letter

April 2016

We have survived the winter. Even though it was a very mild winter, I realized that I hate to be cold.  My blood slows down and I can barely move. I DID enjoy staying with Dan's mom, drinking coffee, doing school and living in a house throughout the winter months; a house, as opposed to a drafty construction zone. 

We feel energized for our next term in Africa.  This change of pace was good for us, and meeting new friends was super.  It is sad to make such good friends and then leave for the next four years. You can write to me, and I WILL write back.  Our most reliable and fastest mode of communication is e-mail. We have to have the Internet for Facebook which is sometimes unreliable. We are ready for more evangelism and discipleship and have new ideas of how to reach more people with the Gospel.  Praise the Lord for the POWER of the Gospel.

We have just celebrated Easter!!  Because He lives, we too will live forever. We are saved by faith. We walk by faith, and we will die by faith.  It is all faith in the resurrection!!!  Without faith in Jesus' resurrection, we would be most miserable. It is faith in Jesus in heaven. We can focus on heaven. Everything is endurable if we keep eternity's values in view. Heaven makes it all make sense ("I go to prepare a place for you").  Why do we do what we do? because of heaven. We will give an account to Jesus. We will live there forever. We have a home—a place we long for where we have never been.  We are only pilgrims on the earth and are just passing through for a short while.  We are citizens of another country (a beautiful country, to be sure) and we can bring as many friends as we can persuade to come with us. What could be better than that? 

Our letters could get very long if I report on the ministries of each of our children (their outreach, Israel internship, playing the piano at church, delivering babies and getting more training, camp ministry, counseling, singing, teaching).  Through it all, we are learning to be servants and to live with no rights.  Yes, just BE a doormat; but it surely goes against the grain of our human natures. A better servant is one who takes the initiative to serve and doesn't have to be told what to do. Oh, the joy of seeing your children walk in truth.

Seth and Paige Scott will be married on June 3 in Illinois.  Most of our family will be there. After they are married, they will head to Israel to work in a church during the summer. Please PRAY for them. They are going before the BWM board on April 11 as part of the application process to be missionaries to the Ivory Coast.

We are leaving on June 8. Keep us in your prayers. We have heard terrorist's reports there even now.  Safety is not the absence of danger but the presence of the Lord.  Meanwhile, Dan and the boys are trying to get as much construction done on the house as possible. It is way more livable than it was in the beginning.

We have a few more meetings and a missionary conference.  Praise the Lord for the increased support this year.  THANK YOU for your prayers. We have never been fully supported, but this year has helped. We have gone from 68% of our support up to 79%. We praise the Lord for that.

Please continue to pray for our family—for health, safety and the many plans that are all "Lord willing."  I continually have to re-learn that His ways are not our ways and to trust Him and live by faith.  Pray as you plan, and plan as you pray. 

Servants of the Most High God,

 

Dan and Joan (pronounced JoAnn), Ruth, Hannah, Seth, Lydia, Susanna, Isaiah, Stephen, Rebekah, Josiah, Joseph, Esther, and Gideon

Baptism

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You might be thinking that the African missionaries are suffering to spend much of the winter in Michigan. We do school every morning around coffee and the Bible—it is very sweet. In the basement is a treadmill for all our exercise needs. The boys have gotten only a tiny bit of exercise shoveling snow, as it has been a very mild winter here. The point of suffering is that it is harder to find people to witness to (1 Corinthians 9:16), although we have taken the opportunities that have come up.

 

Our neighbor is Catholic, and I have become her friend and witnessed to her numerous times. We just had a delicious dinner last week with a Lebanese couple in Dearborn.  Where did this contact come from? Her brother sells us dog food in Abidjan. Now we pray for God to work in their hearts and bring them to Jesus Christ.

           

The BIG news is that over Christmas break, Seth and Paige Scott became engaged.  We are so privileged to welcome this lovely girl into our family. The wedding will be near the Chicago area on June 3 at 2 p.m. I am sure you are invited!!  We would love to see you there. You will, in fact, get to see our whole family (Momma too). So, come and celebrate with us.

 

Seth and Paige are planning to be missionaries in Cote d'Ivoire, starting a prison ministry and church. So much is happening in Ivory Coast. Learn French and come join us.  Pray that the Lord will send forth laborers and that they wouldn't be too lazy to learn the language and get prepared.

 

Dan has made many trips back and forth from North Carolina to work on our house. As we said before, we have bought a house that needs a lot of work. Dan and the boys have been having lots of "fun" doing work together. Living in a "work zone" has called for patience and has increased the roughage of the sandpaper among the occupants. To God be the glory, but I'm glad that I am not there right now (smile).

 

We have been enjoying our meetings and making so many new friends. It is great to have peace that you are where God wants you to be. It frees you up to enjoy today. I have been reading great books and hearing challenging messages.  God is always working on me. If you noticed the Valentine flowers, it's because Dan is still as sweet as ever.

By faith we serve, and by faith we walk.

I almost forgot...we have tickets to return to Cote d'Ivoire on June 8. We are more than ready to return! We have renewed energy and ideas that we are eager to put in place—ideas for outreach, discipleship, classes, seminars and mentoring. The opportunities are endless. This month our national colleagues are hoping to start two more village ministries. Pray for us in these last four months of furlough.

Love in Christ,

 

Dan and Joan (pronounced JoAnn), Ruth, Hannah, Seth, Lydia, Susanna, Isaiah, Stephen, Rebekah, Josiah, Joseph, Esther, and Gideon

Merry Christmas!

We are only pilgrims on the earth. It would be a crazy thing to set up a campsite as if it were our permanent dwelling. It would be a crazy thing to get upset if things were out of place or if you couldn't find this or that. I am starting to care less and less about stuff—it is just stuff. Sure, God has given us lots of great things, and we want to take care of them and make our campsite as nice as possible, but that is how it is living in a remodeling work zone of a house.

 

So much has been happening. Thank the Lord we were able to buy a house. It is right off the school's parking lot; close for the college kids to walk to school.  It is a two-story fixer-upper built around the 1860s. God did not say He would give you the farm already planted. So we are all working.  Thank the Lord for able bodies and great health able to do all this work. Thank the Lord that this 50+ couple can camp out on the floor for five weeks. Thank the Lord for a kitchen, bathroom, and roof over our heads.  Now, if we see "Little House on the Prairie," I'll have some sympathy in hindsight for the drafts of cold air that come through these slats of wood. We have paper stuffing the cracks or tape over the holes to keep some of the cold air out.  You know these Africans want to stay as warm as possible.  All that to say, "Happy late Thanksgiving." 

 

We had a great trip to Florida and met many new friends and were reacquainted with the old ones. The young people are getting younger, and the older folks are getting just like us. I am not planning to retire, but to re-fire, and Florida is a nice place. We loved the warmth. At a flea market, we met Christians (SOS) doing open-air evangelism; they had a booth at the market. That was so encouraging. Sometimes I can get into a pity party like Elijah ("I am the only one left"). Well, there are Christians alive and well and out there witnessing to strangers. They even gave us one of their "boards" that we can use here in America and copy into French to take back with us to Cote d'Ivoire.

 

We praise the Lord that the ministry in Côte d'Ivoire is still going well.  This past month Pastor Konan has started evangelism in another village with men from the Bible School.  Thank you for those who have given toward the purchase of bikes and property.  We recently were able to purchase three bikes and some land in another village for a church building.  The church elementary school in San Pedro is also doing well.  We are making bricks for the construction of another two classrooms.

 

We are also thankful for the bit of school we were able to get done.  It is not the easiest thing to do school while traveling or to concentrate in a work zone. Kids try to find a quiet, lit spot to work in peace...and we hear sounds of, "Where's the protractor?" and numerous other things. Still, the work goes on, school goes on, distributing tracts and witnessing goes on. God's Word keeps entering into our lives, and meetings and travel continue in safety and in health. Thanks for all your prayers. We THANK YOU so much for holding us up before the Lord.

 

Merry Christmas to you! May God bless you! Blessed to BE a blessing to others.

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Life on the road...what is that like? We are still living out of luggage, and I do not foresee any change for a long while. It is somewhat simple and sometimes tiresome. Just remember what your bag looks like and where you put stuff, or you might never see it again. Fourteen people in a fifteen-passenger van are a lot of sandpaper rubbing off all the sharp edges. I pray that our motto would be "They shall know we are Christians by our love." Even though we don't always all get along, we are in the process of growing towards it. 

What's in a name?  In this case for clarification, my real name is "JoAnn." It is written Joan, but is pronounced JoAnn. Just thought I'd let you know. My parents named me after the nurse who delivered me in Liberia, West Africa.

Stories, stories left untold. We have been at a mountain retreat enjoying time as a family before our kids go back to college. It has been fun to be out hiking in nature, singing together, and having great fellowship with the people I most want to be with. I surely do love our kids and praise God for each of them.  You can be in the most beautiful spot, but if you don't get along with the people you are with; life will still be miserable. You have to forgive and let go of annoyances and bitterness. Christianity and forgiveness go hand in hand—same as loving God and obedience. We are all "in the process."

It seems like I have been writing too many letters of needs in the ministry: out-of-use jewelry; musical instruments — guitars, accordions or keyboards; and money for evangelism in Ivory Coast. Any help is appreciated. A huge help is prayer. Just pray and pray. I am such a shirker; I don't pray enough. God is so powerful and so good and can do anything at all. How dumb is it if we don't pray? So please, pray for us! Thanks. 

Thanks for prayers for health and safety. We have traveled miles in safety and comfort. It is fun making new friends. Walking by faith is not easy, seeing one step at a time. August 16^th, Dan and I celebrated our 29^th wedding anniversary.  We praise God for that and the many blessings He has bestowed upon us.

Ruth, Hannah, Seth, Lydia and Susanna will be starting back to Ambassador Baptist College this month. Ruth is planning to take further classes. We are hoping, Lord willing, to buy a house near the college, so they can live off campus. For all of our missionary life, it has been getting more and more difficult to not have a house, a place where we can leave our stuff. It is hard not having an address and using relatives' addresses. (The reality is that our permanent address and our citizenship are in heaven.) The rest of the family will continue with meetings in North Carolina and on down to Florida. It will be strange having extra space in the van. 

We have now landed in a beautiful five-bedroom missionary home in Shelby, North Carolina for the next six weeks. God is so good to give us this place to rest while we look for a house. Thanks for all your prayers for us. May God bless you more than we could ask or think. 

Love in Christ,

Dan and Joan, Ruth, Hannah, Seth, Lydia, Susanna, Isaiah, Stephen, Rebekah, Josiah, Joseph, Esther, and Gideon

Blog:  www.cuthbertsons.org