Dear Friends,
These are Exciting Days for Both our Family and Ministry!
To us, there is something so refreshing about having a baby in the house.
And we have FIVE grandkids with our oldest being nine and youngest being just five months.
Our youngest grand-baby, Montana Jane (see photo below) smiles non-stop it seems seeing all the life in her causes us and everyone else around to smile too. We love having our kids and their families in the house visiting us here in Florida. It’s so nice to get to baby-sit sometimes too.
We think having them around keeps us young and so reminds us of when our kids’s were that age. We don’t know how we did it with our lives and missionaries and traveling on so many airplanes, moving to new countries so many times starting over in new mission fields.
Brenda and I are just so, so grateful that we are close to our kids, sometimes we are their parents and sometimes even friends depending on the situation.
Somehow, with all the different moves to so many different places we did some things right and our kids look back on growing up in so many places with fond nostalgia. We fully realize it was and is God’s grace that has kept us close and so many people praying for us and our family.
Ministry Update . . .
This year got off to an amazing start. Already, I (Jim) have been to Budapest, Hungary and Czech Republic meeting with leaders on reaching their nations with the Gospel.
In the coming weeks I will be in Poland and Bulgaria again.
THE FIRST TIME I WENT TO POLAND – 1995
A Life Altering Trip . . .
I remember the very first time I ever stepped foot in the nation of Poland. It was May 1995. It was overcast and rainy and I didn’t know a single person in this nation of 39 million people. We had been living in Moscow, Russia at the time.
We knew that a transition was coming, and we felt it was time to leave Russia. But we didn’t know what our next step would be. It’s a place that we have all faced many times in our lives, times of transition. I was in Poland as I felt that we were supposed to continue as missionaries somewhere in Eastern Europe, just not Russia.
Little did I realize that trip back in 1995 to Warsaw and Krakow would forever change our lives and direction of our ministry.
Just two years after this trip we ended up moving to Budapest, Hungary to reach the nations of Eastern Europe and ended up living there for over 25 years.
Since that first trip in 1995, I have been to Poland probably over 100 times. Working with key Polish Pastors and leaders we have seen over 50 churches start throughout Poland.
Even this year we will see at least FOUR more churches started there, reaching cities and towns like Opale, Wroclaw, and Gliwice.
This year once again we will look to help start at least SEVEN churches in the nations of Eastern Europe. We have been doing this same thing since 2001.
We have seen over 300 churches started since the year 2001. We do this working with key pastors in all the countries we work in and help them fulfill their vision to reach their countries.
We invest $4000 in each of these new churches. We are so excited to see at least SEVEN more started this year.
It’s going to be amazing to see what will happen this year in God’s Plan. Prayerfully consider if you can help with part or all of a church sponsorship.
We are now in our 43rd Year as Missionaries.
Thank you for helping us do what we do. Please know it is NEVER taken for granted.
Jim and Brenda