Dear JMI Friends,
On behalf of our staff; our orphan friends in frozen Moldova; our impoverished children in Red Hill, South Africa; our tribal friends in the jungles of Brazil; hundreds of Christian leaders from all over Ecuador; and our newest and youngest friends from the orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti: Merry Christmas! Craciun fericit! Gesëende Kersfees! Feliz Natal! ¡Feliz Navidad! !jwaye Nowel!
2010 has been a remarkable year for all of us who have discovered our extended family in Christ around the world. Even closer to home, we’ve been privileged to meet and serve new friends in New Orleans and the Appalachian region of Kentucky.
Any of our almost 200 sponsors in Moldova could tell you what a blessing it has been to their lives to take responsibility to love another child with no family on which they can count. As Dana Shockley mentioned to me this week over coffee about his sponsored child in Grace House, Doina, “I can’t even begin to tell you how much that girl means to me!” (I hear the same thing from a lot of people!)
Only weeks ago now we were privileged to welcome to Franklin the Life Skills Educator we support in Red Hill, Mzo. What an amazing young man of integrity and of God he is! Those of you who support him must be so proud to know that he is the role model for the children of that community and that it is your gifts that make it all possible. They could hardly do better than Mzo!
Others of you love and support what we’re doing in Brazil, setting up chicken farms and plantations so that the people there in poverty can have the dignity of providing for themselves. And what an incredible adventure it is each year to carry the love of Christ by boat up the Amazon to reach out to people living in some of the most remote places on earth.
In 2011 we hope to renew our commitment to the humble people of Ecuador by conducting another country-wide training seminar, teaching and caring for those who have dedicated their lives to sharing the good news of Jesus in creative new ways.
And last, but not least, 2011 was the year an intrepid team of volunteers pioneered a new work in Haiti among their orphans, smack in the middle of a devastating cholera outbreak and amidst political unrest.
What about 2011? What does your heart tell you about how you need to get involved?
I am persuaded that there is room under this ministry tent for every single one of us. We would love to introduce you to children in lands that will forever change who you are and who you will become! Email or call me, Steve, at 615-861-3663 and let’s find your unique place and contribution to the Kingdom that will last long after everything else we know and have is spent!
304 44th Ave. N
