Dear one …
IRAQ/Kurdistan now … Erbil, Kalar, and Sulaymaniah …
Each person and family has a story. Severe loss and trauma escapes none of their personal histories or lives. You and I are on journey with these precious ones.
Sometimes it all seems like a drop in the bucket … $6K spent on food here … $2.2K spent on heating fuel there … $1.2K spent on a flood prevention drainage pipe over there … $150 given for a severe case of asthma in another place … $150 given for X-rays for a fallen damaged elbow of an 8 year old girl … $200 given for location permanence costs … it can never end.
Yet none of this life we live is really about funds.
Relationships, yes.
Some relationships are ever so brief, only a half-hour interview, at times leaving one with a type of vacuum of heart … what just happened back there?(.) Another has been built over several years now, ever deepening in each of our times together. Most are somewhere in-between.
We are working with such great teams over here. They know how to love … a lot longer and deeper and better than we do in these contexts. We are so grateful they are here, living close, able to relate and give much more in relationship, as we are here for such a brief time as this.
A lot more is happening outside these camps, in other relationships and venues we savor.
More to come in our next update … cannot thank you enough for your being here with us and them in prayer and financial backing !!!
“(He) is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
Daniel
Nora and I thank you deeply for being such a major part of our journey and life together. Pressing ahead with you feels less like “pressing”, and more like a hand-in-hand pilgrimage. We are privileged and grateful !
Summer ’19 was especially eventful, in that we were honored to be a part of a widening group of leaders. Meeting in Breckenridge, Colorado, people of a wide variety of leadership roles and location-based serving, were there to glean from each other and understand our individual parts in this growing group of influencers internationally and domestically. From anti-human trafficking to village development to disaster relief to many others … we all enjoyed learning and relating together.
Ari and Aram (Kurdistan/Iraq) were hosted by Mike Parks (GSA) and I this summer. What a good compressed two weeks it was. Too numerous were the events and relationships (personal and organizational) built to cover them all. Some highlights of activities and connections were:
Rwanda training last month in ELD-Entrepreneur Leadership Development was beyond my hopes. Dovetailing perfectly with TCD we’ve done for years, it was what I needed to shore up this area of experience, especially in my first time in Africa. 28 attendees walked through extensive micro-enterprise, allowing each to embrace the framework of starting and growing a small business in their country. Trained, they were ready for the “Shark Tank” in which their business plans competed against others! Three in the group already had their “real” businesses, and fed their experiences into the knowing-best-principles the others needed. Superb in every way, I can hardly wait to teach others in this, as it’s integrated into our TCD and Disaster Relief training.
As funds avail, Mike and I are planning to be back in Kurdistan/Iraq ASAP! We will work with Ari and Aram and the Yazidi refugees, as well as refugees flowing into the region from Syria and other countries. I am still very much tied to Serbia TCD, as well as my continued responsibilities of oversight assistance in South Asia. You likely discern from our monthly updates, that activities are deepening and broadening quickly. We need guidance and wisdom, moving forward.
She’s doing so well in this her second year of teaching 2nd and 4th grades special need children. It is though, extremely difficult some days. Sometimes she comes home so wiped out she can barely do more than collapse on the couch, while other days she’s beaming in laughter at something one of the kids said. One kid “fired” her one week and then wanted to “marry her” the next! LOL ! She’s praying about getting her certification in this area.
Final stretch it is for Jonathan, as he laps into this last year of engineering school at Colorado State University. Emily, his girlfriend, is with us for Thanksgiving, and what a sweetie she is! Jonathan is looking into moving out to California, where Emily is in med school.
Bryan
Eliana