Thanksliving

PDF Version:
AWA Weekly 221126 PDF

Taste and See (Psalm 34:8)

Thanksgiving really should be thanksliving—a way of life—morning, noon and night—continually, forever giving thanks to the Lord.—Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

It was an unusual Thanksgiving week for us—no American meal and busy days in Abidjan offices. Instead, our family holiday participation consisted of sitting on the side of the road where available Internet service let us speak with children and Debbie’s parents on Friday for an hour. Perhaps next week, we will eat the orange-gourd-based substitute pumpkin pie! Situations like these remind us that the actual Biblical imperative is for daily thanksliving, not just celebrating a Thanksgiving holiday one day a year, though it is a beloved holiday in our family.

Come and See (Psalm 66:5)

Several necessities caused us to delay traveling home for another week. (We finally made it after midnight Friday night.) Verlin fulfilled promises to provide some resource ideas and made one more visit to the missionaries finishing their training and preparing to go to their places of service.

In addition, our Ivorian identity cards expire in December and January. So imagine our surprise that a five-year card has jumped in price from around $65.00 to about $525.00 each. Yet another moment to practice the discipline of thanksliving!! Thankfully, several workers at the government office helped us expedite getting a criminal record check and residence certificates. With their assistance, we quickly turned in all the necessary paperwork. Finding all seven puppies alive when we arrived home was also fun! (White, the runt of 7, pictured with a sweet visitor whom Verlin counseled for a persistent cough today. She’s the daughter of a local Gideon & evangelist who sends reports using our ADSL Internet connection.)

Prayer & Praise

• 🙏 Thank the Lord for His mercies that never end and get renewed every morning! Praise Him for help with paperwork processing and safe travels.
  

• 🙏 Pray for a woman nearing death from kidney failure. She needs to make her peace with Jesus. She is the sister-in-law of a close Ivorian friend for whom dialysis and transplant are unavailable.
  

• 🙏 We thank you and the Lord for some extra gifts given to our mission account in November! Join us in praying for abundant provision through December, so ministry here continues unhindered.

• 🙏 Pray for Christian Health Service Corps missionary colleagues. They get forced to leave a place of service at the mission hospital they initiated for a denominational ministry in another African nation. The situation is stressful, grief-filled, and a logistical nightmare.

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 provide support as we maintain 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 - specifying Verlin and Debbie Anderson in the optional Memo.

Prior: Outside
        - 221119 PDF
Prior Videos: Reflect and Rejoice
        - The Great Story

2022 Q2 Report: Someone Greater
  -  2022 2Q Anderson Report 220521 PDF

2022 Budget Info:
CHSC-0118_ANDERSON-2022-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.

GIVEONLINE to support these ministries
                                   www.che4a.org

Debbie's Facebook Page

Verlin's Facebook Page

Outside

PDF Version:
AWA Weekly 221119 PDF

Taste and See (Psalm 34:8)

People forget how much we learn outside formal educational settings necessary to live life. Acquiring skills and Godly habits that transform daily life mostly happens in other ways. For example, a loving family, friend, or mentor imparts attitudes and competencies to individuals willing to observe, imitate, and practice. One favorite lesson in a Community Health Evangelism (CHE) TOT1 lets participants reflect on how they learned outside of classrooms and how that best translates into changing behaviors. In the lesson, each budding trainer reflects on something they learned apart from school and the situation in which it happened. Here, men speak of learning to grow and harvest crops, care for animals, fish or hunt, or do masonry and carpentry projects. Women might share how to cook special dishes, care for children or a garden, or learn to sew and crotchet. Occasionally a unique example touches a whole class, as did a testimony shared last week.

A new missionary wife spoke of two habits infrequently seen in Cote d'Ivoire that she learned from her mother. First, the family constantly struggled to make ends meet as she grew up. Despite difficult living conditions, her mother excelled in managing the little she brought in by home business. She kept a jar with a lid always available. On selling an item, she immediately put the tithe in the container. NO ONE was allowed to touch the cash accumulated in the jar, and this obedient woman always knew how much to give to the Lord. Another habit distilled from mother to daughter was the careful measurement of grain. She counted the number of people eating at each meal and added a portion for the frequent unexpected guest. Every harvest, she then stored and counted the sacks of grain set aside to guarantee that what she had would last until the next crop became available. The daughter witnessed that her mother's precise measurement ensured that the family never lacked food. She proudly asserted, "We never wasted one grain of rice, ever." What a life-changing impact this mother made! Many in government offices and running enterprises who attend Micro-Enterprise Development (MED) training annually at the UFHB have not learned these finance basics.

Come and See (Psalm 66:5)

After we completed the CHE TOT1 training at the incognito missionary training center,

With Director Chantal

much learning happened outside the classroom. Couples and individuals quietly approached with medical and nutritional health questions as we packed up to leave. Some participants had suffered conditions for years without relief. They were grateful to learn about natural interventions like drinking adequate water, papaya leaf tea, and using moringa powder to bring healing, among other issues discussed for follow-up. In addition, much of this week entailed completing final edits of this CHE training format for Bible Institutes and missionaries. We also connected with CHE trainers in the region and got the process underway to renew our five-year residence cards.

Prayer & Praise

• 🙏 We are grateful to our American missionary friends, Steve and Carol Smith, who have been ICE contacts for us over many years. They let us use their Abidjan mission home during the CHE training while they are in the U.S. The quiet location sheltered us from the megacity's pollution and noise. In addition, their kind offer cut our lodging costs for the training!
  

• 🙏 All the necessary items for Debbie's CPAP are now in the hands of our son Corbin in the States. Pray for the safe delivery of the machine by UPS or DHL in the upcoming weeks.
  

• 🙏 Pray for the missionaries preparing to go to their fields of ministry. Also, ask for natural solutions and healing for those suffering from various illnesses and conditions that hinder daily life.

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 provide support as we maintain 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 - specifying Verlin and Debbie Anderson in the optional Memo.

Prior: Bread
        - 221112 PDF
Prior Videos: Reflect and Rejoice
        - The Great Story

2022 Q2 Report: Someone Greater
  -  2022 2Q Anderson Report 220521 PDF

2022 Budget Info:
CHSC-0118_ANDERSON-2022-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.

GIVEONLINE to support these ministries
                                   www.che4a.org

Debbie's Facebook Page

Verlin's Facebook Page

Bread

PDF Version:
AWA Weekly 221112 PDF

Taste and See (Psalm 34:8)

We tasted and saw the Lord at work this week while training missionaries from several W. African nations who dedicate themselves to sharing Jesus, the Bread of Life. More than twenty of each session of students (some involved visitors) dedicate their lives to sharing the Good News of God’s love. They intend to tell citizens of West Africa what many do not yet know: God Himself died for them. The goal remains to help individuals escape living under Satanic deceptions prevalent around them, then live abundantly in community to transform all about them for God’s Glory. Here are five of more than 250 feedback comments we read (italicized words fill-in form question assumptions):

Verlin points out an
example to imitate.

• What I liked about this training is that it touched on many of the unfortunate facts of society and, at the same time, gave strategies to solve them.
  
  
• The trainer must consider reforming his behavior and character before training others.
  
  
• What I liked about this training was learning how to evangelize a village or community through the community health evangelism strategy.
  
  
• The most valuable lessons to me were multiplication and selecting the best community for starting a ministry.
  
  
• I learned the value of submitting to God in all areas of life.

Come and See (Psalm 66:5)



West Africans trained to reach
their unreached neighbors.

We met over lunch today with one of the Ivorian trainers who led the training with us over the last six days and nights. In discussions of life purpose and conviction, he expressed his reasons for quitting two good-paying jobs that gave him ‘bread’ over the last four years. He experiences a growing conviction that he must increasingly align his life purposes to spreading the Gospel while promoting the uses of CHE. Having worked in the contexts of several NGOs and a university project over the last decade while exploring CHE applications, his conviction deepens that, to realize the first objective, he must achieve a second: create reliable means in the family to manage life’s expenses. He has learned a good salary does not suffice to live peaceably and truly effect lasting change.


While we trained these missionaries to be sent, R. slept on their small campus among them. Several evening conversations focused on how these servants going to unreached peoples would gain bread to eat. R’s experiences over the last sixteen years have been with and apart from us as he has learned to walk with Jesus. He learns to cling to Jesus Christ above all other worldly distractions. It’s been hard, but his lessons learned encouraged several trained in the week to use CHE strategies. The newly trained now sense they have a workable plan to plant new churches rather than an unclear mandate to ‘go’ and ‘evangelize.’ They now understand themselves as having received from God some proven, sustainable means to live lives of ministry while bringing others near to hear from Jesus, the ‘Bread of Life.'

Prayer & Praise

• 🙏 Thank the Lord for what now appears to have been an exceptional week of Community Health Evangelism (CHE) training. The students of this missionary school in Abidjan were hungry to learn. They rejoiced to have what they called really practical tools to use in their ministries.
  
  
• 🙏 Pray the causes of one experienced and two new trainers suffering from some physical health challenges are revealed so adequate interventions are recommended.
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 provide support as we maintain 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 - specifying Verlin and Debbie Anderson in the optional Memo.


Prior: Squeeze
        - 221105 PDF
Prior Videos: Reflect and Rejoice
        - The Great Story


2022 Q2 Report: Someone Greater
  -  2022 1Q Anderson Report 220521 PDF
2022 Budget Info:
CHSC-0118_ANDERSON-2022-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.

GIVEONLINE to support these ministries
                                   www.che4a.org



Debbie's Facebook Page



Verlin's Facebook Page

Squeeze

PDF Version: AWA Weekly 221105 PDF

Taste and See (Psalm 34:8)

Romans 12:2 talks about not letting the world squeeze us into its mold, a temptation for all believers. Last week, M., the CHE trainer who initiated the Bondoukou mushroom project, gave a stirring example of this principle. Some time ago, an Ivorian friend came to talk with M. He admitted to M. that he paid one million francs (about $1,800 then) to grease the palm of a teacher so his son would pass his high school graduation exam. Despite the cash paid, his son still failed! M. then confronted this father, a professing Christian, with the truth of Romans 12:2 and advised him to repent immediately, which the man did. The following year, the teen re-took the exam. This time, he passed—no bribes involved! This experience represents a huge spiritual victory whenever it happens in our environment. Bribes are considered requisite to get anything done.

(Such payments are not considered ‘corrupt’ by many living here. The cash given gets regarded as a fee recognizing the reality of a person’s authority. As God’s revealed law against bribes has never been adopted culturally, such payments supposedly recognize a God-ordained power structure. Nation-state ideas defining such ‘gifts’ as ‘bribes’ among equals get reconsidered for cultural relevancy. Modern mission theory on the subject is divided mostly into two masses of opinion. Still, measured economic realities indicate that poverty remains deepest where bribes are most practiced. Rest assured that God never changes his Word uttered since before time in the Garden. He consistently reinforces that widespread cultural blessing follows collaborative obedience to Him, not simply a desire for more. This remains historically and presently demonstrable in the rise and fall of nations. If you like, deepen your knowledge later by perusing this PDF link of links.)

Dried Mushrooms

In addition, M. gave a progress report on the mushroom project that surprised us. Over 180 people from several villages now collaborate in this agricultural endeavor. They experienced several failures in their first efforts but persevered. They recently harvested kilos! As their products and clientele grow, M. knows two significant aspects lacking for their group to solidify long-term success. One step is to gain formal recognition by the government as a viable agricultural entity. Paperwork is now in process to accomplish that. Once granted this approval, he plans to host a CHE micro-enterprise training locally, anticipating around 600 participants.

M. learned the second needed aspect recognized at the CHE micro-enterprise training he attended at the university in September. Millions of businesses fail globally, where dishonesty, laziness, and the misuse of funds like bribes abound. The squeeze of the world’s system that focuses each on self-centered gain and protection suffocates desired progress. Earnest progress grows from focused pursuits of shalom by integrating principles of honest interpersonal exchange on raising an enterprise from humble beginnings. M. shared what he learned in the CHE micro-enterprise sessions about the necessity of honesty and work. The 180 who now collaborate in the project knew from experience and observation that what he reported to them was true. As a result, ALL agreed (including Muslims and many other unsaved) to participate in Bible-based studies where they can learn these God-given principles! This week we gave him 50 copies of the Discovery Bible Study sheets to facilitate enlarging the ongoing process that he has been developing for over two years.

Come and See (Psalm 66:5)

November 7-11, we will squeeze as much information as possible about Community Health Evangelism (CHE) and Disciple-Making Movements (DMM) into the lives of 15-25 newly-trained Ivorian missionaries. This is the third CHE training we have led (the fifth facilitated) for our General Baptist friends in Cote d’Ivoire. Leadership wants CHE in the ministry toolbox of these missionaries before they embark in service.

Prayer & Praise

• 🙏 Pray for a great CHE training November 7-11. We are grateful that other CHE trainers assist us so we can better know God’s grace now touches others through them. Another cost-reducing blessing for the Training of Trainers 1 (TOT1) is that we can stay at the home of missionary friends in Abidjan.

• 🙏 Pray for government recognition of the mushroom project entity. If the project becomes recognized, it will simplify future steps, and some government funds may be available. Pray for the unsaved who will be exposed to the Gospel in Bible studies via the mushroom project.

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 provide support as we maintain 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 - specifying Verlin and Debbie Anderson in the optional Memo.

Prior: Flock
        - 221029 PDF
Prior Videos: Reflect and Rejoice
        - The Great Story

2022 Q2 Report: Someone Greater
  -  2022 2Q Anderson Report 220521 PDF

2022 Budget Info:
CHSC-0118_ANDERSON-2022-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.

GIVEONLINE to support these ministries
                                   www.che4a.org

Debbie's Facebook Page

Verlin's Facebook Page