March 2016 Official Newsletter!

Recently, I had the opportunity to open my home up to one of my friends. She called me frantically one morning and asked if her and her baby could come and stay at my home for a couple days. I automatically told her that she could, but after hanging up the phone I began to wonder if that was the right choice. My friend is a sister who has been struggling ever since her baby was born with loving her husband. 

We have had so many discussion the two of us regarding what does it look like to be a godly wife and how can she show her husband what she needs from him in ways that will be respectful and not challenge him. These biblical guidelines are vastly counter cultural. Her husband is a brother who from my perspective is just trying his best to provide for his family. This effort on his part takes time and energy away from his new family and it is precisely those two things that my friend resents. She feels unloved and uncared for by him. 

In my cultural experience, I would tell her to just talk to him about how she feels and if that isn’t enough maybe find a counselor. In this place and in this culture, those things are not very common. My friend told me that she texted her husband telling him that she doesn’t feel loved and did he know that she felt that their relationship was on its last leg. His response to her was to say that he thought everything was fine and of course he loved her. They didn’t talk about it again. This kind of communication lapse breaks my heart. 

So when she came to my house for an afternoon of escape I was glad that she didn’t take me up on my offer to stay with me. I had begun to worry that perhaps she was just running away from dealing with the miscommunication that was rooted in her home. My friend wants her family to be healed but she is very tired of trying so hard to fix it. 

This friend of mine is one I work closely with. Her interfamily conflicts affect my work in the schools. Please join me in asking our Heavenly Father to do a special work in her family. That the barriers of miscommunication would crumble, that pride would be laid down, that between the two of them they will find a way to put each other first. That both of them would seek Father’s will instead of their own. Please lift me up as well. I want to be a sister who encourages and uses godly wisdom instead of one who gets in the middle of problems she has no business in. 

This is the Eden Thanksgiving Party group photo. Can you find my little head? My friend and her baby are also in this picture. Please lift all these women up as they struggle to live more like The Son!

Thank you, Denise

Official December 2015 Newsletter!

As Christmas draws near I am impelled to contemplate my life. I love this life that I have been living. It hasn’t always been easy but it hasn’t been a torture chamber either. Father has grown me and molded me into a bit more like Him through it. Not that I have become like Him. Far from it-there is much more for Him to work out. 

I am very thankful for all the parts that you have all played in the journey. Your love and support of the burden and vision that Father has given me is humbling and overwhelming. For the last 6 years the support I have received from you has not only supported my daily life and schooling, but has also given scholarships to Permeate youth, given school scholarships to leprosy patients’ children and grandchildren, and have allowed many young women who used to be prostitutes attend the Shine program. 

Currently, my support level is sustaining my needs. However, I have been using my excess funds. What happened was that over the years I generally don’t spend as much as I have been given and so each year when some of my supporters have needed to put their funds elsewhere I haven’t felt any lack due to funds that have built up over the first few years. I

am very thankful for this situation but as of the beginning of June 2016 I need to increase my support about 500 US dollars a month.

From Sept 2014 to Sept 2015 I had a total giving of $33,990 USD from my total support base. Praise to the Father for his faithfulness to me! Broken down to a monthly average the result is: $2,832.50 USD. This does not cover my monthly expenses. If you want a break down of these expenses, email me at denisej@worksmail.net and I will send you the budget break down for Sept 2015-2016. If anyone is interested in increasing their monthly gift even by  ten or twenty dollars that would be very helpful. Please let me know if you would like removed from this mailing list as well.

This situation is not urgent but it is going to become a bigger issue the longer it takes to raise more and if it becomes a larger issue I will have to stop ministry and return to the States to more intentionally fund raise. 

I know that you all get many petitions for your generosity during Christmas time. I know that any additional funds I receive or do not receive this year is subject to Father’s will. Who gives His children all good things in accordance to His good and perfect will. I want to thank you for your love shown to me in your current and past support position.  Whether that is through physical gifts or through your prayers. Thank you and Merry Christmas! 

Shine School and Shine Course

Hello again. It is time to let you know what has been going on in my life. I have been in a very strange place here. As many of you know we took the Shine School Program into a rural area and began to the pilot run of the English Follow-up Program.

As the previous blog post will tell you, things went okay. It wasn't a failure but there were several situations that concerned the team.  The school we visited was a school we had been to previously. The administration's blatant disregard for the stipulations of the program along with the way the team was treated moved the larger team to spend a good amount of time re-evaluating the program and discussing different options.

This was a very frustrating and initially painful experience.  It also took a lot of time.  We finally had a time of resolution on November 18th.  Our first decision was to drop all pretense of English. Since every time we have been to this particular school we have been pressured to teach English, we had thought that giving them some English lessons in conjunction with our Shine value lessons would satisfy both our needs and theirs. However, we found that adding the English aspect to our curriculum actually made our situation more difficult.

We agreed that as a team we needed to sit down with the government official who has rubber stamped this project and re-enforce our intentions and the need for the help of the administrations we will work with. We want to ask him if he has other contacts who will perhaps understand our purpose better than the current administration does.  We desire to meet with him as a whole team, before proceeding.

However, meeting with our government contact has been difficult. So at this time the School Program is at a slight stand still. We are looking forward to pressing onward in the new year.

In-spite of this stand still for the School Project, we just finished a four day intensive of a Full Shine Course. This was very exciting and stressful. We taught all 8 sessions in four days and three of the women who attended we trained so that they could facilitate Shine in the future.  This was the first time I had been involved in training trainers.

I obviously love to teach Shine, but this time was a very special course for me because of some of the great behind the scenes things. The four of us who had gone to Vietnam to be trained (XC, myself, K, and R) all worked together on this course plus we had another woman who has been trained by R. The team work and cooperation really encouraged me and made working and teaching so enjoyable.  The group of women who I meet with on a weekly basis to study Father's Word also helped out by coming to my Christmas cookie making party-where we made cookies for one day of the Shine Course.

 I think this one was especially touching to me because it was a mix of women who were reasonably well adjusted and women who have lived part of their lives as victims. Seeing Father work through the course material as well as through each women was just very beautiful. One women really sought out the others who were vulnerable to pour into during each session.

Another women who was training to be a facilitator is the wife of a man who is laboring to bring in a great harvest and to be able to give her tools in order to open doors for his work was really lovely.  Each woman began to see that she was valued by Father.  

We also had some ladies who were really broken. It was really amazing to see their countenance change from day one to day four. At the beginning some would barely meet your eyes and by the end were seeking you out for hugs and holding each others' hands.  Father is so good. That the truth of His Word changes lives!!!

Session One: You are Valuable. Your Value doesn't change from the day you are born to the day you die. No one can make your value less by the way they treat you. Nothing you do adds to your value. These are truths that these young women have never heard.  Thank you for your part in helping these women have more of life!!

Back in the Saddle Again!!

This week I jumped back into the saddle of teaching. We went to the number 17 and number 9 middle schools in Kunming. The first school we taught at gave us 300 hundred students to teach.  It was kinda crazy. The school didn't have an auditorium so we spoke to them in the cafeteria. It was hilarious.  Because the cafeteria only had round tables the students were forced to look at each other while I taught. When you are teaching students about how priceless they are and are aksing them to tell one another that they are valuable or strong or have limitless potiential it is funny to watch them uncomfortably tell one another these things.  I am so struck by how beautiful these students are. Everytime I stand before them I am so overwhelmed by their innocence. Even if they are not so innocent in some areas of life these kids are thirsty for love, truth, attention, boundaries, and knowledge.  When I start to talk to them about sex their incredible uncomfort is priceless. But the great mystery of it all is that they desire to know what I have to say.  

I think we have all been there before. We want to know something that we feel everyone else knows about. We feel that we are in the dark.  But because we are in the dark we feel uncomfortable asking questions.

 I hope that we ALL get the opportunity to give someone hope as well as give them much needed information so that they can make better choices in their life.