Last October and December you helped support raising over $40,000 (including Board of World Mission grant), to build a new airplane hangar for George Goff's mission. The team from North Carolina returned Tuesday, January 17. Here is their completed hangar with George's airplane. All excess funds raised will be used for maintenance of the plane. 

Brother George Goff’s mission in Honduras, Alas de Socorro or Wings of Mercy, provides medical air transportation to his native Miskito people who, otherwise, face a twelve hour or longer trip by canoe to the nearest clinic or hospital. In addition, he pilots visiting pastors, missionaries, medical teams and church workers to his native coastal lowlands of eastern Honduras. At his destinations, he often witnesses to villagers about the saving grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Joey Transou

New Philadelphia Moravian

Winston-Salem, Nc

Into the heavens…

      Eunice and I were climbing higher and higher into the backbone of the Sierra Madre and it was hard to believe our six months in the States had passed along with Christmas and the new year.  We were on the road, climbing higher into the clouds, into the heavens for our first visit back to the village San Juan Juquila, and our only passenger, the mother of our host family, trying to sleep amid the curves and bumps in the road.  As we climbed, the clouds came closer until we were just floating among them.  We reached our resting place three hours into our trip for a bathroom break and some breakfast.  The three of us stepped out of the car and felt the the difference we could see from inside the car.  The temperature had dropped 20 degrees and the fog was thick and wet.  We quickly ate our tacos and downed the coffee trying to hide the fact we were freezing, and the mother (Antonia) kept saying " sure is cold eh."  Eunice just responded with a shiver and a sip of her coffee. 

      We continued higher into the mountains and  suddenly there was a break in the clouds and the sun shown through.  From this point it was about two hours down into the valley on a narrow dirt road to Juquila.  But on top of the mountain, 8,000 feet up we felt the sun and looked down into clouds, a heavenly view.  Eunice and I both felt excited to drop down into those clouds and begin our journey that has taken over a year to commence.

      Our sun basking was short lived and once again we were surrounded by fog and rain.  Every time we went around a wet, muddy curve in our descent I thanked God and our supporters for the new tires on our car as we avoided colliding with other cars on this extremely narrow "two lane road".  Further down the road Antonia popped her head up and said we were getting close and sure enough just around the bend was Juquila.  We drove straight to her house and greeted her son Luis and her niece Maryella.  We only had two days in the village so we needed to go right away to see the President (Mayor) and his cabinet to tell them our plan.  Luis agreed to take us and translate because the new President doesn't speak spanish.  As we walked up the the government building I became really nervous and the cold didn't help, but as always Eunice was as cool as a cucumber.  She was ready to speak and she did a great job.

      The meeting consisted of about 15 men sitting around a wooden folding table.  We greeted everybody individually and sat in front of the President and began to tell him about our plans.  Most of the men sat expressionless as many indigenous men do during meetings like this, so I wasn't discouraged by their body language but it is frustrating trying to figure out what they are thinking.  In the end they seemed to like our proposal and agreed to have another meeting with us to finalize things with the nurses who run the clinic there.  Luis thought it went extremely well and so we are hopeful that they will invite us into the village.  After the meeting we went with Luis to his plot of land outside of town and got good and muddy.  We also made a campfire to warm up, out of almost dry corn husks and some wet firewood, it took about an hour to start and was very smoky but it did warm us up. 

      The next morning we got up early and saw the nurses.  The head nurse was glad to see us, and admitted she didn't think she would see us again.  We had a pleasant talk and she agreed to meet with us and the government to hammer out some final details.  After the short walk home, we ate breakfast and headed back to Oaxaca.  Luis agreed to keep us informed when the President wants to see us again, in about a week or two.

      Now we wait.  We have formally met and proposed our plan to all the parties involved.  Please pray with us as we know God will open this door for us.  It is in God's hands now.  We thank you all so much for your support.  God will open this place up to the gospel, we pray that we are a part of His plan.  Just as our trip, up there in the heavens the clouds break and the Son shines free.  May the people of Juquila look up and feel the Son break them free from the fog surrounding this village.  Blessings to all and we will keep you updated as soon as we know something. 

                                                Blessings,

                                                      phil and eunice

Donations Tax Deductible:

Friedberg Moravian Church

2178 Friedberg Church Rd.

Winston Salem, NC 27127

Memo: IMT

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It is customary at this time of year to receive from others and to offer from those with whom we relate or come in contact, an expression that has found its place in our yearly encounters: that is, “Happy New Year!”

Millions of human beings in various latitudes and in many cultures and contexts make use of this expression.  But if we take a closer look at the state of our planet we might ask ourselves how accurate or reasonable this expression really is, not only for the individuals with whom we share the phrase, but for humanity as a whole.  We cannot overlook or keep from thinking about the situations that face us today, “crises” of all kinds that confront our planet: economic crisis, energy crisis, food and nutritional crisis, environmental crisis, and other temporary crises that arise on the world scene from time to time, overshadowing it, not to mention the deep moral crisis that affects so many of us who live under the sun.  We add to this, of course, the foolishness of a continued arms race that consumes quantities of financial resources while hunger and poverty and the lack of basic and essential services for a worthy existence have become the daily bread for a daily increasing number of human beings, and all of this in the midst of “wars and rumors of wars” that threaten the very existence of the human species.

So we ask ourselves, “Is it really coherent then that in the situation in which our world finds itself we would say to each other, “Happy New Year?”  The panorama that manifests itself around us is, without a doubt, desolate, and could be, for those who do not have the resources to be able to look beyond the present misery, destruction, pain and suffering, a reasonable cause for despair.  But as for us, my sisters and brothers, we do have that resource, that infallible and unfailing resource that is our faith, the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” and that faith moves us to turn our eyes and our hearts toward that instant in history in which the divine took root in the that which is human, when the One who is love itself came to inaugurate a new era in the destiny of the world: the era of the supremacy of spiritual values, the era of the fellowship of peace, the era in which the people of the earth will “turn their swords into ploughshares” and in which the “dry places will become springs of water,” and in which the “wolf will live peacefully with the lamb,” and the earth will not be filled with hatred and malice because it will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the seas.”

Yes, it is because of our faith in the One who is the Word that was made flesh that we have this hope – the certain hope that love will finally be victorious over hatred, justice over injustice, liberty over all oppression, and that the “new heavens and new earth where justice abides” that are announced in the Word, will truly become a reality.  It is because of that faith that we look with confidence to the future, with the immovable certainty that the dawn of that day will come when we can claim for ourselves these words from the Song of Songs:

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;  The flowers appear on the earth; the time for singing is come.

Happy New Year?  Yes, we, as Christian men and women of faith, with our sights set on the Kingdom of God and its consummation, can and should say to all people, “Happy New Year,” with our souls dancing to the joyous conviction that Jesus Christ, God with us, is the hope of our glory, and with the most sincere desire in our hearts that all of those to whom we express this phrase, might someday be able to participate in this glory of the Lord that will be revealed to all flesh.

So, from the Moravian Church in Cuba, I say to my sisters and brothers, “Happy New Year!”

Rev. Armando Rusindo