Tragedy.

We were told in cultural training to be prepared for things happening back in the States that we would be too far away from to do anything about. The first tragedy happened this week. Thankfully, it’s someone only Lisa knows and Lisa has been away from Vermont long enough that it’s easier than it would be otherwise.

A family Lisa knows well in Vermont has three children. This Friday, the father and the middle son, a 17 year old named Jake, went turkey hunting (first day of turkey hunting in Vermont). The father mistook his son for a turkey and shot him. Jake was killed. Even as I (Lisa) write this, I still have a hard time fathoming that this could happen. Just knowing the family so well, I have no idea how they’re handling this. I had the hard task of breaking the news to one of the American girls here. Her best friend is engaged to Jake’s older brother, Zack. So, she’s even closer to the family. I hope I don’t have to break news like that to anybody again any time soon.

Brian and I are doing okay. I can’t stop and think about it for very long because it’s just too overwhelming. It’s one of those gut-wrenching, nauseating stories that are just too incredibly for real life. Please be in prayer for them. Pray for the father, Kevin, and his wife, Dianna. Pray for Zack and his baby sister, Rebekah, who is in sixth grade. Pray for my sister, Tanya. She is one of Rebekah’s teachers and Tanya had the incredibly difficult task of breaking the news to Rebekah’s school on Friday. Pray for my church in Vermont as they come around the Kadamus family. Pray for my sister’s father-in-law, Paul, who is the pastor of my church in Vermont and who will be doing the funeral within the next couple of days. Pray for Jake’s friends.

Thank you.

One More Trip!

We are leaving tomorrow morning, January 8th, for Belle Fourche, South Dakota, to visit friends and family one last time. We decided shortly before Christmas that since our visas were taking longer than expected and Brian’s family really wanted to see us (and since gas prices dropped so much!), we thought we’d just do it and drive out one more time. You can definitely be praying for us; we’re doing a 26+ hour trip in 2 days. Thankfully, we have friends in Iowa City who are our hotel for tomorrow night and next week on the way home! That was a miracle in and of itself since we didn’t realize they lived in Iowa City now and we don’t normally drive through Iowa at all! We’re looking forward to seeing everybody. It’ll be a good start-up for our last few weeks here in the States.

Our January newsletter is up! Check it out – click on “Current Newsletter” to the left.

End of the Beginning!

We have completed the end of the beginning of the visa process! Once we mail in these papers, we begin the waiting stage! Which, really, is the last stage. The end is in sight! We wanted to share with you how your prayers for us were answered today. It was really quite exciting.

We had to travel to Paterson, New Jersey.

That’s about a two hour drive from Moscow and is about twenty minutes from New York City. Needless to say, it was a huge city. We had good directions, but when you get into downtown, it doesn’t really matter. From the way the directions looked, we thought we’d be looking for an actual building. After driving around the downtown city blocks for about twenty minutes, we were unsuccessful in finding the building OR a parking spot. We finally decided to pull into the entrance of a parking garage, even though the sign said that it was full. The attendant at the entrance told us if we were willing to wait, we could probably get a parking spot within the next ten minutes. Perfect! He then proceeded to say that he’d never met anybody from South Dakota and wanted to shake Brian’s hand and find out what we thought of New Jersey and the east coast. He asked where we were headed and Brian asked if he knew where the consulate was. He said, “Well, of course! You’re here! That bank building the parking garage is attached to is where the consulate is located.” He told us what floor, where to go, who to ask to show us where exactly to go. Yay!!

When we actually got inside the giant building, the police officer knew exactly where to direct us. Inside the consulate office, no one spoke English. The lady at the front desk took our papers to someone in the back who came out and spoke perfect English. She told us the copies of our passports were not legalized enough. We had to have a county clerk legalize the notary and then she would legalize all of that. We ended up going upstairs to a different notary with new copies that were made for us. Then, we walked down the street to the courthouse where a clerk legalized the notary’s signature. When we got back, we were ushered into the back office and that same lady legalized the entire paperwork mess. And we were done! And all the people in the waiting room were the same people who were waiting when we first came in. Amazing.

We really felt the Lord took care of us today and worked it out well. My family has had to work with consulates before and the process has always been painful and drawn-out. We were amazed that it went so quickly today! So, now, all that’ s left is to mail this stack of papers to Peru and wait for our visas to arrive. You can be praying they get here BEFORE we leave! And then, once we’re in country, that the rest of the paperwork we need to do will go just as well.

Thanks for your prayers! It’s so cool to see the Lord answer prayers so tangibly.

One more hurdle down… just a little over a month to go!

**We have updated our Prayer Requests Page – Check it out!

Newest India Information

We promised we would keep you all updated on the situation in India. It is still very critical. Our BCM President just returned from a trip there. Here is an email we received from him today. Please be keeping the believers in Orissa in your prayers!! If you notice at the end of the letter, they talk about students from BCM Peru - that is where we’re headed! Those are the teens we’ll be working with next year.

Marty arrived back this evening from our two Orissa refugee camps. He and other BCM India leadership arrived with a medical team that ministered to the BCM pastors and families,  in conjunction with the Cephas Foundation Charitable Trust and Blessing For India (CBN), who supplied all medical supplies, PTL!  A total of 205 refugee camp believers were treated for malaria, hepatitis, fungal diseases, anemia and other sickness, as well as care for pregnant women and newborns. One day was spent treating sick from the village where one refugee camp’s hosting church is located.

        Marty met with pastors and shared God’s Word at each camp and listened to story after story from the refugees. One exciting answer to prayer was that seven of the displaced children BCM has been caring for have been matched up as missing children of some of the pastors in the camps; you can imagine their joy at finding those children alive. The others at this point appear to be orphans, though efforts will continue to be made to locate parents.

       On a sadder note, as Marty and leaders met with one of the pastor’s wives who’d come into the camp, they found out her husband Ramar Digal has been in jail for a month now, accused of sedition because of the riots. She has two small preschool children. Over all, the reality is so much worse than is being reported. Pastor Nayak, BCM’s area director, says that 2700 BCM believers (these are baptized church members), plus their children are homeless. The stories they’ve shared have been horrific. One woman shared with Marty of hiding in the jungle with her children and watching the mobs burning her house, knowing she’d be killed if she emerged. The murders and gang rapes are far higher than is being admitted at a government level, some of the stories within our own BCM believers too terrible to repeat here. But then one pastor told Marty of one of his village believers, running through the jungle with small children, who ran into a tiger. Yes, they are man-eaters here. But one of the children walked right up to the tiger and held out his hand as though to a kitten. The tiger sniffed it, turned and went away. Someone’s guardian angel on patrol!

        What is sad is that the Red Cross-supported camps, holding about 10,000, are now being shut down, the government saying there’s no longer money. One would ask where all the foreign aid has gone, considering the government seized it all. This ‘official’ camp includes not just Christians, but Hindus and anyone else affected by the violence. Now the government is telling the people to go back to their villages. The Hindu religious leaders have announced that the Christians can return home if they return to Hinduism; otherwise they will be killed on sight. Meanwhile, the wisdom of running our own camps for our pastors and families is clear since the ‘official’ camp, controlled by the radical Hindu government, there is no protection against the death threats issued against pastors. At this moment, twenty-seven pastors are on actual hit lists in their area. The radical Hindu group is paying 50,000 rupees (US$1100) for each pastor killed, each church burned, or each Christian village destroyed. A favorite tactic is to surround a Christian village and block off all exits, then ring the community bell, and begin killing as the people emerge from their homes.  

        Please continue to pray for Orissa as well as the other four provinces also controlled by the radical Hindus (voted democratically into power, one more proof that elections mean nothing without law and human rights). The day Marty arrived, seven more Christian relief workers were arrested on charges of ‘conversion by allurement’ under Orissa’s new anti-conversion laws. It is getting worse, not better.

         We’d ask prayer especially for the pastors and church leaders who are attempting to shepherd their flocks while under so much strain themselves. Marty saw so much post-traumatic-stress syndrome from the pastors down to the children. Our BCM area director, Nayak, is himself suffering from malaria even as he tries to round up and account for his huge and scattered flock. His beautiful 17-year-old daughter, a vibrant ministry leader in her own right, died unnecessarily of appendicitis, complication from malaria, not long ago during this refugee crisis. He remains separated from his wife and surviving daughter because of death threats on his own life. He is one of so many heart-aching situations. Marty was able to visit with Pastor Dasarath Digal, whose son was murdered by the mob. He was driven out of one of our BCM refugee camps when the town leaders found out he was there because he is still under indictment as a ‘murderer’ for the assailant who fell from his church roof. So many of these leaders are grieving their own great losses, yet have responsibilities for so many others. Pray that they will be strengthened and comforted with God’s great love and that a solution will be found for the future; to date, neither the Indian government nor the international community outside the body of Christ has brought any pressure to bear to enforce freedom of religion.

        Aren’t you glad God is in control despite all man can do? We cannot fix the world, nor even save people we care about from being touched by evil. But we can rest assured that they are in God’s hands and cradled in His love. Meanwhile we can do our part. We recently received notice that our BCM Peru Bible Institute students have taken a special offering for the Orissa camps. We have seen so many of our ministry fields around the world, most with very little funding themselves, sending what they can to help. There is nothing more beautiful and powerful than the body of Christ in action. Please stand together with us for our brothers and sisters in Orissa.       

 

In the Service of the King,

 

Marty,

President

New Update!

What you are looking at is part of the IBYM campus, what our house will look like, and where it will be located. We are very excited. This picture is hanging up on our bulletin board in our bedroom so we can constantly be reminded of some of our future. The house pictured belongs to a co-workers – it is not ours! We will be building ours, but it will look like this (all the missionary homes look alike, just like all the dorms look the same, and all the classrooms look the same). Our house will be situated toward the back of the campus, beyond the married student’s housing (where the red arrow is pointing). We will be clearing the land back there, past the soccer field, in order to build it. Our back view will be that mountain in behind. We will be having one other missionary couple joining us over there sometime next year. Other than that – we’ll be mostly by ourselves. And yes, if Lisa has anything to say about it, we will have a guest bedroom so all of you can come visit us and have a place to stay!

We got our monthly report from BCM a couple days ago and are happy to say that our support has gone up about another $50. That doesn’t sound like much, but honestly, that’s HUGE for us. It’s so cool to see how the Lord is providing little by little. We know He wants us there in January; we’re anxious to see how He’s going to get us there. We need around $400 more per month before we can go.

We have also begun our visa process. We have most of the papers submitted. We need to get our passports notarized and then stamped by the Peruvian consulate. And then we wait! We’re getting good at waiting.

Thanks for your prayers!