Perkins in Haiti

Training Leaders and Making Disciples in Haiti

Luke and Becca

Recap of 2014

Perkins Update

Greetings from New Hampshire!

No, we haven’t relocated here yet but more on that in a minute. We’ve enjoyed a great Christmas here with family and we’re looking forward to a little unwinding and recharging over the next week.

As we close out 2014, it’s been fun to think back over the many ways the Lord has blessed us this year.

Some of the highlights:

In January, we officially started the process of building a team of supporters. Since then we’ve raised almost 70% of our one-time expenses fund and almost 50% of our monthly support budget (final numbers haven’t come in yet).
Later that month we celebrated the completion of Falonie’s store in Haiti – the culmination of a project we started the year before. If you haven’t seen it, check out the video our church put together to tell the story (2 mins): http://youtu.be/dF3_R6-dBBI 

In June we became a family of five with the arrival of our son Joshua. After a couple days in the NICU for what turned out to be pretty minor stuff, we brought home a beautiful, healthy baby boy. At six months, he is wearing clothes for a nine month old and has a smile that lights up the whole room.

Also in June, I was ordained by Grace Bible Church. What an honor it is to be affirmed by this church and to have their support as we head to Haiti!

In August we traveled to Missouri to preach at Cornerstone Community Church in Harrisonville. While there, we spent the weekend with the Senior Pastor and his family on a 200 acre Christmas Tree Farm. What a joy it is to have such a cool church on our team!

Much of September, October and November was spent on the road meeting with supporters and recruiting for Dallas Seminary. Although this was the most intense Fall of travel we’ve ever had, it was also the smoothest. God was wonderfully gracious to us during this time.

Also in October, we started our 15th year of involvement with ministry Haiti. What a joy the previous 14 years have been!

Looking ahead:

We’re moving closer to a transition point in our support development process. Our hope was to reach 50% by Christmas. The last numbers we saw showed we were getting closer and we should have some updated numbers soon.

After we cross the 50-55% mark, we’ll begin making plans to relocate up here to New England and raise the rest from here. We’d appreciate your continued prayers as we work to build our team.

Some other prayer requests:

Haiti Political Crisis: Over the past couple months, unrest has been growing in Haiti. This lead to the resignation of the Prime Minister this past month. Please pray for calm to return to the streets, for safety for our teammates in Port-au-Prince and for resolution to the issues that are at the source of this most recent political crisis.

STEP Seminary: Pray for a good meeting of the board of STEP in early January and for new construction that will begin on the campus this next month.

Refreshment: The demands of a job, support raising and three kids keep us pretty busy. Pray that the Lord would give us a good time of refreshment here in New Hampshire this weekend and next week. Once we return to Dallas, pray the Lord would help us to continue balancing things well.

Help us choose our new prayer card photo – give us your vote

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Our family has changed since we had our last prayer card printed.

This little guy joined us!

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That means it’s time for a new card.

A few weeks back, our friend Laura Stiller from Still:Life Photography generously shot some new photos of us as a family of five. We’re super excited to see how they came out.

By the way, if you’re in the Dallas area and are looking for a photographer, be sure to check her out and visit her facebook page: facebook.com/stilllifephoto.

We want to get as many people praying for us as we possibly can both while we prepare to head to Haiti and then once we’re there.

Once we have a winning photo, we’ll send it to Crossworld’s design team and get the new ones printed.

Here is what our old one looked like:

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Here are the photos. Select your favorite by voting in the poll below (scroll down to the bottom of the post).

*We’d love to send you one once they are ready! Just fill out the form at the bottom of this post and we’ll be sure to send it.

Photo 1

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Photo 2

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Photo 3

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Photo 4

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Can we send you one once they’re ready? Just pop your info in the box below and we’ll have one coming your way!

 

Fill out my online form.

November Newsletter: From serving evil spirits to leading a seminary

Perkins Update

I pulled my three year old daughter Grace up into my lap, pointed to the man seated at the head of the table and whispered “Do you hear how he’s talking?”

“Yeah?” She said.

“That’s Creole. One day you’ll be able to do that. Isn’t that cool?”

She looked at him, then looked at me with wide eyes and said “Wow, Daddy!”

Just a couple weeks ago our dining room here in Texas was filled with the sounds of Creole as several of our Haitian friends in Dallas gathered for dinner.

As I looked at who was seated around the table, I realized it was a glimpse of the team we will be working closely with for the next several years.

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To my right was Andrikson and his wife Magdala. Andrikson is a graduate of STEP, the seminary with which we will serve in Haiti. He is working on his Master of Theology (ThM) at Dallas Seminary and after he graduates he will return to STEP and serve as a professor, specializing in counseling.

To their right sat Jean Marie and across from her was her husband Jean. Jean graduated from DTS this past May with his ThM. He and Jean Marie are headed back to Haiti full-time to lead a lay pastor training program using curriculum developed at STEP.

To Jean’s right (my left) sat Frantsner, a graduate of STEP and current student at DTS. 

Seated at the head was the man everyone came to hear: Wawa Jean-Baptiste who serves as the President at STEP. Wawa often wears a smile and frequently breaks out with this infectious laughter. He is the son of a former voodoo priest who came to Christ as a young man, was kicked out of his home for it and was taken and discipled by Crossworld missionaries. 

Wawa’s story is fascinating (we’ll have to share more of it another time), and it’s his story combined with his vision that makes us so excited to serve under his leadership at STEP.

Wawa knows the power of discipleship because he has experienced it for himself. It was the power of discipleship that helped him go from a boy serving the evil spirits of voodoo to becoming the president of the leading evangelical seminary in Haiti. 

Wawa believes, as we do, that for Haiti to see better days there needs to be a new generation of leaders developed that know the Bible and know Theology but also have a heart of integrity.

As Becca and I sat at that table a couple weeks ago and I reached for another serving of Pain-Patate, I thought: Wow! I can’t believe that God has allowed us serve with these guys and be a part of making that vision a reality.

As we move closer to transitioning away from Dallas to finish support raising in New England, would you pray with us about something?

50% by Christmas. We’ve had some great opportunities over the past few weeks to share about our ministry in Haiti and have had a few express interest in joining our team. Would you pray with us that we’ll reach 50% quickly in the next couple of weeks? (Shhh…We’re secretly hoping for 55% or 60%) 😉

In order to reach 50% we need committments covering $918 in new monthly support.

If we have 5 people commit to giving $50 per month and 7 people to commit to giving $100 per month, we’ll reach this goal. Would you pray God would bring these 12 people to our team?

Behind the Scenes: Meet our Crossworld Coaches

Profiles

A successful launch involves alot of people.

This is just as true for missionaries as it is for the people at NASA.

We thought we’d take some time on the blog to pull the curtain back and show what goes on behind the scenes as we prepare to leave. In particular, we want to introduce you to some of the team that is helping us as we prepare to go.

Meet Lee and Joanne Freace.

Lee and Joanne serve as our official “coaches”. We met them the first day we set foot on the campus of Crossworld’s headquarters and they have been walking with us ever since.

Who they are

Lee

Lee grew up in church (every Sunday no matter what) and learned a lot about the BIble while attending Sunday School as a child. After getting married and having children, they started helping out as Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders. 

Although he had been around church his whole life and knew about Jesus, he still didn’t know him.

During this time, Joanne became a believer in Christ and started sharing with him about what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus. He deflected her approaches and managed to keep her off balance for a few years. But, that only lasted so long. He says: ” It was during that time that I realized that I was missing something. I had a beautiful wife and two great kids but I was lacking something that I couldn’t put my finger on.”

They started attending a couples Bible study and over time as the Lord worked on his heart, it began to click. Eventually, he accepted Christ. He says: “It was when I put my trust in Jesus finished work on the cross that I came to realize what I was missing in my life, a relationship with God, something that formal tradition could never supply.”

Joanne

Joanne was raised in a non-Christian, but moral home.

As a child, she remembers watching her grandmother read her Bible every day. She didn’t realize it at the time, but as she watched this, a seed was being planted.

After they were married and began starting a family, a neighbor invited her to a neighborhood Bible study “so she could get to know the neighborhood ladies”. One day at that study, she heard the story about Nicodemus learning that he needed to be born again (John 3:1-15). A couple weeks later, God used that story to lift the veil – she finally understood she needed to have a relationship with Jesus based on his death and resurrection. On that day, in October of 1974, she gave her life to Christ.

Where they serve

For over 28 years they served in Cork, Ireland as church planters doing evangelism, discipleship and leadership training. Over the years, they were able to be a part of starting five new churches in that country.

Just over two years ago, they returned to the States to help care for Joannes parents. While stateside, they continue to serve Ireland as field coordinators for Crossworld, traveling back and forth a couple of times a year and overseeing the ministry there.

Their role for us

Assessment team

We met Lee and Joanne for the first time on day one of Candidate Orientation at Crossworld’s headquarters in Kansas City. They served on the team that helped to assess us and see if we were ready to be appointed for service in Haiti. This process took two weeks as the team peaked into just about every nook and cranny of our lives. As painful as that may sound, it was a great experience as the team got to know us and as we got to know them.

Coaching

Since then, Lee and Joanne have served as our official Crossworld coaches and have been a tremendous help to us as we get ready to leave. At Crossworld, coaches generally do a few key things:

Skype Meetings

On a regular basis, we meet with them over Skype and talk about how things are going as we work to build our support team. During these times we’re able to share the joys and struggles we face. The questions they ask and the insight they provide during these sessions is invaluable.

Accountability

Each month we submit a report to them describing what we’ve been up to over the previous month and what we plan for the next one. This helps us ensure we stay on track with the goals we’ve set for ourselves and gives them a sense of how we’re progressing. 

Interface with the Home Office

Lee and Joanne serve as our key contact at Crossworld. There is a lot going on at the home office and it would be easy for us to get lost. Having Lee and Joanne as a starting point has been a great help.

Why we love them

Experience

Lee and Joanne are battle tested. They have given their lives to serving Christ as missionaries and have learned a ton along the way. I don’t think there is an issue we’ve faced that they have not faced themselves. Every time we meet with them, they bring with them decades of valuable experience that has been a great help to us.

Encouragement

Even though Lee is a Yankee’s fan, he’s still a great guy. 🙂 Seriously though, they have provided not just professional experience, but loving care as they have walked with us in this process. They ask about our kids. They want to know how we’re doing as a couple. Our meetings aren’t all business – we laugh together, we pray together and every time we come away from a meeting with them we think, “OK – the Lord has got this. He has us just where he wants us.”

Launching successfully into a ministry like this is an undertaking in and of itself. Without people like Lee and Joanne on our team, there is no way this process would be going as smoothly as it is.

Are you curious about what goes on behind the scenes in the process of launching a new missionary? Leave us a question in the comments and we may answer it in a future post.

Five Ways Raising Support Has Changed Us – For The Better

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Support raising is probably one of the top reasons people don’t go into missions.

When I say raising support what I mean is the process of asking people to give money, on a regular basis, to cover the costs of your ministry expenses and salary.

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Photo Credit: Rafael Souza ® via Compfight cc

Sounds fun, right?

We’ve been raising support for several months now and it hasn’t always been a cakewalk. But as we look at the big picture, we say again and again: we are so glad we’re raising our support.

Here are 5 reasons why:

1) Our confidence in God’s provision has grown

People told us in the beginning “You’ll be surprised at how God brings this in. You’ll get support from people you least expect and you may not get support from people you would expect.”

They were right. One of our partners is a family in Texas that Becca only met once, years ago – and I didn’t meet until just a couple months ago. They have faithfully and generously been a part of our team from the beginning. 

God is the only one who can put that together. We’ve seen again and again that he is directing this process from start to finish. As support comes in unexpected ways, we’re forced to say “wow – if you did that, how can we not have confidence that you’ll continue to provide?”

2) Our relationships are deeper

One day recently while driving to work, I started praying for a friend who is looking for another job. Then it hit me – I wouldn’t have known about his need if he wasn’t a supporter. Sure, we were friends before his family started their support, but their partnership has provided us with an excuse to get closer.

Praying for the various needs of people on our support team is such a privilege. Sicknesses, job transitions, relationships – it is such a joy for us to walk with people through some of the stuff of life in ways that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise because we may not have known.

3) Our mission is more clear

“What are you guys doing again? You’re going to Haiti, right?” 

We’ve been asked this question countless times, often in passing. We love being asked about this!

But how do you summarize 14 years of personal history with Haiti, years of training and prepping and the possibilities of the future there in 30 seconds? We can’t.

So we’ve been forced to take a step back and ask ourselves: What is at the essence of what we’re going to do? How do we boil it down? Answer: We’re going to train leaders and make disciples in Haiti.

Could we talk your ear off about what this looks like? You bet. But having something this concise is a great help for keeping us focused both now and in the future.

4) Our marriage is stronger

Becca and I have always enjoyed a great sense of unity in our marriage, but support raising adds a new depth to it. 

Before we started, like most couples, we would live in separate worlds during the 9-5 hours and then come together at night. There is nothing wrong with this, we just had to be more intentional about how we’d spend our evenings. We’d have to say things like – “OK, no Netflix tonight – tonight we need to do something that lets us talk.”

Now that we’re raising our support, we’re constantly working on it together. It’s been so fun!

Don’t believe me? Look what happened when we tried to do a video together:

5) We have become more thankful 

We’ve written a lot of thank you notes this year. So many that we now keep a working document in Evernote in an attempt to try not to forget anyone.

You know what? The more of these you write, the more thankful you become. It’s inescapable. Again and again, as we sit down to write, we’re amazed by the sacrifices people are making to come along side us in this ministry.

At some point, we noticed that thankfulness spilling out into other areas of our life.

Somewhere around the 50th or 100th note, it clicked again: all of this is grace. God has graciously given us a ministry to be a part of, and he is graciously bringing people to our team to provide the support we need to make it happen in Haiti. It’s all grace.

I don’t know if we would have see that in quite the same way if we weren’t raising our support.

Question: How would you characterize your thoughts about support raising? Scary? Exciting? Something else?  –Why? Let us know in the comments.

Prayer Request and 3 Reasons We’re Thankful

Perkins Update

Do you ever have trouble being thankful? 

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we’ve been thinking a lot about all the reasons we have to be grateful. God has been gracious to us in so many ways these past few months.

But it’s not always easy to stay thankful – is it?

When we were in college, one of our professors introduced us to the idea of a “Joshua 4 book”. In Joshua 3, the people of Israel finally, after years of wandering in the wilderness, crossed the Jordan river into the promised land. Immediately after they crossed, Joshua commanded that 12 stones be taken from the river and set up on the other side as a reminder to the people of all God had done for them. So a “Joshua 4 Book” is a way for us to record when the Lord blesses in unexpected ways.

We have been blown away at the ways the Lord is working as we build our support team. Blown away.

Record What God is Doing

IMG_2724We’ve been telling ourselves that we need to document this some way. So recently Becca put up a bulletin board in our study where we’ve tacked up things that remind us of special ways the Lord has blessed us. It is so encouraging to stand in front of that board and remember “Oh yeah – remember when He did that?! That was so cool!”

How has the Lord blessed you in the past month? If you’re struggling with reasons to be thankful, you might want to give this a try.

Need something simpler? Here’s another method using your 10 fingers that I picked up from a great pastor in California: How to Be More Thankful – A Simple Formula to Follow

3 Things We’re Grateful For

As we look at the past couple months, here are some of the things we are thankful for:

Travel:
Since our last newsletter, I have driven over 1,300 miles, taken 20 flights and slept in 4 time zones. Through all of that, this was one of the smoothest travel seasons yet. 

Along the way, I met loads of great people who are preparing to begin their studies at DTS, connected with several friends and have been able to share about what we’ll be doing in Haiti.

Support:
We are so thankful to to see our monthly support grow to 40%! In addition to this, we’ve now raised over 52% of our one-time expenses budget! It is so exciting to see the Lord adding new people to the team.

Encouragement:
We asked you to pray for this and God has provided in wonderful ways. So much so that we set up a bulletin board to remind us! Thank you for praying!

A Request for Prayer

All In:
We’re moving closer to the point where we will leave Dallas, leave the security of a full-time income and move to full-time support raising. Our mission will allow us to draw a stipend from our support once we reach 75%. However, the quicker we can go all in and do this full-time, the quicker we’ll get that support raised. 

So, we’re thinking we may make the leap earlier than 75%. This may mean that we go for some time with no income. We have some savings, but that will only carry us so far.

As you may imagine, this will be a big leap of faith. The question is: when do we make the jump?

Would you pray about this with us? We want to be sensitive to the Lord’s timing, while also keeping ourselves in a place where we are aware of our need to trust him.

Do you have a special way to remember the special ways the Lord blesses you? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to know about it!