Persist in Prayer

CHSC LINK: Persist in Prayer

PDF Version: AWA_Update_200125.PDF

Eternal Viewpoint

At times, it is easy to grow weary after waiting a long time for an answer to prayer. Could it be we get preoccupied with our immediate perspective, rather than resting in the Lord’s eternal viewpoint? Verlin recently connected a new friend, L., in Cote d’Ivoire with an experienced Community Health Evangelism (CHE) trainer. For years we had prayed to partner with a person who would champion the cause of the disabled. For years L. had prayed for a tool to minister effectively to the physically impaired.

Earlier this week, L. emailed. “I was able to meet R. at my home, and I am filled up after our conversation. This is an answer to my prayer regarding holistic development. I am thankful to God and you for this great work, and for F. who made it possible for us to meet.” We are eager to see how the Lord will equip L. to multiply his effectiveness in the Kingdom!

External Evidence

Similarly, Verlin encountered an Ivorian believer in a bank line in 2013. As they conversed, she mentioned that she and her husband had prayed for years for someone to show them how to integrate the physical and spiritual in community development. That conversation launched the CHE partnership with the public health department at the university. Seven years later, CHE principles are impacting the success of efforts in malaria prevention, tuberculosis intervention, and the way health workers approach a community.

During the CHE training this week at Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC), several participants shared how the timing of the training, the chosen Bible study passages, or the presented CHE method answered questions they had asked or gave some clarification of how to proceed. In addition, during a debriefing with our mission’s member care, we experienced an answer to prayer specifically, too. Certainly, your ministry partnership is a conduit the Lord uses to answer many prayers. Thank you so much!

Prayer & Praise

• We were thankful to catch up with several Ivorian co-laborers this week. We had tried to reach them before and not been able to get through. It was also a great blessing to see college friends in Dallas on Sunday.
• Last week’s orientation and debriefing, and this week’s CHE training, finished well. Please pray with us for the CHE participants as they evaluate how they can use CHE to have a greater integrated spiritual and physical impact in ministry.

Your Partners in the Gospel,

Verlin and Debbie

Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC) is a mission of dedicated medical professionals who participate in the CHE Global Network. Together, in a loose affiliation of individuals, churches, denominational, and nondenominational agencies, we share God's Light and Truth through Community Health Evangelism (CHE). Verlin and Debbie accept donor partners to contribute as led to maintain support as we resume residential ministry to expand CHE ministries in Cote d'Ivoire under the auspices of CHSC & Ivorian partners. Tax-deductible contributions by check are to be made payable to the CHSC with Andersons #0118 written on the memo line. Mail to CHSC - PO Box 132 - Fruitvale, TX 75127. Give online via the CHSC @ www.che4a.org (3% fee) or TDF (0% fee).

Prior: Pumping Grace 200118.PDF

Last prior Video: Contagions
                         - 191012 PDF
2019 Q3 Report: Timing
          -  AWA Update 191207 PDF

2019 Budget Info:
CHSC-0118_ANDERSON-2020- Budget.pdf

Something to ask? Write updates@verlindeb.org

AWA represents
Andersons Witness in Africa.
It is also a brand of bottled water in Cote d'Ivoire where we serve.

GIVE ONLINE to support these ministries
                                   www.che4a.org

Debbie's Facebook Page

Verlin's Facebook Page

Pumping Grace

CHSC LINK: Pursuing Strength

PDF Version: AWA_Update_200118.PDF

Pumping Grace

When pursuing strength by pumping iron, the phrase of 'no pain, no gain' gets frequently heard. The refrain pushes a modern fallacy. Since returning stateside, we visited with a dear nephew who learned the lie of the phrase when one of his pectoralis muscles snapped from overexertion.

This is not unlike an ancient refrain: “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.” Taking refuge in hopes that Christians enduring increased persecution worldwide will grow the Church also pushes a proven false idea. When Tertullian seeded the idea in Apologeticus, he could not know the later history of his church in Africa overrun by Islam nor that of the Nestorian church in Asia. Knowing what disciples know of world fashioned to manage and be managed by Jesus’ Word [Jn.1:1; Co.1:15-19; Ro.8:18-25; 1Co.6:1; secularist misunderstanding], we tweak the famous phrase of the Roman jurist and apologist after this week. Christian blood may be the seedbed or dirt in which Gospel witness gets displayed, but the planted seed is God's Word expressed in word and deed. We pray for political peace so that God's grace in the public domain enables and equips the pursuit of personal, interpersonal, and commercial peace as an emergent church grows and strengthens in a region.

Multiplying Grace

This week reaffirmed and strengthened the mutual service of Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC) medical missionaries in pumping God's Grace for others. We are getting worked out as we see it multiplying! Debbie and I sense our "saws" of service being "sharpened" even as we prep ourselves to sharpen others, trusting human "iron" to sharpen "iron" during the coming scheduled Community Health Evangelism (CHE) training. Licensed medical witnesses of Christ's authority sent by the CHSC agency are four times more than when we joined in December 2013. Barriers to witness like diagnosed psychiatric weaknesses fall as God's grace in human weakness stakes out new front frontiers for improved oversight, increased growth, and efficient service. Clinicians with whom we rub shoulders push financial excellence at over twenty institutions while developing and demonstrating best practice guidelines in far more than the affiliated facilities of service where CHSC doctors, nurses, and therapists serve.

CHSC Orientation January 2020

We share this photo-video link of thanksgiving as a Sabbath celebration of God's activity among us. God's Grace is shared with many others by your faithful partnership. Be assured the numbers are deliberately rounded down, significantly so in several cases. Current growth outstrips organizational abilities to measure impact accurately. It helps to limit overstating the case of the ongoing medical-missions revival. May God bless your joy in reviewing the video linked by our CHSC logo here.

Prayer & Praise

• Reported EOY donations raised our operating account balance above the return threshold. We’re about halfway to our balance for returning. Thank you! Praise the Lord! We learn from others how to help you help us to share God's Provision for all (Ph.4:17-19).
• Pray our follow-up with Ivorian CHE practitioners meets God's expectations. We fail our own.
• Ask that the Iranian revival sustained by DBS practice in Iran spreads through W Africa too.
• This orientation and debrief of CHSC personnel will salt many. We have received much more already than we anticipated during retooling, reporting, and reflecting. Pray the CHE TOT1 training occurring January 20-24 at the Shalom Retreat Center potentiates every participating witness.

Your Partners in the Gospel,

Verlin and Debbie

Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC) is a mission of dedicated medical professionals who participate in the CHE Global Network. Together, in a loose affiliation of individuals, churches, denominational, and nondenominational agencies, we share God's Light and Truth through Community Health Evangelism (CHE). Verlin and Debbie accept donor partners to contribute as led to maintain support as we resume residential ministry to expand CHE ministries in Cote d'Ivoire under the auspices of CHSC & Ivorian partners. Tax-deductible contributions by check are to be made payable to the CHSC with Andersons #0118 written on the memo line. Mail to CHSC - PO Box 132 - Fruitvale, TX 75127. Give online via the CHSC @ www.che4a.org (3% fee) or TDF (0% fee).

Prior: 3R Retreatin' 200111.PDF

Last prior Video: Contagions
                         - 191012 PDF
2019 Q3 Report: Timing
          -  AWA Update 191207 PDF

2019 Budget Info:
CHSC-0118_ANDERSON-2020- Budget.pdf

Something to ask? Write updates@verlindeb.org

AWA represents
Andersons Witness in Africa.
It is also a brand of bottled water in C�te d'Ivoire where we serve.

GIVE ONLINE to support these ministries
                                   www.che4a.org

Debbie's Facebook Page

Verlin's Facebook Page

3R Retreatin'

CHSC LINK: 3R Retreatin'

PDF Version: AWA_Update_200111.PDF

Retool, Report, and Reflect

Despite our increasing age and experience, we still need some of the 3 Rs in our lives. Instead of readin’ writin’, and ‘rithmetic, we retreat to retool, report, and reflect with administrative staff of the Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC). The CHSC brings missionary staff apart from service to the Shalom Retreat Center and HQ sometime after a re-entry for a time of information sharing. Most mission agencies do something similar. Living in two cultures does not come naturally. It demands reappraisal and adjustment. Also, spiritual warfare and events on the mission field take physical, spiritual, and emotional tolls. This makes retreating doubly vital to have time to process it all.

Groups that use Shalom Retreat Center
diminish CHSC overhead and reduce
missionary account expenses.

Our scheduled time apart is this upcoming week at the CHSC’s headquarters (HQ) in Grand Saline, Texas. It also happens to be one of two weeks per year when new medical missionaries attend their initial orientation. That works great for us. We get to update our knowledge of mission policies, retool our computer and financial partner-raising skills, benefit from special speakers and materials, AND exchange with new fellow-missionaries. Our individual meetings with staff give occasion to get questions answered, report on the successes and reboots of our past term, and pause to reflect upon our current condition and future aspirations with an available counselor. What a blessing!

"Room in the Inn"

The following week of January 20-24, we will assist CHSC’s Director of Training, Dr. Laura Smelter, with a five-day, TOT1 Community Health Evangelism (CHE) training. The CHSC headquarters regularly hosts trainings to develop use of the CHE strategy. If you, or persons you know, have been looking for a place to learn about CHE, please check out the details for this event here. There is still “room in the inn” for more to participate! We are delighted to be of service to CHSC personnel who do so much for us, while also getting to share ministry experience and our passion for CHE.

Prayer & Praise

• Thank the Lord with us for the fourth quarter giving to our mission account. While the numbers remain incomplete, your generosity humbles us. It helped end the year well. We are grateful!
• Pray that the Abidjan University CHE team and the National CHE initiative continue to expand witness during our absence by carrying healing and news of salvation to souls in Cote d’Ivoire.
• We know disciples of Christ living in Nigeria who unite Christian ministries using CHE to hold good lines and overcome persecution. Some of their stories are horrifying. Pray that they stay faithful, experience the Lord’s peace, and continue to boldly share Christ. West African CHE conferences are not held there because of the dangers. Ask the Lord to give the government resolve to stop the slaughter and persecution of Christians by adherents of another religion.
• Pray that the orientation and debriefing for CHSC missionaries next week is beneficial. Please also pray for the CHE TOT1 training that will occur January 20-24 at the Shalom Retreat Center.

Your Partners in the Gospel,

Verlin and Debbie

Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC) is a mission of dedicated medical professionals who participate in the CHE Global Network. Together, in a loose affiliation of individuals, churches, denominational, and nondenominational agencies, we share God's Light and Truth through Community Health Evangelism (CHE). Verlin and Debbie accept donor partners to contribute as led to maintain support as we resume residential ministry to expand CHE ministries in Cote d'Ivoire under the auspices of CHSC & Ivorian partners. Tax-deductible contributions by check are to be made payable to the CHSC with Andersons #0118 written on the memo line. Mail to CHSC - PO Box 132 - Fruitvale, TX 75127. Give online via the CHSC @ www.che4a.org (3% fee) or TDF (0% fee).

Prior: Just Do It! 200104.PDF

Last prior Video: Contagions
                         - 191012 PDF
2019 Q3 Report: Timing
          -  AWA Update 191207 PDF

2019 Budget Info:
CHSC-0118_ANDERSON-2020- Budget.pdf

Something to ask? Write updates@verlindeb.org

AWA represents
Andersons Witness in Africa.
It is also a brand of bottled water in C�te d'Ivoire where we serve.

GIVE ONLINE to support these ministries
                                   www.che4a.org

Debbie's Facebook Page

Verlin's Facebook Page

Get It Done!

CHSC LINK: Get It Done

PDF Version: AWA_Update_200104.PDF

Just Do It!

Plan your work and work your plan sounds good, but do things really go to plan for you? As an ad campaign used to intone, sometimes it is best to "Just do it", or get it done. Cross-cultural marriage and missionary work destroyed Verlin’s Franklin Ascend and DayPlanner lifestyle that had wobbly worked to get us through our middle years of life. Our family gains shalom these days of parish nursing skill development as we set calendars, make compromises, and strengthen collaboration.

Set the Calendar

Shed before and after

Putting the big events and objectives first on the calendar as we transition helps most. If you're not familiar with the Big Rocks concept popularized by Steven Covey, check it out 17 seconds into the link. We used early December and January to start planning our available 24 Sundays in the U.S. We are well on the way. Call (615) 477-1129 if you're waiting on us; break through our haze. We are 1/3 where we had hoped to be in scheduling by now, but it is more fruitful eternally than trying to schedule from Africa and lose ministry work time there. We need downtime anyway to recalibrate to U.S. life with Americans. This Thanksgiving through Christmas season, we identified some of the “big rocks” for our calendar. We also cleared a priority family one for Verlin around New Year's Day: clean and light the shed! :)

The second calendar help we’ve learned transforms our ToDo lists from producing tedium and frustration to more effectively accomplish good works. Progressively implementing the 'Getting Things Done' lifestyle promoted by David Allen has likely resolved more familial and marital stress in our lives than any advice provided by the Gottman Institute per Verlin, and that says A LOT! The institute gives generally sound and researched advice, but it is relational rather than foundational. The calendar resources help more relations walk the world with us in greater peace these days.

Strike Compromises

That said, to get things done, sometimes you just have to use a vilified word: compromise. Do what you can in the time allowed. No one does everything. We all know it. Being at peace with it is another matter. Verlin finished the shed enough to be content around 4 AM yesterday! As we schedule, we make time to train as well as retool our understandings. The CHSC has more than tripled personnel sent to serve as medical missionaries since we joined in late 2013 and we need to adjust. We shifted prior plans to be at church association meetings to handle requests for connections in CHE or CHE Trainings, and vice-versa. When working with others, the motto of defensive football squads is our GoTo: bend, don't break. God's Word never changes, so we are not talking about that Biggest Rock through Whom all exists. We just now schedule services around personal supporter visits and trainings we offer this trip. That makes scheduling the 24 a little more challenging. We are compromising. We bend our historic priority as missionaries to plan church services first to scheduling them around other activities. Don't let us break accidentally if you need to hear from us. Call and let's be sure we meet. There are 24 Sundays available; 14 remain open.

Strengthen Collaboration

In two Skype reconnections to Africa this week, one co-laborer shared that 112 children participated in the community organized Christmas Party for children in a village. Imagine the Samaritan's Purse model reorganized for a local act and you perceive accurately what happened. Such is rare in the Ivorian context. Many families now know the love of God having heard it clearer because Ivorians give and go of themselves to share news of salvation with their fellow citizens. A second connection let us know that God remains with him. A new pastor assigned to his region promotes CHE with integrated Discovery Bible Studies as the means to advance the Gospel in the largest mainline denomination in Cote d'Ivoire. Some prior pastors had felt intimidated rather than encouraged to use the witness, as some here. This one has let God grow his vision. Verlin's conversations with both men clarified our schedule for meetings here. It appears we will see one in May when we coordinate with yet others to use our University training experience and spawn other models for use in the U.S. and elsewhere abroad. The conversations also equipped these called Ivorians to collaborate with another witness to Christ there. They will be able to train the physically challenged or handicapped to more effectively witness there with someone we met before departing African soil late last November.

Prayer & Praise

• Pray we successfully see most of the individual and church supporters in the 24 Sundays we have left for sharing in the U.S. before returning to Cote d'Ivoire for continued ministry expansion.
• Deb and I each have two eyes, ears, nostrils, hands, feet, arms to observe and learn, but one head and mouth to synthesize and share. Pray we prioritize the hearing and learning while fitly sharing to encourage and equip other saints.
• Thank you for your prayers to fund this ministry. We make progress. We have 24 weeks to make the numbers concrete enough to confidently reside in Cote d'Ivoire another 3.5 to 4.5 year term.

Your Partners in the Gospel,

Verlin and Debbie

Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC) is a mission of dedicated medical professionals who participate in the CHE Global Network. Together, in a loose affiliation of individuals, churches, denominational, and nondenominational agencies, we share God's Light and Truth through Community Health Evangelism (CHE). Verlin and Debbie accept donor partners to contribute as led to maintain support as we resume residential ministry to expand CHE ministries in Cote d'Ivoire under the auspices of CHSC & Ivorian partners. Tax-deductible contributions by check are to be made payable to the CHSC with Andersons #0118 written on the memo line. Mail to CHSC - PO Box 132 - Fruitvale, TX 75127. Give online via the CHSC @ www.che4a.org (3% fee) or TDF (0% fee).

Prior: Listen to Him 191221.PDF

Last prior Video: Contagions
                         - 191012 PDF
2019 Q3 Report: Timing
          -  AWA Update 191207 PDF

2020 Budget Info:
CHSC-0118_ANDERSON-2020- Budget.pdf

Something to ask? Write updates@verlindeb.org

AWA represents
Andersons Witness in Africa.
It is also a brand of bottled water in C�te d'Ivoire where we serve.

GIVE ONLINE to support these ministries
                                   www.che4a.org

Debbie's Facebook Page

Verlin's Facebook Page