Please keep praying for these precious ministries and our missionaries there: The Stagges in Tanzania and The McCartys in Mexico
Faces for Hope
Back in the states now, planning to head back to Tanzania, around the beginning of January. Thank you for your partnership in funds, spreading the news, prayer, or just listening. We appreciate all involved in the people’s lives in Tanzania.
During the last part of October and November, Jack was home teaching, while I remained in Tanzania, being busier than ever. Below is a list of highlights of where we left off, with our plans of returning the beginning of January to return until March.
The primary school in Engikaret was completed, ready for students for the new school year starting in January. They are in need of teachers, as they are opening 2 new classes.
Working more with HIV and AIDS victims. Medication for HIV/AIDS is free, but food is not. Medication needs to be taken three times a day with food on your stomach. We have begun interviewing some of the widows for loans.
Monthly women’s seminars are exploding, with FMG teaching beginning, along with human trafficking in. So far, it has been well accepted.
The newly constructed community water tank still has a lot of excitement built around it.
The Maasai children are being taken on field trips once a month, so I was able to join them on one….was so blessed to see their faces as they got on the bus and went to the airport.
Gave the second loans to the senior group of women.
Secondary girls are at the base staying for rescue, and are getting tutoring. There will be a camp with approximately 100 students in December.
A new group of young people are going to be coming up in January, so will need more sponsors.
Medical clinics are continuing to take place every other week.
The training center will be holding another registration in the new year.
We are in need of teachers. We are in need of men to come encourage the men. We are in a need of teams coming over.
BUT, we do have a team of Journalist and Media coming with us, sp please pray that a documentary may be able to be made to get out to many people.
ALSO, it is Christmas Time. If you would like to give that someone who has everything a special gift this year, please go to http://facesforhope.com/store.html and go shopping. All proceeds go to help the people in Tanzania. Then you can print off the picture and show them what you bought them. It is easy shopping, and is tax deductible.!
Anyone who has children who they are sponsoring through us, if you have something to send over, please get it to us by December 15th….we have to pack early. Thanks you.
Nick and Heidi are adjusting well, and seem to be doing much better.
Bless you all and please let us know if there is anything we can be praying for in your family.
Holly Stagge
McCarty Update – Mexico
Dear Springs of Grace family, 19 October 2011
Each time we think about you we thank our Lord for using you in our lives. The last few months have been busier than ever, but we thank God because he has given us even greater opportunities to serve him.
We are thankful to God for his faithfulness. Tomorrow we celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. The girls are enjoying school and they love to play together. María is doing well and has her hands full with Katie studying in the morning and Hannah in the afternoon. María is leading a new Bible study Monday afternoons and teaching the women´s Bible study on Wednesdays.
Jim has a busy practice with patients coming from ever farther communities to find relief. Communication is still one of my largest obstacles. About half of the patients speak Mixe mixed with a little broken Spanish, but the greatest difficulty is the culture. Let me give you an example; A young women came into the office and said “my skull is open and lets air in. Then the air blows into my chest and pushes my spirit out, through my throat. Sometimes it changes into a burning heat in my stomach and flows out of my body as diarrhea or it goes into my feet and paralyses them so I can’t walk. Do you think it is serious doctor?” I asked “How long has this been going on? A day, a month, a year?” “I don’t know, for a while” she answers. After about 45 minutes I come to the conclusion that she has bronchitis and give her an antibiotic.
The next week she came in with a frustrated look on her face and told me that she hasn´t gotten any better. I asked her if she still had a headache, cough, fever, stomach pain, or diarrhea (the only objective complaints I could find). She answered that all those symptoms had gone away, but that the “bad air” had not left her body. “The medicine only pushed it into my left knee which now hurts badly”.
Her argument is that last week she had pain and now she still has pain and no lame explanation from the doctor will change her mind. Pray that God would give me the ability to understand these people´s world and paradigm. After all, the point is not so much to cure disease as it is to communicate the gospel in a way that reaches their mind and heart.
At the beginning of this month the Lord allowed me help with a work team and medical caravan in Rancho Juárez for 3 days. One of the men donated his wood house to be converted into a church building! It was a tense 3 days because the Catholic Church had threatened to run us out of town- violently if necessary. On Sunday morning we worshiped our Lord with joy, though we couldn’t all fit into the new building! What a good problem to have. Some of the opponents of the church stood outside the building yelling obscenities, but they eventually left on their own.
Pray for the new believers in Rancho Juárez. Since their conversion they have had a lot of ¨bad luck¨. Everyone in the town knows that if you turn your back on the Catholic Church you start to have accidents, sicknesses, your crops don´t grow etc. The unbelievers don´t want to have anything to do with the Christians so they don´t ¨catch¨ their bad luck. The case in point is Carmen. Remember I delivered her baby in July. Because I am a ¨Brother¨ the baby died four days later and the mother has been sick in bed ever since. When we went to visit them there was a witch doctor in their small house trying to undue the curse that had come upon their family for having received the Christians. We thank the Lord that when they saw us they asked the witch to wait outside and allowed us to share the life giving gospel to them afresh. Pray that the believers may stand firm and that others like Carmen and her family may be delivered from the domain of darkness and be transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Col 1:13
Our next challenge is to take the transforming gospel to the nearby village of San Antonio. There are many other things to rejoice in like the pastor training, youth training, the growth both in numbers and maturity of the church in Mogoñé, but we will save them for the next letter.
Jim, María, Hannah and Katie McCarty