God was at work this year. And He worked through you.
You provided food when it mattered most. Despite the year’s unprecedented challenges, children around the world are flourishing because of His work through you. ![]() Dear Friends of MARC, Overcoming barriers is a major part of missionary aviation. Often, we think of physical obstacles such as mountains, rivers, jungles and deserts. Sometimes the impediments to success are cultural attitudes or excessive government bureaucracy. Regardless of the hurdles, we embrace the challenge set before us in order for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to increase. The impact of COVID-19 has caused concern and fear in many Alaskan villages. Some locations are still reluctant to have “outsiders” come and visit their community. This has significantly reduced our ministry flying to many places we have previously served. Only some limited cargo flights are taking place... TO CONTINUE READING, CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE ABOVE ![]() Every 90 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease. Hunger and a lack of clean water go hand in hand. Both malnutrition and inadequate water supply and sanitation are linked to poverty, according to the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program. The World Health Organization and UNICEF found that 160 million children suffer from stunting and chronic malnutrition linked to water and sanitation. Feed My Starving Children partners with organizations around the world to reach God’s hungriest children. Many of these organizations provide clean water and water filtration systems in addition to FMSC meals... TO KEEP READING, CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE TO THE ABOVE ![]() Dear Praying Friends, By God's grace, and with your prayers, we have reached Elina's family home! It was a very long 2 days, but we have so much to be thankful for. Here's how things went: Monday, 2:45 AM: Elina and I get up, eat a little food, and start loading the 15-passenger van we hired, with help from the driver and some Chrstian friends. 3:50 AM - On the road 10 minutes ahead of schedule! Hoping to reach the national border by 2-3 PM, for a smooth cross-over. 11 AM - We learn that foreigners with our type of visas are no longer allowed to enter Elina's home country by land - we are required to fly. The rule changed the night before, and we found out about 6 hours into our road trip. We decide to pray and forge ahead. 1-2:30 PM - the van's tire blows out - completely shredded. We wait by the road while our driver goes to buy a new tire, etc. 2:30 - 5:45 PM - We reach the international border, 15 minutes before it closes. 5:45 - 7:45 PM - We frantically work to see if Elina's home country will let us enter or not, if they will let us bring the van across to transfer our luggage to another van, while our poor kids are stuck waiting around. With lots of help from new friends and accommodating border officials, we enter the country legally - my first time in almost 10 years! After that, we still had about 16 hours of road travel. It was tiring but uneventful. Some motion sickness, some traffic jams, but we finally arrived at Elina's sister's home at about 4:30 PM on Tuesday. We knew before we started the journey that things might not go as we planned, and they certainly didn't. We're so thankful you prayed! There was a very good possibility that we would have been sent back "home", having wasted 2 days of wearying, mountain travel, and having to book a flight, re-figuring out how to store or move our things. This was the most challenging part of our life-transition. In about a month, we fly to the USA. We'll invite you to pray for that too, though we're not too worried about that one! Thank you so much for praying us through! Blessings, Scott, Elina, Linus, Jane and Livy
![]() Mid-March and it´s snowing and now today it´s back in the 60s. Still not so sure about living in this Indiana weather. It´s always sunny and in the mid-80s in San Luis Potosi. Jose is working hard more than ever before. He says that each day brings on new opportunities to serve and share the gospel. He has a great team of volunteers from the church and other area ministers to lean on and help as needed and our office administrator, Xitlali, to take care of all the office needs. Hopefully we are looking to open the church once again the second Sunday in April. It is now code yellow so it should be open soon. Jose continues to preach each week via Facebook and hosts the Vallado children´s home 2 times a month. Even through the pandemic we have been able to host them on Sunday´s with all the necessary precautions being met. The children´s home is responding well to the gospel. Amazing that these kids never went to a church or never had the opportunity to sing Christian music but God is doing some amazing things through this new ministry opportunity. Another neat new ministry that Jose is working on is, Emanuel Kids. He has found a program that converts his voice and person into cartoon characters and he is working on making a weekly kids program for kids that can’t come to church. It´s just now in the making. Keep you updated on how this new ministry will develop. Jose is taking a missions trip for a week at the end of this month to the southern state of Chiapas and crossing over to the Guatemala border to see the ministry work being carried out at the most southern border of Mexico. A former missionary passed away last year in this area and we are being asked to see the work taking place there not only to encourage to but to see how we can see the ministries in these remote communities continue. Emanuel – God with us. We feel His presence each and every day. Serving with you for the Honor and Glory of God. Jose, David and Sheri THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!
Dear Praying Friends, Today (Sunday), at about 2-4 PM your time, we begin our journey to Elina's home country! It's a day we've waited for a long time. We are traveling by land, because we have more stuff than we could bring by flying - school books, kitchen ware, mementos, etc. We sold and gave away most everything, but these are the things we want to keep. Traveling overland will take at least 2 looooong days, and may take longer. Here are some prayer points and praises: Praise God - We took our PCR tests, and we're all negative for Covid-19 - We have friends who will be helping us have a smooth border crossing. Please pray for: - Safe travel, above all else. - That we may cross the border in Day 1. We would have to cross before 6 PM, when the border closes. If we don't make it across the first day, then our trip will probably take an extra day. - That our hired van may be able to cross the border too, so that we can transfer our luggage quickly to the van in the next country. Otherwise, we'll have to have it carried over by a bunch of bicycle-carts! That would slow things down and we are concerned about some things going missing, but it should still be fine if we have to do it that way. - That there would be no problems with our visas or our luggage as we cross the border! Thank you for your prayers. We are excited, and a little nervous. We look forward to reporting our trip to you in a few days! Blessings, Scott, Elina, Linus, Jane and Livy |
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