26 Aug New Missionaries: Marion and Candy Hall

Marion and Candace Hall

Marion and Candy Hall have been accepted as endorsed missionaries with Global Ministries. They are serving with Word of Life Fellowship, based in Schroon Lake, New York. Marion has taken a position as Dean of Men at the Word of Life Bible Hungary Institute in Toalmas, Hungary.

The Halls are from the Harrison UB church in Harrison, Mich. They have two adult children, Michelle and Duane.

You can learn more about Word of Life Hungary Bible Institute on their website.

25 Aug Ideas for Remembering 9/11

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

The 10th Anniversary of 9/11 is just around the corner. Perhaps you haven’t given it much thought in your worship planning, but here are some practical ideas from Shane Bennett of Missions Catalyst to focus your church on the opportunities to share Christ’s love and not just the tragedy.

24 Aug Honduras Missions Conference

Scenes from the Honduras Mission Conference. The woman in the red jacket in many of the photos is Juanita Chavez, superintendent of Honduras Conference.

Juanita Chavez, Honduras Conference Superintendent

The Women’s Leadership Team of Honduras, District No. 3 (La Ceiba) and two congregations from District No. 4, celebrated their first missionary conference. Each country where the worldwide United Brethren Church works was represented with typical food, costumes, and other items related to that country.

We had with us Rev. Edgardo Lainez of Church of the Nations, who also works with COMIBAN (Latin American Missions Consortium) of Honduras. He provided us with a comprehensive briefing on missions and missionaries from Honduras who are serving in different countries.

23 Aug Abby Waterbury Concludes Her Mission Service

Abby Waterbury (right) served four years, beginning in the fall of 2007, in Honduras with World Gospel Outreach, teaching elementary children. She has returned to the States, and will be teaching at Lenawee Christian School in Adrian, Mich.

22 Aug Thailand: 3 Churches, 1 Student Center

Children singing at one of our churches in Thailand.

Rev. Mark Choi, mission director for Hong Kong Conference, provided this information about the three churches and the student center in northern Thailand. Hong Kong provides the primary oversight of our ministries in Thailand.

Litao Village Church. Rev. Li began this church in 1992, and it now has 300 members. Most of them are tea workers, earning about $200 (US) per month. Some of them work in Bangkok or Taiwan as laborers or servants. Rev. Li intend to rebuild the church with two levels–a ground floor with 3 classrooms for Sunday school, and an upper floor for worship services.

Roman Village Church. This church began in 2006. Rev. Li had tried for a long time to plant a church here, working hard to reach the people of this village. Now, Mr. Ah Tu is the assistant pastor to Rev. Li. The church has 60 members.

New Church at Laozuo Village. We intend to plant a new Chinese church at Laozuo village, either on land provided by Rev. Li or in cooperation with Zhongxing Middle School. It does depend on the financial situation. Rev. Li has land to offer for further development, but the size seems too small for any long-term strategy. The site of Zhongxing Middle School is more flexible. If it becomes a Christian school, we can have our own church with bilingual language worship there. In addition, it can serve as a training center or social service center.

Student Center. The Student Center opened in 2000, and serves 26 children from ages 6-16. Most of them are orphans or from single-parent families. Due to the high inflation, the monthly expense for each child is about $70 (US).

We hope that we can help the Thailand field become more independent financially in the future, and that the living standard of the villagers can be improved. They could share the love of Christ with other tribes.

18 Aug Child Sponsorship in Haiti

Jeff with two of three children they support at Croix des Bouquets. The building was closed in using reliefs funds sent following the earthquake.

The Delmas 33 United Brethren school which was built with relief funds and now offers eight grades of schooling.

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

I was in Haiti last week with four persons from the UB Church in Canada–Paul Plato, Joan Sider, Matt Robertshaw, and Audrey Fiederlein. We were able to discuss progress in Port Au Prince with Jackson Hiliare, former police commissioner for the capitol and husband of Elsa Hiliare, country coordinator for our partners CH Global.

Jackson and Elsa Hiliare

Murder, he told us, is at epidemic levels, along with rape and theft. However, aside from the issues of peace and order, the greatest priority is education. Tens of thousands of children were without education before the earthquake, but the attention the earthquake brought has allowed for many to begin attending school for the first time.

With the help of CH Global, we have opened three schools and have 180 children matched to sponsors in the US and Canada. However, another 76 who qualify for sponsorship are still not in school. We would like to expand our program to open schools at two more of our United Brethren churches in the near future.

For just $36 per month, a child with exceptional needs or a child at risk will receive care from early intervention through to young adulthood. CH Global will send you a photo with detailed information about your sponsored child, and an annual update on your child’s welfare and achievements.

You can read more about this child sponsorship program, along with ways to respond, on the UBGlobal.org website.

11 Aug Water Filters for Sierra Leone

The Hydraid filter.

Gail Welch, a former nurse at Mattru Hospital, spent four weeks in Sierra Leone this summer with a team installing HydrAid BioSand water filters (www.hydraid.org) in various villages and training installers for the future. They worked closely with the United Brethren church in Sierra Leone (Bishop John Pessima, Rev. Justin Marva, and close friend Rev. Thomas Beckley) installing more than 30 filters in the Bo and Mattru area, including three filters at Mattru Hospital.

Another 30 filters remain to be installed. If they are accepted and people want to see more, the Welches would like to send more filters. This shipment of 60 filters got a free ride from the US Navy to the Port of Freetown.

The filters are simple. They have a plastic casing and tubes, are filled with different layers of sand, and grow a “biological layer” that attacks bacteria and viruses. There is no real maintenance except to keep it wet, wash the tube and tray monthly, and if running too slowly, stir the biological layer with your hand (perhaps 2 or 3 times a year). No electricity, no in-line chlorinators or iodine, no charcoal, no paper filters, no replacement parts.

Gail and Brian Welch (left) live in Fremont, Mich. Gail served as a nurse the the Mattru Hospital and Brian taught at Centennial School until 1994, when the civil war forced their evacuation.

11 Aug Hong Kong’s 25-Person Mission Team to Thailand

The Hong Kong team. (Click to enlarge)

The Hong Kong team recognized four Thai students for academic achievement. Mark Choi is on the right, and Rev. Li is on the left.

At a Thai school. (Click to enlarge)

Two Hong Kong members eating with a Thai boy.

During July, 25 persons from Hong Kong Conference took part in a mission trip to Thailand, and brought along 400 kilgrams of donated materials (mostly clothing and stationery). Hong Kong oversees the UB ministries in the mountains of northern Thailand.

Mark Choi, Hong Kong’s mission director, sent a report about the trip.

1. Summer English lesson. We provided 4 English classes for 90 students in Zhongxing Middle School, which is located on a hilltop within 100 meters of our Student Center. That is a private school.

2. A Carnival. We held a carnival at the town hall for about 200 children.

3. Scholarship Ceremony. They provided prizes (worth about $13) to three students to recognize academic achievement, and another prize to recognize a student’s academic improvement. They held the ceremony at Zhonxing Middle School.

4. Worship & Preaching. They participated in a service at one of our churches

10 Aug Dave Datema–Peeling the Onion

Dave Datema, a UB endorsed missionary, was named General Director of Frontier Mission Fellowship in May 2009. He succeeded Dr. Ralph Winter, who founded the organization and its various subsidiaries. Here is a paragraph from Dave’s August newsletter:

Trying to evaluate and organize 35 years of Ralph Winter’s activism has been a challenge. Nevertheless, the onion is getting peeled layer by layer and new clarity is emerging. Please keep me and our leaders in your prayers as hard decisions are made and complex issues understood. I’m excited about what God is doing in our midst. We have a great opportunity in these days to re-engineer and re-invent ourselves with old values and new vision.

07 Aug Three Days in Delmas, Haiti

The August 7 Sunday morning service at the Delmas church, concluding a three-day conference for our Haitian churches.

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

Hard to believe that just four short years ago a gathering of 30 or so held an evangelistic service on the land that now occupies the 800-seat church and conference center in Delmas, Haiti.

Although this is just an iPhone snapshot from Sunday morning’s worship, it gives a sense of the celebratory atmosphere as our 30 churches gathered for three days and nights of fellowship, teaching, and worship (as only Haitians can do).

Attending the service this morning was the mayor of Port Au Prince, the President of Haiti, and delegations from UB churches in Canada and a partner congregation from Paris, France.

The church in Haiti is alive and well. The theme for the three days was from Matthew 14:27, “Don’t be afraid; take courage; I am here.”

Tomorrow we plan to visit schools and micro-economic projects our Haitian UBs are operating with the help of Global Ministries’ partner, CH Global.