Christmas 2006 Newsletter
Joy to the world the Lord is come let
earth receive her King!
How wonderful it is that the Lord did
come as one of us to live like us to enjoy the blessings and endure the
hardships of life like us. Yet, without sin so that He could give us the
greatest gift of all; Eternal Life (John 3:16) It cost Him everything,
it cost us nothing, yet it should motivate us to give Him everything in
return.
What a wonderful yet tough summer we had
this year. Having two Canadian interns made things go much easier. The
first one, Nicole, came down from Seattle with a group last year. She
talked about it so much that her best friend Rachel, from Calgary
decided to come down with her for the summer. It was a great blessing to
have them both.
Tim’s not sure they agreed as he
worked them long hours every day.
There was a total of 3 groups that built
houses this summer. Two other groups backed out for various reasons,
which we found was very common with all ministries this year. Two of the
houses that had phase one built last year were completed with phase two
this year, giving those families a 20x24 house. This year we also did
our first health fair (physical and spiritual health are covered) and we
look forward to doing more of them in the future.
Tim and Ken have started an English
language Bible study with several of the Mexican men who want to learn
better English. Thanks to International Bible Givers we have bilingual
Bibles to use with them.
Working with a Mexican American
missionary we are looking at the feasibility of starting a church in one
of the communities we built a house in this summer. Please pray for God’s
direction in this.
January is not too early to start
planning if you are considering coming for the summer. Don’t hesitate
to contact us for any help we can give.
Blessings
-The girl’s dorm though not finished
is usable. Thanks go to the many groups who helped on it
-3 houses, 2 interns, and 1 group
already set for next summer with 3 more considering the possibilities -A
new concrete mixer given by Triad this summer -Contacts that are helping
our ministry to grow -God’s provision, it is amazing
Prayer
-Greater language ability
-Bible study (bilingual)
-Possibility for new church
-Completion of the girl’s dorm
-God’s continued provision and
protection -Groups to fill the summer, we can take up to 7 groups, also
other times are available through out the year
Thank you for allowing us to be part of
your outreach team. We greatly appreciate your prayers, support, emails
and letters of encouragement.
You are all a great blessing to us. Our
love and prayers to you all.
In Christ,
Tim and Lorie DeJong
Spring 2006 Newsletter
The Times of Tim and Lorie
Dear Friends and Family,
A lot has happened since we last wrote.
We have had rain and lots of it, thank you for your prayers. Tim was
able to get the gas hooked up at least for our hot water and our stove.
It is nice to be able to shower and cook in our apartment now with out
having to go to the other building for that. I have been unloading some
boxes and it seems like Christmas seeing things I have had packed away
since we got here. There is still a lot of unpacking to do, but that
will have to wait until the end of summer.
We had a weekend group here in March
that put together a health fair not to far from here. They had local
doctors and dentists come to do general check-ups and some major and
minor dental work. They had several churches in the area come to help
with evangelism, such as showing a short version of the Jesus movie and
to do one on one evangelism. They also had a place for the kids to learn
about basic hygiene, which we are thinking of doing with some of our
summer groups.
South of the Boarder Ministries is a
group we work with sometimes. Tim has been helping them with a home at
the Tecate Bible College and he also went with them to check out a roof
for a start up church in a drug infested part of downtown Tijuana. I
went with them that day and when Tim went to check on the roof he
thought that one of the guys was staying back with me; because of the
neighborhood. But I told Gustavo he could go on up with the other guys
and I would lock myself in the van. As I was sitting there 2 guys came
along and sat down about 200 feet in front of me and one guy started
putting a needle in the other mans neck and shooting him up with drugs.
Well, I didn’t know what to do, I looked away whenever they looked at
me but they didn’t come near me so I thought this would make an
interesting picture. I’m glad I didn’t have my camera with me that
probably would not have been a smart thing to do. That church’s first
meeting was Easter and they had 80 people come and a number of them made
professions.
I have been working on getting all of
the paper work done for taxes, I finished the taxes, but in so doing I
aggravated my neck and shoulder, so I have been off doing anything long
on the computer for awhile, like letter writing. Tim has been working
hard on getting the girls’ dorm usable for this summer, it won’t be
finished but they will at least have electricity, painted walls and a
working bathroom, what more do they need. Our first group will be here
on June 3rd so all of our focus right now is getting ready for the
summer.
Please pray for us as we get things
ready for the summer and for the groups that come this summer to build
the houses and be a light for Christ to the community in their words and
deeds. Thank you for all of your prayers.
In Christ
Tim and Lorie DeJong
February 2006 Newsletter
The Times of Tim and Lorie
Dear Friends and Family,
Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are both doing well except for a small problem, Tim cut his
finger and had 2 stitches in it.
Though we have had a lack of rain this
season, when it doesn't rain it pours. As you know we had a problem with
our cars transmission, it's fixed now and we have traveled to Kansas to
pick it up and are back again. It cost us $1700 and we are told that was
a bargain, if we had it done in San Diego it would have cost us $4700
and if we would have gotten it done down here in Mexico after the 30 day
guarantee it may have gone down hill fast, because of the higher end
transmission in it they would have just jerry rigged it. Also the
clinics clothes washer has broken down; the cleaning lady has to put
water in it by way of a bucket. Tim is working on the floor in the
surgery room right now because when it was laid the tile was laid on
paint and some of the tiles have become loose and broken, so now he has
to grind the floor to remove the 1/8" thick paint so the tile will
stick. The big problem is that the floor all has to be redone in the
near future, because of new codes, it now requires a non conductive
finish flooring, but the clinic can't afford to do it right now because
of how costly it is. Along with the clinics problems our refrigerator
here and in Georgia are in the process of dieing, along with the
microwave in the groups kitchen and our printer for the computer all
this last month. There is a silver lining coming through now, we have
had someone offer us a refrigerator for here, yeah.
It rained for a couple of days which has
helped as we've had very little this year; the weather man says there is
more on the way, as much as 6" in the next week. We need it badly,
even though the results leave our road hard to drive on. A SUV or
something with more ground clearance would be a great help, but that
will have to wait as we can’t afford to get anything for the
foreseeable future.
A new addition to our family here is a 2
month old German shepherd puppy. Her name is Shadow, because she follows
us around like a shadow. The Mexicans here have kept insisting that we
get a guard dog, because while we were gone over the holidays we had
several attempts of people breaking in. The plan is that a German
shepherd on the property should stop anyone from even trying to come
over the fence. Our hope is to teach her both English and Spanish
because of the youth groups that come here and the Mexicans that live
here.
We thank you all for your prayers
In Christ
Tim and Lorie DeJong
January
2006 Newsletter
Dear Friends and Loved
Ones,
We had a hard time
leaving Georgia and our little grandson, Caleb the first week of
January. We met a lot with
Tim’s family over the 2 months we were on the road.
First off we went to Kansas to see One of Tim’s brothers, James
and his family. They are
missionaries in Kenya Africa and are back on furlough for a year after
being gone for 5 years. Then
we went to Dubuque Iowa and spent a week there with our son, Nathan, and
his wife, Joyce over Thanksgiving.
This was the first time we had with them since they got married
last January. Then we went
over to Ohio to spend a couple of days with Tim’s dad.
We headed south then to South Carolina to visit with Tim’s
niece, Heidi and then over to Augusta Georgia to spend a few days with
Tim’s brother Paul and wife Sandy and his nephew Brian and his family.
We also had to get our drivers license renewed and our car tags.
Then it was down to Florida for a short vacation time at the
beach and to see Tim’s youngest brother Mark and his wife Ruthi.
We finally made it back to Georgia, this time to Atlanta to be
with our daughter Heather and her husband Patrick and of course our 5
month old grandson, Caleb to baby sit him over Christmas break. We did
head back to Augusta for a couple of days to go to Believers Chapel and
to visit with everyone there back at our home Church.
We also went up to Asheville, NC for a couple of days to get some
medical equipment for the clinic down here.
We put over 5,000
miles on our car and Tim was afraid the transmission would not keep
going. He was right we
ended up going back to Kansas to get our transmission fixed by Tim’s
brother’s brother-in-law, who had taken a look at it while we were
there before Thanksgiving and told us to bring it back if it got worse.
So, here we are 6 days before a group comes to help us in Tijuana
still in Atlanta, we head to Kansas and drive all night.
We get to Kansas and find out we have a rare transmission for our
Taurus and it would take at least a week to get one.
Luckily
James let us borrow his car and we head to Tijuana with one day to get
ready for our group. We had
most of the things we needed here all ready, so there wasn’t too much
shopping. The 3 guys came
from New Jersey and helped to put in insulation and sheet rock in the
girls dorm for a week. They
finished all of the dorm and the extra room for the girl summer helpers
and the bathroom for the helpers, just the dorm bathroom to finish.
They were a big help to us, what they did would have taken a
month for Tim to finish.
Tim and Julio, the
grounds keeper and he does the grunt work at the clinic, are worker to
finish the insulation and sheet rock right now.
Downstairs in our apartment we still need heat, hot water, and a
kitchen along with trim and other small stuff.
It has turned cold the last couple of days so I am layering my
clothes to stay warm. We
are almost to the point of getting ready for the gas installation but
Tim has never run anything with gas before so I think he is a little
apprehensive to put it in. If there is anyone out there that can give him a hand I would
be very happy for some hot water and heat.
Lorie and Tim DeJong
