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.

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.

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?

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

We’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!

One of the traits of a good missionary is flexibility, right?

This summer ended up looking very different than we expected. Between shouldering extra responsibilities at DTS, adding a new baby to the mix, beginning preparation for our departure and Grace having surgery – all while trying to make progress on our support development – our summer felt like a whirlwind!

Here’s a quick look at some of what we’ve been up to since our last newsletter:

July

Luke  was ordained at Grace Bible Church in Dallas. After submitting a statement of doctrine, he was examined along with our friend Paul by the elders at the end of June. After a 1.5 hour long oral exam, they voted and we passed! Whew! Seriously – it is such an honor to be ordained by this church.

Taught a two week class called “Gospel 101” at Grace. What a blast this was!

Connected with Haiti MAF pilot Michael Broyles and family (love that family!) as well as the legendary Dr. Walt Baker (who has logged over 50 years in Haiti) while on a DTS trip to Colorado. Walt serves on the board at STEP Seminary and it was great to visit with him about some things we’ll face when we get there.

We found a new home for our dog Riley

August/September

We found a new home for our dog Champ – so sad to say goodbye to our pups!

Luke traveled to Atlanta for DTS

We traveled to Missouri to visit with Cornerstone Community Church in Harrisonville. We are SO thankful to have this church on our support team! While there we spent the weekend with Sr. Pastor Mark McCune and his family on a 200 acre Christmas Tree farm. We got some fly fishing in and the kids played with the cats and dogs and picked tons of “flowers”.

On Sunday morning Luke preached in the service and we visited with people afterwards. If you’re interested, you can hear that message here.

While we were in Missouri, we were also able to visit with Aunt Eleanor and her family in St. Joseph and connect with staff at the Crossworld headquarters in Kansas City.

Grace had minor surgery to correct something with her eye. The initial recovery was a little tough, but we’re thankful she’s back to normal and having fun!

Luke traveled to Colorado for DTS

Throughout the Summer

Luke served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the course “Dynamics of Christian Leadership” at DTS

We changed something like 23,000 diapers 🙂

Support Update

Our support has grown(!), but not as quickly as we had hoped.

At the beginning of the summer, we anticipated being able to invest a lot of time in reaching our summer goal. Unfortunately, that didn’t pan out like we expected.

We had some major transitions at work over the summer and I shouldered some additional responsibility while we weathered that. We were glad to serve there – but it was difficult to make good progress on our support at the same time.

Thankfully, that season has now passed and we’ve been able to put some things in place to free us up some going forward.

Current Percentage

As of now, we have grown to 37% of the monthly commitments we need. While we wanted to be much closer to 100% by now, we’re trusting that God has the perfect time in mind for us to get on the ground.

However, just when we were starting to get discouraged, we received two gifts from anonymous donors totaling $6,000(!) towards our outgoing/one-time expenses budget.

Whoever you both are – we’re blown away! Thank you!

Thanks to these gifts and the faithfulness of those of you who have been giving all along – we’ve now reached 44% of our one time expenses fund! This is incredible and we’re so grateful!

What’s Next?

Before we go to the field, we’ll need to head to Kansas City for two weeks of Pre-Field orientation (PFO).

We are super excited to be there for this – but here’s the catch: we need to be at 75% of our monthly support (and 50% of our one-time) before we can be invited to the training.

PFO is offered twice a year: November and June. We would love to be at the November training (so we don’t have to wait until June), but we’ll need to reach 75% fairly soon if this is going to happen.

As we emerge from the craziness of this past summer and hit the ground again with support development, would you pray for us?

Prayer Needs

Language Training Decisions: Eventually we’ll need to learn both French and Creole. Soon we’ll need to decide which language to tackle first. We can learn Creole in Haiti, but to get the level of French we need, we’ll have to spend time in either France or Canada. Would you pray for us as we make this decision in the coming months?

Travel: As we travel over the next two months (both for support raising and for DTS), would you pray for our family that the Lord will give us grace to manage the stress that can be associated with that?

Encouragement: To be honest, we’ve been a little discouraged. We know the Lord will get us to Haiti according to his perfect timing – but we’re eager to get going! 🙂 Pray that we will be encouraged as we keep pressing on in support raising.

We love you guys!

Check out the pictures below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love graduations. 

Regalia. Pomp and Circumstance. Degree conferral. It’s all so much fun.

My own graduation in 2013 was rich with meaning for us. We spent 6 years being trained by some of the best at DTS and as I walked across that stage I remember feeling grateful for the investment of my professors in me, eager to get to work and thankful to finally be finished!

A Graduation in Haiti

Just a few weeks ago, 37 men and women walked across a differant stage in Haiti to graduate from STEP seminary. The first class to enter the seminary after the 2010 earthquake, they are now trained and ready to make disciples and transform their communities – to the glory of God.

As they walked across their stage, I bet they felt much like I did: grateful, eager and thankful.

Imagine what their impact will look like 5 years from now as they begin to make disciples in their communities.

Think about it – If each of those 37 men and women make just 5 disciples a year for the next 5 years, that’s925 new disciples!

But – if each of those new disciples make 5 more a year, that’s a potential of almost 300,000 new disciples in five years! I don’t know about you, but that gets us excited!

We believe a disciple is someone who is learning to live and love like Jesus and helps others to do the same. Imagine the impact that 300,000 new disciples would have in Haiti!

The truth is, many of those 37 graduates will go on to pastor churches of 100 or more people. What if each of those church members reproduced themselves? If I start to run the numbers on that impact, my brain starts to hurt.

We can’t wait to join the team at STEP to help get the next generation of Haitian pastors and disciple-makers out and serving!

Baby #3 is Here!

We’re excited to announce the arrival of our son, Joshua Alan Perkins! He was born a month early on June 2nd, weighing in at 5 lbs 9 oz and 21 1/4 inches long. After a brief stay in the NICU, we brought him home on June 5th.

Baby and mom are doing great and Grace and Lydia LOVE being big sisters. It is so fun to see how sweet they are with him.

If you missed it, check out this video we shot to introduce him.

Missouri VBS Project

We were so excited to see one of the churches on our support team, Cornerstone Community Church in Harrisonville, Missouri, take us on as a special project for their VBS last week.

Not only did they meet their fundraising goal – they DOUBLED it.

It was so fun to be with them via FaceTime when they unveiled the final results. You should have heard those kids yell with excitement!

Update: 75% by Sept. 15th

We’re so thankful for those who joined our support team this past month.

As of now, we are at 35% of our monthly support.

In order to stay on track for our summer goal, we need to add 9 new people to our support team this next month. If you think you’re ready to be one of them, let us know.

How Can You Pray This Month?

Joshua: Praise God for the safe arrival of Joshua. Prayfor us as we adjust to being a family of five.

STEP Graduates: Pray for these 37 new graduates of STEP as they begin their ministries.

Chikungunya: Continuepraying for those affected by the Chikungunya virus that is sweeping through Haiti right now. Although it is rarely fatal, it is very painful. Pray for this outbreak to subside.

Support: Continue prayingfor God to bring others to our support team.

So grateful to be serving with you,

Luke, Becca, Grace, Lydia and Joshua