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ONWARD, A Moravian missions newsletter published by The Mission Society, Southern Province, is now available.
Gerard, Norvelle, Peter
Drs Gerard Rudy and Norvelle Goff-Rudy serve with the Medical program of the Moravian Church in Honduras. They have one son Peter.
Ahuas Clinic Update
posted Thursday, April 26,2012

Dear Friends:

Under a blue sky about a dozen years ago, Mike and I were out walking on the savannah.  I turned to him and said, "I'm having a hard time seeing God at work in the Clinic.  What do you see Him doing?"  On his face, I read both disappointment and patience. "God does so much around us every day, Gerard," he replied. "Just put on your glasses and look."

"I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:19a) The sunrise, though it happens each day as I walk on the savannah, is God at work doing a "new thing." Dawn is comforting in its familiarity, yet each marks the start of a new day.

I have seen God work on snakebite victims before, but today He is working on Letricia's snake bite.  His anti-venom stops her bleeding.  Our blue towel supplies for surgery and deliveries were low.  he moved Joann to send us more now.  I have seen Him heal other fractures, but today He is working on Dante's elbow, restoring function.  Donors have felt His call in the past: this time Charles is giving so Eliazer can access cancer care.  Carla's seizures and Tamika's Hiv are controlled.  Sameria's baby, born prematurely, lives.  People pray for me; Kent's e-mail says he is praying for me today.  The list of ways that God cares for us and our patients is endless.

Mike was right, ov course. "Putting on the glasses" has filled me with a deep sense of gratitude.  As I prepare to leave the Clinic, I thank God for letting me witness daily His capacity to heal and for pulling miracles from impending tragedy.

It has been a pleasure working with you, being your hands in Honduras.  Thanks for your continued prayers.  By the grace of God and a far-flung network of people contributing in ways small and large, the Clinic doors remain open.  I encourage you to continue to make it so.

May it praise God,

Gerard

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The missionary family is returning to the States to continue their ministry in Bible translation after living abroad. She wrote a reflection about their life in their new country when they traveled there 5 years ago.
Life as a Missionary
posted Tuesday, April 24,2012
The Family
There once was a family who lived overseas,
Who had to move back to the land of the Free,
There were things that they wanted,
and thing that were needs.
From towels to chickens
To furniture and seeds.
When they walked in their home,
to their happy surprise,
there were sofas and beds and potatoes and rice!
The bathrooms had towels and soap and TP,
The kitchen was stocked with an overflowing pantry.
In all the cupboards and in all the spaces,
Were things provided by peoples good graces.
The family was amazed and thankful and glad
to see how they had been given everything that they had.
This family loved broths, and stocks and soups.
They loved to eat warm things with greens and roots.
There were pans and pots, but all were too small
to make a big soup that would feed one and all.
So the mother shopped and spread out her net,
but all that came up was to costly to get.
So she talked to the Provider and asked for a pot.
One that was big enough to feed the whole lot.
The very next day she went out to find,
other things that were next in line.
But then she glanced up in a casual way,
and saw a red sign… well, what did it say?!
We all know what that means!
Clearance! A deal that she had almost not seen!
The pot that she bought was one that fit her budget, (boo-jay)
and buy it she did that minute, that day.
She had not forgotten that talk she had had,
the one where she asked for a pot from her Dad.
Her heart was excited, her face was aglow,
The Provider had acted, this she did know.
The past weeks had witnessed and it could be clearly seen,
That on this Provider they should always lean.

Contact the BWM at sbeaman@mcsp.org for more information

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Robert and Anne Thiessen serve in Mexico among the Mixtec people planting indigenous churches. They and their children, Philip and RuthE, are members of Ardmore Moravian in Winston-Salem, NC
Turning the World Upside Down
posted Friday, April 20,2012

Dear friends,

“So where were you…during the quake?” (Mar 20th)  We always ask.  We have to know, to compare notes, to process this event we share in common.  I was two hours away from my family, in Tlaxiaco, teaching a seminar on what simple church means for a church planter in southern Mexico, working among Indian people.  In Tlaxiaco, Alejandro and Sayra lead a team of Mexican missionaries committed to reaching unreached groups of Mixtecos in Oaxaca and Guerrero.  As new members come onto the team, he leads them through three months of training before placing them in nearby Mixteco communities for a six month practicum and then a long term placement in an unreached people group where they will learn the language and call people to Christ.  We told you about Ruth (Mar 2011), whom we helped to mentor, now on the team.

My job that week was to help the new team members rethink the message they take to Indian people, whether that message is given in actions or words.  The question for the week was: “What does it mean to communicate the Good News to Indian people in southern Mexico? Can we leave behind our own cultural norms so that these people can respond to Christ without having to adopt all our cultural practices?  Can we lay hands on their leaders so that they can baptize their own people, serve them the Lord’s Supper and reproduce their own congregations?

There were seven missionary trainees in the class, but let me tell you about one, Tina.  Like Ruth, she is Mixtec, but her family moved to Baja California when she was young in order to work in the fields there as harvesters and she never learned to speak her native tongue.  Her next door neighbor, a missionary to this diaspora of Indigenous people, brought her to Christ and discipled her right into missions.  On a short term trip to Morocco, she heard God’s distinct call, not to that part of the world but back to her own people in southern Mexico.  So here she is, asking God to use her to reach the unreached.

She has already been reaching out to her mother.  Gradually, her mother has left behind her fear of evil spirits, learning to call on God for protection and guidance.  She has stopped setting up an alter for the dead on the Day of the Dead, stopped tying red ribbons around the limbs of her newly sprouted plants and newly hatched chickens to ward off the spirits.  She is beginning to trust in Christ.  So Tina knows this is a long road, teaching her people to trust in Christ.  I am thrilled to be a part of Tina’s journey, helping her think about how the Mixtecs can come to Christ, not as latinos, but as Mixtecs.  Very few Mixtecos ever hear such a message of Good News because the dominant culture around them has little regard for their customs or language.

People all over the world knew about our 7.4 quake within minutes.  Thankfully, it had little impact on our lives. Yet how long will it take the world to feel the impact of these Mexican missionaries…Tina, Ruth, Mariano, Josafat, Mauricio, Cruz, and Ivonne…who have committed to turning the world upside down, one indigenous church at a time?

Please pray for God’s blessing on our up-coming mentoring trips:  Robert will be traveling to Panama for two weeks at the end of April, visiting Einer and Girlesa, fellow missionaries, who live among the Wounnan people there.  They want to explore organic forms of leadership training that suit this non-Western people group that they themselves can reproduce naturally.  Then, at the end of May, I travel to Chile to teach the one-week church planting course again, this time for students of the School of Frontier Missions of YWAM.

Thank you, and blessings, Anne and RobertThiessen


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