imagine what a stressful and hurting time that was for them and for Melinda’s sisters. Please be praying for Helen and for the family.

My sister and brother-in-law, Clayton and Onirah Malone, moved into Mother’s house in November. I over-did it a little, moving things around, and wound up with torn meniscus in my left knee. It was excruciatingly painful. After allowing weeks for recovery, and seeing none, I finally went to the doctor and had surgery January 15. It is much better — not 100% yet, but improved. If you see me limping, I just want you to know that “old age” is not the problem!

On the 18th of January I drove to Jackson and then flew to Dallas to take part in the South Korean mission meeting at the College Hill church, with Malcolm Parsley and others. It was encouraging to know more about the work being done there. Don and Sylvia Petty were excellent care-givers over the weekend. They plan to participate in the Missionary Retreat to be held May 13, 14, and 15th at Maywood Bible Camp. I hope some of you will mark the dates on your calendar and plan to attend. It is a feast of good lessons, fellowship, and food.

New Books

We are very happy with the printing that has been possible here in the States during 2009. Through the years. single women working with us were paid from book sales made to brotherhood book stores, but no salary is being drawn from that money now so we have more funds for printing — books that are sold just enable us to print more books! It’s a wonderful arrangement! Many of these are used by World Bible School teachers, in prison ministries and in other forms of outreach. We sell those at $1.50 each, which is often below our printing cost. In addition, we give away many here in the States (1000 copies of Louis’ No Hermeneutical Gymnastics, Please! have been sent to “Polishing the Pulpit” for their 2010 program, hopeful that it will be a useful tool to further equip recipients in our defense against the liberalism that is corrupting many in the church.) We also send boxes of assorted titles in response to requests from men overseas, and we ship whatever is possible for containers that are being filled for mis- sion points overseas. We feel that this is an important part of the work, because it enables us to help preachers in other countries to have resource materials that would not otherwise be available to them.

How to Begin the Church of Christ Where You Are is one of J.C.’s books, written to provide step-by-step instructions for someone who was converted through radio or TV and had no congregation in his area. A Commentary on Hebrews developed from studies in preparation for teaching that book in the Four Seas College in Singapore.

Barry Baggott translated Why We Believe What We Believe into French and we had it printed in time for most of the 3000 copies to be shipped in a container to French West Africa. We are down to part of one box of Volume 2 of that book in English, so it will be next in line for re-printing. New Testament Conversions has also been re-printed.

When Louis and Bonnie moved to Winona, he had a number of books that he had authored and printed in 8.5 X 11 format. As we are able to do so, we are converting these into regular book size. Bible Geography and Parables 1 and 2 are now available. Digging Up the Past, a study of archaeology and the Bible, has been printed, and Biblical Companions: Geography, Archaeology, and Sacred History is with the printer now.

Charles and Pam White,
long-time workers in Lyon, France.

The latter part of February, Charles and Pam White, who have worked for 34 years in France, stopped by Winona to visit briefly on their way to an appointment with the Westside congregation in Searcy, AR. I decided to tag along, to have more time to visit with them, to spend a few hours with Steve and his family, and to hear Charles’ report about the work. Two things were most striking: 1) Sixty-four million people live in France, but there are only six congregations of the Lord’s church, with six foreign workers and one French preacher. 2) The attitude among many outside of France is that they have had “Christianity” for centuries, so it is their own fault that the religious situation there is so bad. Charles says that even though the majority would list themselves as Catholic, almost all are actually atheists. The reason, at least in large part: Catholicism has dominated the country, with a very corrupted image of what Christianity is all about. Just as Jesus warned, when there is division among believers, and gross error being taught and practiced in His name, then the world will be turned away from Him. The many atrocities committed through the centuries by Catholicism has caused more people to blaspheme God than has been caused by any of the pagan religions. So France has been very little exposed to true Christianity, and the need to evangelize there is great.

We were happy to print an excellent class book that Charles wrote: Upright — Traits of the Righteous Heart. It is a serious evaluation of the traits we need to develop in our hearts in order to be like our Father. I think any class would profit by the study.

Exercise!

Boxes of "The Voice of Truth International" taped,
addressed, and ready to be loaded for shipment.
We make a good "peon" team for heavy work!

Quite often we have “work days” in our building — and I mean work days! We joke that we are all “Executive Peons”. That means that if I am the only one in the office and some “executive” work or decision is necessary, I get to be the executive. And if I am the only one in the office and the commode needs scrubbing or a load of books needs to be mailed, I get to be the peon! It is wonderful that we are not prideful people! As you can see from these pictures, all of us were involved in getting the overseas shipment of The Voice of Truth International loaded into the 18-wheel- er and on their way to New York where they are packed in m-bags to begin their lengthy trip overseas. A couple of weeks ago we had five pallets of books to be unloaded. That day, Jerry and Paula were out of town, so Louis and Bonnie and I had all the fun.

Volume 63 of the magazine has come from the printer, and the overseas copies are being processed now in the office in New York. We get so many letters of appreciation from brethren overseas that it is a thrill to us to know that these gifts can continue to go out to them.

What we are trying to do now is to arrange for the printing in Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines of the copies we send to those countries. If comparable quality work can be done, for about the same printing price as here, we can save the shipping costs — and spend that money on printing more copies for use in those countries. I pray that such a solution can be arranged.

Vinay David to be Married

As most of you would know, two men who preach and work with the church in New Delhi and northern India are brothers, Sunny and Francis David. Sunny was converted during our first short period of work in Delhi and has been a pillar of support there ever since. As Francis matured in years, he began to help with preaching, correspondence courses, printing the Hindi and English magazines, etc. With the passing of more years, Francis and Elsy’s son, Vinay, came to Heritage Christian University to get a Master’s in Bible. He returned to India and has been a great asset to the efforts there. Being single, and feeling the need for a wife, not only for himself but for the work he wants to do, Vinay and his parents have been searching. But the girl had to be a devoted Christian — and the possibilities, particularly in North India, are limited. However, this good news has now come from Francis:

“We are all doing well, and busy with our work as usual. Vipul, Simi, and Vishal all are doing well. You will be glad to know that we have found a good match for Vinay, which we had been looking for a long time. She is a member of the Church from Chhattisgarh State. The girl’s name is: Reshma Gual, daughter of Subodh Gual. She is highly educated, has done her MBA (Masters in Foreign Trade). She is good looking and a good Christian. We are so thankful to God for this proposal. We had been working on this for about a year or so, and now we have settled for the marriage date, that is, April 7th, 2010. According to the tradition here, the marriage will take place at the girl’s place, and therefore, we will be going there. However, when we come back from there, we will have the reception at Delhi. We earnestly need your prayers for this occasion.

“I would like to tell you about the girl’s father. His name is: brother Subodh Gual and he is a very good Christian. He has a secular job in a steel plant, and beside his job, he devotes his time for preaching and teaching to people living around that area. He is a very good personal worker. He was converted through our literature many years back, and he has a congregation, and about 60-70 people meet every Sunday morning for worship. Myself and Vinay made a couple of visits down there, and we were impressed to see a lot of good work going on in that place. In future, I think Vinay will be a good asset to their work, and around that State.”

Use of Money Given for Haiti

Considering the numerous groups helping with the crisis in Haiti, and knowing of the long-term work of Dr. David Smith of the Pleasant Valley Church of Christ in Little Rock, AR in his “Haiti Christian Development Project”, we have made the decision to entrust to that particular work the funds that have been sent to us. Not only are they involved with supplying food and shelter for devastated Christians in these early weeks of the crisis, but they have a program for future aid in the form of training and loans for helping people to grow toward independence. These are some of the goals:

“As people from Port au Prince pour into the Artibonite, Haiti Christian Development Project is poised to be of great service. Claude Prepetit, Haiti’s official geologist, recently validated the need and importance of empowering development work in the Artibonite. His key reflections and suggestions were are follows:

Immediately provide shelter and give sanitation services, and food, to internally displaced people, to protect from the coming RAINY SEASON. That is IMMEDIATE PRIORITY. There is increased risk of disease if people have no shelter from rains, especially in areas with many buried bodies in the rubble.
Then comes WORK. Without money and some employment, the crisis will deepen for the affected people. Employing people to help clear rubble, to clear areas, is one way. HIRING HAITIANS to provide security, to distribute aid — partnering with larger agencies — will be another.
Smaller cities outside of Port au Prince, and especially in the Artibonite Valley (which is less vulnerable to future earthquakes) need to be helped.

“These already overpopulated cities (post Hurricane Gilbert) are struggling to absorb many of the 200,000 Haitians who left the capital for the provinces. The humanitarian relief effort has focused largely on P-au-P. Resources and aid should be given to provincial towns and areas, to create jobs and provisional housing so that people will stay there and not return to Port-au-Prince.’

“What HCDP is doing for earthquake relief:

Housing refugees on our compound and farm. We are helping to find housing for many locally.
We are providing food, water, clothing and shoes for many of the refugees.
Medical care has been sought out in hospitals throughout Haiti for many injured people.
We are receiving containers for food and supplies on our property and at the local port. They are then distributed primarily to the needy in the Port au Prince area but also in the Gonaives area.
We are collaborating with other relief agencies, primarily the Judsonia church of Christ (Arkansas) and with Healing Hands International as they bring us food and supplies. We are providing them a committee of the best leaders to help make local decisions regarding priorities.
Micro-loan teaching has been intensified with the goal of bringing as many refugees and other qualified persons into the program to help reestablish independence.
Many displaced children are being temporarily placed in local schools until more permanent solutions can be found.
A large medical team is arriving March 4 to help with immediate care and to help in planning future curative and preventive strategies.”

Conclusion

We are so “proud” of the way Christians have opened your hearts and made an out-pouring of love for hurting people.

We had another Mission Training Session the 25th and 26th, and will be meeting again March 4th and 5th, before Wayne and the Bates go back overseas. Volume 3 of Global Harvest is due from the printer on the 8th. If you haven’t seen or subscribed to the magazine, I believe you would be greatly encouraged to read the articles in its pages. We plan to print it twice each year (we don’t have the time to do more issues, or the money to print more often than that). A subscription is $10 for two issues. If you can help with getting the word out by subscribing, we would be grateful.

I love you. Betty (J.C.)

The Angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them (Psalm 34:7) He does!