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From Joe Lee, Nicaragua Planning Work, March 7, 2008
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From Bob Hitching, Croatia Work, March 7, 2008
Roma Diary
(Extracts from my Journal)
I keep finding myself being angry these days. Angry at sin in its undesignated form for just existing. Angry at Satan whose evil is so total that he rejoices in the defilement of purity and the destruction of all that is lovely. Angry at myself for not being perfect. Angry at the media for focusing on and by default increasing the sordid interest in all that is wretched.
What is is interesting though is that anger does not express itself in acting out in some paroxysm abuse or violence. It often brings me to tears of pain, frustration with myself and simple sadness for those whose lives are being destroyed by sin.
Yesterday I saw a drunk Roma man standing against the wall. He looked dreadful. Yet just a few years ago he was probably a laughing, smiling child who trusted people and was full of expectations for the future.
I still think of that little Bayash child who was crying as her mother spat on her because she was annoying her. Or the little girl who was crying and beating her chest in utter nihilism as her drunk mother kept running into the busy street trying to kill herself.
Or the look of helplessness on that Bayash village leaders face after his wife had hung herself because of his adultery.
Often Nancy and I drive by Roma prostitutes who stand in the street trying to lure truck drivers. These were once little girls maybe who dreamed of one day being married and having children and being a good man's princess. Now just darkness, mold and worms dwell in that space in their hearts.
I have been seeking recently to think through how God "feels" about such things. Also, how do we maintain joy in the face of sin. I have come up with four tracks.
He is moved with love and compassion in the face of sin. He wept when he looked over Jerusalem and pondered the cities destruction.
He hates sin and has judged sin in the Cross. The horror of the consequence of sin is not the thought of hell but the vision of the cross. How He must hate sin if He would allow the Cross. How terrible is the judgment of God upon all that falls short of His Glory.
He is active in responding to sin. The coming of the Holy Spirit was a gift of love to combat sin on earth. The law came to show our inability to overcome sin, the Holy Spirit has come to give us the power to overcome sin wherever it exists.
He has a plan for our beloved but wretched Roma. He has told us to pray that His Kingdom would come and that it would be on earth as it is heaven. There is a place of hope that these villages one day, albeit it could be in the new heaven and the new earth, will be places that reflect the vision of heaven rather than reflecting hell.
And so with humble anger we pray and fight.
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Blessings
Bob
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From Prasad, India Report, March 4, 2008
Dear Br. Fred & Bob,
we are looking forward to meeting you all in May. We are doing fine here. we have some
praise report.
1. We are starting Bible School In Shadol , MP starting at June 1st.
we plan to take 10 young people give 2 years Bible training courses
after their graduation we sending them in different parts of India
for Evangelism and church planting. we are taking care their all there
needs ( Free). our Bible college expenses is sponsored by Silver lake
Church in Pearland. Texas. Praise the Lord!.
2. We starting new Mission Station in Trichy. Tamil Nadu. in April 1st.
Plan to send to two Evangelist to cover 4 Villages and to start
after school program , Bible study and Evangelism. we already find
rented place for this program.
Please continue to pray for the Bible College, to find good Teachers and
staff. also pray for the new Mission field and Evangelist needs.
For HIM
Prasad & Susan George
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From Anita, Croatia, March 4, 2008
Living Stones March 01 2008
( Church Planting In Croatia )
What your life looks like? Is it living in the faith daily, living in dying to self, or experiencing constant battle feeling defeated or discouraged by being on the "field"?
Recently two of these big moments have come.
Firstly, my co-workers Bob and Nancy from America who I have been planting the Church with have been led to move over the border into Hungary to be closer to the center of gravity of their primary work among Gypsy people. This immediately means our leadership team has been cut in half and it now means the preaching and teaching will be fully under Croat leadership. For us this is a very positive and exciting moment but not without the personal pain of loss.
The second area is in my own life.
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From Ramayon, India, March 3, 2008
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From Lawrence, India, March 3, 2008
DATE MARCH 3, 2008
Beloved brother Fred Kornis Rich Reese, Bob Zoller,
greetings form Ranchi ,Jharkhand Inida.
Thank you very much for your e-mail dated Feb 30th
2008. ( TRAVEL PLANS )
We are very much looking forward to see you in Ranchi
India on March 29, there will be ABSOLUTELY busy
programme in Ranchi.
We ( H.I.M ,RANCHI ) would like to bring forward
On March 30th 2008. Village Programme
March 31st whole day programe at sister Marandi Hall.
People from Remote villages will come in three session
you have to peach. May be in one session sister
Marandi will speak.
Note In both places we would like to PROVIDE FOOD
and TEA. Because they are very poor and come form
various far Remote villages and whole day they will be
there.
We ( Ranchi H.I.M ) needs your PRAYERFUL Support for
the same.
BROTHER LAWRENCE
RANCHI ( INDIA )
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From Diku, Nepal Ministry, March 3, 2008
From Lawrence, India, January 2008 Monthly Report, February 25, 2008
----------------------------------------------------------------From Bob Hitching, Croatia Work, February 24, 2008
Updated Website www.BobHitching.com
Yesterday, we finally came to the end of the Christmas outreach programme by visiting a village with over 50 houses and putting a Children's Bible into every home. Once again the team assembled, which has now taken the name Groupa Alu Isus....... The Jesus Group...... and we prayed together and then started to plan the day.
Incredibly, we realised it is closer to Easter than Christmas and so changed our Bible story reading to the Easter story and then made our way to the village. There were 20 people on the team and I had to buy them lunch as we were away all day. We stood in a parking lot and ate bits of baked pastry stuffed with meat and cheese.....I fed 20 people for about $40......I think back to times in America when taking American young people out on evangelism and ending the day with Pizza...... 20 Pizzas was over $100 and that was a long time ago.
It was a great time in the village and as usual there were those moments that take your breath away and move you deeply that you have been allowed into this kind of work. I can not explain what it is like to pray a blessing in a home that has never encountered blessing but only cursing. It is very, very special. The time also had an air of celebration to it as we realised that in the last 70 days we have distributed over 5 tons of scarves, gloves, sweaters, blankets, shoes, hygiene items, school supplies and 2000 Christmas presents plus put the Children's Bible into over 700 homes.
It is also the end of our three year term here in Varazdin.
Next Saturday we start the process of moving into the new house that we have rented in Budapest and beginning the expansion of the work from this small corner of Croatia into all the regions where the Bayash live in Croatia, Hungary and Serbia. The horizon is great, our ability small but we are led and resourced by a God for whom the size of the horizon is meaningless.
Usually at times like this I can become a little sentimental and even melancholy concerning leaving a place we have poured so much into. Not so now. Of course our greatest loss will be our geographical closeness to our coworkers Anita and Zlatko and also people we have become so close to. But there is a sense of destiny...... it sounds grandiose but true........ that is calling us on to something so much bigger and focused. For both Nancy and I there is a sense that our whole lives have been preparation for this next move.
The time has been intense here. We have planted a Church that is now led fully by Croat leaders. We have translated the draft of the New Testament into Bayash. By God's Grace we have seen the Children's Bible translated and printed and now being placed into hundreds of homes. We have put this Bayash tongue into a written form that can be understood by the masses. We have been able to knock down and rebuild a whole village and give a small community the foundation for a better life. Of course there have been the continual day to day projects that are all about people in the villages.
As well as these line items are the failures.
I trusted someone who turned out to be so evil that the thought of him out of prison and on the streets again makes my blood run cold. Nancy never trusted him and so I take the full weight of that failure. We started a Bayash Fellowship in a village that collapsed. We inherited another Bayash Fellowship that also collapsed. We have been cheated so many times.... less and less as time goes on. There have been death threats, continual threats of violence and even a time when dear Nancy was hit by a woman in one of the villages. But perhaps the most significant sense of completion has been the last 70 days when we have seen a small Bayash group albeit led by a Croat that has been formed to build on the foundation of reaching the Bayash in this region with the Gospel. Leaving with Groupa Alu Isus in place makes the move even more timely and viable.
We go to a completely new place. We have decided that we want to go much deeper in the Bayash language but we also sense that we will take a real shot at learning Hungarian as well. No small thing but so what? We have to go back to square one at so many levels but that is what Christianity is all about....... never being strong and confident in our support systems and comfort props but finding the power of God real to make sense of conditions that are best described as temporal insecurity and human instability.
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Blessings
Bob
www.bobhitching.com
Every Bayash Home, The Bible - Every Bayash Village, A Bible Class
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From Bob Hitching, Croatia Work, February 18, 2008
Roma Diary
(Extracts from my Journal)
www.bobhitching.com
This Saturday we are going as a team of Bayash, Croats and ourselves in Djurdjevac a Bayash village about 1 ½ hours from here. It is a sad place. It has been built on top of a Jewish graveyard which is a hang over from the anti-semitism of the past. This a tough village and we are very tired after a long season of visiting homes........but it is haunting to read how Jesus even though He was so tired continued to minister into the night. May we all know His strength.
Special Note:
There is a lot of excitement at the moment in our lives as we prepare to move over the border into Hungary where we will make our new base. I just want to outline the prime issues of the move and the growth of the work that has both come and will, we sense continue.
Right now we live within a 30 minute radius of a region that has about ten thousand Bayash. We live about 6 hours across country from the region of Vojvadina in Serbia that has an unknown number of Bayash but who we have read have about 150 Bayash villages. This region is completely untouched for the Gospel as far as we know. We are about 3 ½ hours from the region in Hungary where the majority of the 40,000 Bayash live.
We have decided to position ourselves in Hungary just south of Budapest. It is an EU country so there are no visa problems. Visa issues have been getting worse each year in Croatia. The cost of living will be about 25% less that here in Croatia. There is an English speaking Christian school for Taylor and Gaylynn. We will be just south of Budapest about 2 ½ hours from here in Varazdin. It places us about 2 hours from the beginning of the Bayash region in Serbia and about 1 ½ hours from the main Bayash centers in Hungary.
What we have done over the last 90 days has been to develop a precious people orientated strategy of outreach which has been to work alongside believers both Croat and Bayash in a door to door ministry where we have these short Bible times in every home in a village. We want to now duplicate this strategy across the three countries with set times each year when we revisit every home with the outreach ministry.
Budapest will be an ideal center for this strategy.
From Budapest we will establish a more formal center of operations for the production of materials, ie. The New Testament, Children's Bible, Gospel Comics, Bible Study Notes, Teenagers Magazine and Dubbed films all in the Bayash language. These materials will then be distributed by the teams we are developing in all the regions at the various set times of outreach. We now have a database of three thousand people we are working with. In short, we will be a production ministry on one hand and then a distribution ministry on the other hand all with the goal of reaching the whole Bayash community.
In short, the goal is a Bible resource in every home and a Bible class in every village in reality it will involve all kinds of other projects.
The village that we have poured so much into Sveti Djurdj we are trusting will be continued in follow up through one of the teams we have recruited. We will monitor things carefully. We will continue to work on big picture issues there as well such as trying to get electricity into the village.
The goal is to also move the vision for serving the poor away from just ourselves but to make it come alive in the lives of the teams in all the regions. Inevitably there will be a certain bureaucracy to make it work but we accept that is a part of life. We serve the poor not because it may bring them to Christ we serve the poor because it is the right thing to do.
If you have any questions about the move please write and I can answer them. Central to this though is the reality though that humbly and with much caution we see ourselves now taking on the vision for reaching the whole Bayash people group rather than just one small segment. May God give us His grace and may His provision be seen day by day.
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Blessings
Bob
www.bobhitching.com
Every Bayash Home, The Bible - Every Bayash Village, A Bible Class
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From Bob Hitching, Croatia Work, February 10, 2008
Link to Story of the little Roma girl
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From Samuel, India, February 9, 2008
From Samuel, India, February 5, 2008
Link to Samuel's Dec 07-Jan 08 India Report
To: Rev Prasad george
From Anita Valjak, Croatia, February 2, 2008
Living Stones February 02 2008( Church Planting In Croatia )
Sometimes I go out onto the balcony of my little apartment. I live surrounded by hundreds of families and I am so aware of the presence of people and pain. I love to go at night and look into the sky and feel the stars. A sense of wonder often over takes my heart. God is so vast and so mysterious yet so close. I love the stillness, I crave the quietness that I feel there. The greatest challenge is to find balance between being with people and being with God, or even to put it in better words - knowing that God is here all the time and that He is the One who is working!
As I think about these things, the telephone rings. It is a young Gypsy girl. Her husband has been abusing her for years. Now he has threatened to cut all her skin from her body and deliver it to her father. She was afraid and needed to come for counselling. Sometimes I feel physically sick as I hang up the phone. Part of me wants to go back to the balcony the other part of me wants to create quick answers to tough questions but neither option is valid. Life for many is a bitter cup and my job is to help them see they do not drink alone but he who took the cup in Gethsemane is there with them. To comfort and to guide.
Once again I want to be quiet but the telephone rings again. A woman who has come to some of our meetings but who is in another Church wanted to confirm appointment. Her daughter is living in immorality. For her it seems unbearable, her son was killed in a car crash and her husband left her for another woman. She cannot make sense of it all. She feels guilty but does not know why. She cannot come into God's presence as she feels not worthy. She is sure she must have done something wrong for God to allow this to happen to her. She needs to experience healing and the nearness of the One who was betrayed by His closest friends but forgave and built a Church upon their lives. Forgiveness for her is a process rather than a crisis.
Then comes the time for mentoring. I have two young wives who are now in our Fellowship. They are very intense. Very intense. They have agreed for me to mentor them but with no restrictions on what we will face and no control over how deep we will go in preparing them as leaders and wives. It is challenging and exciting to see the openess of this two young women and to have opportunity to be actevly involved as God's tool for their lives.
The evening comes and my son needs me to be with him. Time drifts away. I keep saying the word balance in my mind. Jesus prayed all night and worked all day, balance, I say the word again hoping my tendency to extremism will be held back. I find myself looking at the balcony but know instinctively that I will not get there tonight. I am right as the telephone rings again.. Solution? Changing the phone no? Hiding? No.
God is reminding me on Ecclesiastes : "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.."
From Lawrence (India)January 25, 2008
Link to Lawrence's 2007 India Report
JAN-23.2008
Beloved Brother Fred Kornis, Rich Reese and Bob Zoller
Blessed Happy New Year
I am extremely sorrowful to inform you that there was some Technical problems in our E-mail.Since January 1st week of 2008 till 20th January 2008. If you have send any E-mail to us. please re- direct those mails to me again.
As we are extremely glad to know by Bro. Fred Kornis that you are plaining to visit Ranchi India. your short visit will be great blessing for our people. Ranchi needs you.
you are always in our Heart and prayer.
note : As Ranchi H.I.M monthly report and Beautiful Ministry field Photo
has been send to you on Jan 20.2008.
if you have received please let me know
thanking you
Brother Lawrence S.
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From Prasad George on India 2007 Highlights (Jan 23, 2008)
Dear friends and all HIM Board Members, 12-10- 07
From Prasad George on his recent India Trip in Dec 2007 (Jan 23, 2008)
From Bob Hitching, Croatia, January 24, 2008
24 Hour Prayer time for the Bayash Roma. Tomorrow Friday January 25th. To sign up and select a time slot go to http://roma-prayer.blogspot.com/
The Information for the prayer day is now up at http://roma-prayer.blogspot.com/
Nancy and I have a little tradition. We call it going for a drive around the block. We do this when we are overwhelmed or just need to talk. Often we have driven by a Gypsy village not far from our place here. Young boys will aggressively chase the car, shout abuse and beg. It is close to a huge garbage dump and Gypsies from the village spend their days combing through trash looking for bottles and other things they can sell. We decided to try and reach out and so we put a whole load of empty bottles in our trash and I drove it down to the dump to leave it to be found. As we drove into the dump a group of gypsies opened the back of the van whilst we were driving and pulled everything out including all my tools which they then went off with.
Whenever we meet people from this village they are very hard and aggressive. We have prayed that we could get inside and start making friends. There are about 750 people living in this place that resembles a black hole of evil.
On Tuesday we went there as a team of three, Nancy, Joka ( a fine Bayash believer) and myself. Our goal was to visit every home and introduce ourselves that we would be bringing Christmas presents and the Children's Bible for every family this Saturday.
As we went into the village I have never felt evil quite like it. You have to experience it to understand what I mean. We are quite used to these villages but this one is special, dark and in some ways quite frightening. Slowly we moved among the people and I was very nervous about Nancy working alone with just a teenage boy as a guide.
By the end of the time people were metaphorically eating out of our hands. I tried to get dear Nancy to stay with me after we had visited everyone but she had a group of about 10 children who were all trying to hold her hand and walk and talk with her. I drove to the far end of the village to visit a couple of homes alone and then came back looking for my wife. I asked some children and they took me to this tiny submerged brick hovel. Inside was Nancy holding an elderly woman's hand and talking with everyone in Bayash. It was a powerful sight.
Somehow love always overcomes evil. It is not power and strength that subdues evil but the authority of love. Love has some kind of conceptual philosophical authority that cannot be withstood when it is the chosen time for God to work through it. Gentleness rules, innocence reigns and purity governs even in the darkest of places. We go back as a team of over 12 people on Saturday to put the Children's Bible into every home. May the ultimate authority of the love of God breathe upon and melt the iron walls and gates of hell that hold this village captive.
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From Theo in Delhi, India (Note: Enu, from Myanmar, was killed last year in April for his faith), Jan 24, 2008
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From JoAnne LaRue, Maryland, Jan 19, 2008
Hey Bob,
We had a great time at the Awana Grand Prix tonight! There was a very good turn out and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. By the way, my little car came in 3rd! 
And, yes there were more than 3 racers in my category!!
The message went well I think. I had very good attention from everyone. Some things were a bit awkward because of the set up - people on both sides of me etc., but overall it went well. Only time or even eternity will tell the true results. Thanks so much for praying. I believe God answered.
JoAnne
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From Bob Hitching, Croatia, January 20, 2008
Roma Diary
(Extracts from my Journal)
Ministry Reports and Pictures www.bobhitching.com
24 Hour Prayer time for the Bayash Roma. This Friday Janaury 25th. To sign up and select a time slot go to http://roma-prayer.blogspot.com/
Headlines: Little Nadia ( http://roma-diary.blogspot.com/) is in the final stages of getting her visa to go to America for Cancer surgery. The cost of the surgery, material and hospital is $100,000 totally covered by the doctors involved.......... Glory. There are still lots of logistics. We must pray to save this little girl's life and her leg. Can you please send an email to give a Bible verse and encouragement to Nadia via a Roma advocate in Romania who lives near her at luminita_cioaba@yahoo.com just put For Nadia in the subject line.
Welcome to over 40 new subscribers to Roma Diary this week.
Generally in our work, anger is a waste of time. It is a little like driving in a big city it would wear you out if every time someone abused you in the traffic that you got mad......you would go mad in the process. Recently though three times I have become really angry but learned some precious lessons in the process.
Firstly, about a week ago I was chopping wood for a widow. I actually had forgotten how strong I must have been as a younger man, as those with me were bouncing the axe off of the hard wood that we had acquired and I was busting the logs wide open with gasps from the crowd. The problem is I could not move for the next several days..... while the weaklings were running up and down stairs without the aid of drugs. The widow then asked me to come into her little one room house and then in a hushed voice she told me that one of the women we had purchased a wood stove for in the village had sold it for $60 and then had got drunk for three days straight.
I was deeply, deeply disappointed. I went to dear Nancy who is my only counselor at times like this and we talked things through. Actually, I wanted to cry but the frustration and anger seemed to hold the tears back.We talked about why this kind of thing affects us so much. Was it that we just heard that her little girl had been sexually abused and she was too drunk to either care or protect her little one? Was it that we want people we try to bless to be grateful in a way that by default creates within them a level of righteousness that is simply unrealistic without the Gospel taking root in their lives? Or is it embarrassment that people support our ministry and their generosity is spurned? Whichever way the experience left me feeling angry.......But probably this is how God feels when after showing his continual faithfulness to me I still become anxious and faithless. Suddenly our friend who betrayed us looks more like me than I like to admit.
Secondly, I was sitting in a home of some Bayash believers who then spoke in an evil way about another Bayash believer. It was dreadful what they said. I strongly rebuked them. What they said still bothers me, really bothers me. The rebuke was right. But...... but......When Jesus showed himself to His disciples after he rose from the dead, He said go and tell the others....AND PETER............ Just a few days before Peter had betrayed Jesus, not casually or passively but actively with swearing and bad language. The risen Christ rebukes but always has AND PETER in mind. Grace absorbs the very evil that deserves Judgment. I am humbled as I have to go back to these people at some time with the AND PETER principle.
Thirdly, a little while ago we were having a really enjoyable children's meeting in the open air. A drunk man came to break up the meeting. He then started to prod me in the chest. I tried to be gracious and pulled him away from the meeting. He then said some terrible and foul things in Bayash in front of the children. I grabbed him in anger and spoke to him in a harsh way. He walked away in his drunken state and probably does not remember the event. For myself I struggled. I actually felt hatred for him. I should have felt compassion and pity. In my mind I saw myself hit him and knock him to the ground. I had to wrench myself away and cry out to God to deliver me from the feelings. The man is lost. He is on a fast track to Hell. He will die a lonely frightened man. Why did I feel the way I did? Was it protectiveness for the children? maybe but deep down inside it was testosterone pride. That pride in the sight of God was as bad if not worse than this mans tragic condition.
Back to dear Nancy for another spell of therapy. She made a cup of tea, we prayed, she made me fried tomatoes on toast with marmite. As we talk together we realize that as wretched as some of the people are that we minister to they are no more wretched than ourselves inwardly in light of the goodness and Holiness of God. As God has compassion for us, so we are to have compassion not just for the worthy poor and the gentle vulnerable but deep love and compassion for those we naturally disdain whose character disgusts us.This is true spirituality.
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From Christopher Mubanga (Zambia) Jan 18, 2008
> Hello Dr Kornis,
> Wonderful greetings to you, family and the HIM family.
> We are doing good.
> On tuesday I was called upon to do a funeral service of
> an influential businesswoman who died. The service was
> conducted at a big place where many people came to gather
> and show their last respect, I preached and made an
> altar call and 178 people made decisions to follow
> Christ. Praise the Lord. Here we don't make altar
> calls at funerals but I went aheard and made one.
> Schools have just opened and I will be going around to
> do evangelism to pupils, students and the teachers.
> Please pray for me.
> Thank you,
Christopher Mubanga
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