Merry Christmas!

This is truly a wonderful time of the year for Sunshine and me as we close out chapters in our lives and start new ones. Sunshine and I can both get caught up in the holiday frenzy and the chaos of all the changes in our lives but we both love this time of year as we focus on Christ’s birth. We celebrate the fact that He became a man to ultimately die for everyone’s sins so that we can be restored to God. We rejoice in His birth, for He is the “Reason for the Season”. It is our prayer that as we spend time with family and friends that we never lose sight of that.

After spending the last two months in Louisville, KY we are celebrating Christmas in Nebraska. We had a great time in Kentucky visiting with supporters, friends, training with the ministry and making new contacts. It was a very busy time while we were there, but Sunshine enjoyed getting to spend some quality time with her family. While we are in Nebraska, we continue to raise support and recruit teams to go to the Dominican Republic.

Happy New Year!
Sunshine and I will ring in the New Year in a new city as we will depart for Santiago, Dominican Republic on New Year’s Eve. It is fitting that we start this new chapter in our lives in our new home. We are both so excited to go and become a small part of what God is doing there on the island of Hispainola. As we prepare to go please be in prayer for us. Prayer that we will be used by God for His glory, and prayer for Sunshine to continue to build relationships within the medical community for further outreach. Please pray for me as I learn a new language, that I may be an asset to the ministry and that I build life changing relationships with both the Dominican’s and Haitian's. It will be an adjustment on all fronts, but God provides and God gives us nothing more than we can handle.

We thank each and every one of you that we have gotten to know. We thank you for your faithful support of what God has put on our hearts for us to do in the Dominican. Know that you and your families are in our prayers weekly and it is our prayer that you have a blessed 2009.

Please enjoy a Christmas video below. It doesn't cost a thing! It's our Christmas present to you!

Merry Christmas!!

What a crazy and great time it has been for Sunshine and I the last two months. We have spent the last month in Louisville KY so that I can train and get to know G.O. Ministries better. We are also spending the time fundraising so that we can be full time missionaries in the field. We will be here in Kentucky until the first week in December and then head back to Omaha for several weeks and then off to the Dominican Republic on December 31^st.

At the end of August I resigned from my job with the Omaha Royals (AAA Baseball) team to start my transition into full time ministry. It was a difficult decision to make, I loved what I did in baseball and enjoyed my career but I could no longer ignore the call to make an eternal impact on the world. Many people have asked me about how I came to this decision, so I thought I would share it with you.

Restoration:

It was the first Thursday of September 2003 and I found myself in a place that I never thought I would be…the ICU. A short nine months earlier I had be diagnosed with a schwanoma tumor. While the tumor was benign it was in a difficult spot, in my right ear drum to the base of the brain. This was my second surgery for the tumor, it was supposed to be one and done but they ran into some problems on the first surgery. Turned out the silly thing was bigger than they thought, so I was back for round two.

I remember three things about that night in the ICU. First it was opening night of the NFL so of course I asked the nurse to turn on the game. I remember the Redskins were playing somebody, but I don’t even know the score of the game. It was on for the principal of the fact that if a game was on TV, I needed to have it on no matter what state of condition I was in. I remember asking to see my parents; they had gone out to eat! I forgave them after realizing that it was very late and the surgery had lasted about 10+ hours. The last thing I remember was having a conversation with God.

My parents raised me in a Christian home and my mom led me to the Lord when I was eight. Now in my adult years my faith was still with me, but it was on the back burner. I had my moral compass, but wasn’t involved in church or much of anything outside of my sports career. Well the tumor was my wake up call to say the least. After my first surgery I was angry, mad and just depressed. I was supposed to be fine! How could this be happening! That was my daily thoughts and process as a quickly head into a tailspin. That was until Carl Goodman stepped in to a networking group that I was a member of. Carl was a guest of another member and he was also the Associate Pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church. He didn’t invite me to come, but something about him being at our meeting was internally telling me to get off my backside and go to church. Carl was a good enough guy, that later became a good friend, so I went to visit Lakeside Baptist Church. I slowly got back involved in church, but was just sticking my toes into the water. Then it came time for the second surgery.

The conversation with God was more like the tipping point in my life. I remember crying out to God on that night “Ok, ok, ok, you have my attention. Whatever you want me to do, I will do it. I can’t carry this load anymore. I am yours.” That was it and I can honestly say that it felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders.

Life did change for me after that. I became more and more involved at church, started volunteering and made some life changes. I also tried to utilize my role at work for Christ by helping organize and promote Faith & Family nights. I eventually got back on my feet health wise and I was a new person. Still human with struggles just like everyone else, but I had a renewed purpose to live for Christ. I turned over areas of my life one by one to Christ and made improvements until he challenged me for another area. It is never an easy thing to do, but once you put aside our human emotion it is amazing how blessed you can be.

I would NEVER do that!

I am sure that I have said I would never do something a million different times, but I only remember two of those times. In part, because I was so dogmatic in my proclamation about each one of the things I would never do! The first was when I was told a friend of mine was going to Grace University. I was like good for him, but I would NEVER go to school there! Only to end up going there just a short 16 months later. The second was a good friend of mine from Jr. High, Eric Gibson, was fulfilling a lifelong dream to become a missionary. I uttered the same thing…..That is great for him, I know that is what he wanted to do, but I would NEVER be a missionary. God must have a sense of humor, because he had to be laughing at me during those two times.

Eric Gibson would send me updates about his work as a school teacher in Africa. It was on one of these newsletters that had information about a new sports ministry that was starting up. I was like that would be cool, if I ever did something like actually become a missionary I could see myself doing that. I even went as far as to look at the website and then put it out of my mind. I was far too busy with my career in sport s to worry about that.

Several years went by between looking at the website and meeting Sunshine. I never gave much thought to the missionary thing until I met her. We decided early on in our relationship that we would both be open to each other’s career path, her working with missions in the Dominican Republic and me with sports in the US. She was back in the US for a break, so there wasn’t much of a sacrifice on my part, until I fell in love and she left to go back to the Dominican Republic. She asked me to come and visit, so in February of 2007 I went to help with at Baseball Clinic. After spending a week working and helping out I knew that this was something that I could do for the rest of my life.

The biggest hurdle to get over was my own ego. I had many conversations with God about why I couldn’t become a missionary. My career was going great, I don’t know the language, I am not good outside my comfort zone, I can be the guy that gives to missionaries . The big one was look God I am don’t see good out of one eye now, I am pretty much deaf in one ear and my face doesn’t work right how can I help. The really boiled down to excuses. God had blessed me with my health and everything that I had, the job, possessions and even Sunshine so it became clear that he was asking me to give it all up for him.

I don’t have a clue, but I have a purpose.

Together Sunshine and I decided to go for it which is where we are at today. People ask me all the time what I will be doing in the Dominican. I have an idea based on my experience and what other missionaries of told me, but let’s be honest….I don’t have a clue. That hit home to me about the first week into this journey as I sat trying to learn Spanish. The last ten years everyday that I walked into the office I knew what I was doing. Sure, each day can be different and curves thrown at you but for the most part I knew what I was doing and I knew how to get there. Now there are times that I feel like I don’t know my right from my left, up from down or 1, 2, 3, from uno, dos, tres. The thing that I do have in life is a purpose! A purpose to share the love of God by reaching out to others, it isn’t about me but about what he has in store for my life and the lives that we all can reach. God says,” Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

This is part of the process that has led me to this point. Sunshine and I are so excited about what the future holds for us over the next weeks, months and years. Sunshine will post an update next month about a great story from her trip this past summer. As we head into November it isn’t too early to start remembering all the things you are thankful for. I challenge you to not just think about them, but if they are about someone let them know, if they are for something then share it with others, but also be forever thankful of God’s love for us.

June was an exciting month for me for a few reasons. We had basketball camp on June 25th, and my husband's brother Charles came over to help coach basketball camp(Charles is the tall guy on the right). At this point, I had not seen my husband for 3 weeks, and so hugging Charles was the next best thing! Charles was the first member of my husband's family to see the ministry, and I had a lot of fun watching him have an amazing time.


I really enjoy sports camp. I am not much of an athlete myself...as a matter of fact, I want to share a little story with you. When I came down to 2005 on a construction trip, we played softball. Now I know that I am not an athlete, but I was cajoled into playing, and so since I didn't want to be a party pooper...I played. It was a hot day, and it was the American's verses the Dominican's. The Dominican's are a lot of fun, but anything involving a ball and bat is serious business. So the bases are loaded, we really needed a run, I hit the ball and took off for first base! SO, did I mention that I am not a graceful runner either? I was so entertaining playing this game that the Dominican's gave me their team ball and everyone signed it. I tried to find the picture of me running in this game that my Jen took (my co worker with GO) but
I must have lost it along the years!
On a more serious note..we really had a great week. This was the first time we had a All Sports camp week. There was volleyball, baseball, aerobics, and basketball all going on at the same time! We'd meet every morning at the same court for chapel, break up into teams for training sessions, have memory verse sessions, and then in the afternoon they play games against each other. I was involved in the memory verse sessions, and it was a lot of fun. It was interesting to see how many of the campers were Christians. I had fun sharing with them funny stories from my child hood in church and I encouraged them to share with me as well. My role foremost is first aid nurse. There is always lots of scrapes, but this is the first year that we had to give stitches. Those kids were tough. I remember holding their hands, and telling them not to look, and helping them take nice deep breathes! I really enjoyed cuddling and loving on these kids! Since my job is facilitating the teams, the team members are usually the ones who get to do all the loving on them...but as we all know..there is nothing better that snuggling with a child on your lap. Especially these little kids. They look forward to seeing the "Americanos" coming because they know for a little while they are going to get somebodies undivided attention. It's not that their parents don't love them. Most of these communities are single moms who have 3 or more kids to take care of. If they are lucky, the dads are away working and sending money home. More often than not though, the dads are either strung out on drugs, alcoholics, or have just abandoned them.



We hosted another medical clinic July 8th, they were a brand new church(Pathways) from Fort Wayne, Indiana. That week was a pretty special week for us. Not only did we have a medical clinic, but we also had a special clinic for the hearing impaired. As a lot of you know, we have a couple who works with GO that their twin girls were born profoundly deaf. Jeff and Vickie were flying in for a visit anyway, so they came early to be a part of this clinic. We had two audiologists there with us. They spent the week having hearing screenings and fitting children and adults who were either hearing impaired or completely deaf. People brought their children from all over Santiago to have their hearing tested. There are really no words to describe the look on a childs face when he hears sounds for the first time! Most of these kids were around the age of 8 years old...and hearing sound for the first time....I just can't imagine it. We saw about 650 people in the medical clinic that week, about 65 were screened for hearing issues, and 20 recieved hearing aides.
I am amazed at how huge God is. How He pays attention to all the details, just how faithful He always is. My prayer is that as we are working to build relationships to spread the gospel of Christ, that the people we are ministering to...see His reflection in our lives. It is the sole reason that we do what we do. As I look back over the summer, I hope that I did a good job. I hope that as I played with the kids, cleaned wounds, and worked with the teams...in everything I did....I did for the Glory of God. It's a hard task to accomplish everyday. There are days when I am really proud of myself. Then there are days when you just want it to be all about yourself, and I wonder when I am going to get it right! On those days I think of the scripture in Malachi 3:3, "He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify sunshine, refining her like gold and silver, so that she may once again be a acceptable sacrifice to the Lord."

Well, the summer has finally kicked off! I arrived here May 27th, and I have had an exciting time of ministry so far. We have had three medical clinics, and every one of them have been so incredible!

June 3rd, was the arrival of my first medical clinic of the summer. We had this clinic at a church in a area of Santiago called Los Guandules (means "the peas") I'd like to tell you why this place is called "the peas" but nobody knows. What I can tell you is this church is a beautiful place. The property where the church is located, use to be a gambling house and disco. The ministry purchased the property and began building a church in 2004. Not only does the church host Dominican and Haitian church services, we have a feeding center and the church is used for Pastor training as well. We had two days of medical clinic there where we treated about 1,000 people! It was awesome! While these clinics are going on, we encourage the team members to talk with their patients, and to also pray with them. We can give them free medicine, but nothing beats the power of prayer! There was a lady that apparently came on the first day of medical clinic. She had a protruding growth in her throat. As the team members gathered around her, they began to pray. The next day of clinic, the lady came back. She said that she went to the hospital and had xrays done (we had told her that was what she needed to do) and when the doctors ran the tests, THEY COULDN'T FIND THE GROWTH!!
On June 10th, I had my second medical clinic. This team had a pretty unique story. The team started out with 10 people(they were a family) who wanted to go on a missions trip. A member of this family, she was the mother, well her husband died. The mom decided to sell some of the property her husband left her, and helped to fund this mission trip which ended up numbering about 50 people. Half of this team worked on construction, while the other half of this team was stuck with me! They were such a big group, we broke them down into two medical teams. One team went to Los Perez, and the other half worked here in my community of Hoya del Ciamito. In all, we saw about 850 people that week. About 150 of those people were treated by two dentists that came. So, in two weeks time we were able to show the love of Christ to 1,850! Although we have not heard of any conversions yet, thats a lot of seeds planted.

There are so many things that impress me about life here. I suppose that the thing that really touches my heart is how that in so much poverty, you see the beauty of God. That He has not forsaken this place. I call these my "beautiful moments." One day last week, we took the medical team down to "the Hole". The Hole is a land fill where about 650 families live. Raw sewage runs through the streets, live animals relieve them selves where ever they want, it smells, and it is a area where drugs, alcohol, and prostitution is a way of life. As I was leading a team down to the church and feeding center that we are building there, I stopped so that the team could go ahead of me. I stopped to talk with this cute very elderly woman. As we were talking, I heard this little, bitty chirping noise. I looked down and I noticed this stream of sewage running down the path, and in the middle of it was this cute, little, fuzzy baby chick. It was trying to walk upstream, and was getting caught in the current. This sweet, little old lady bends over and fishes the little chick out of the nastiness, and with such gentleness, puts the chick into her house. It was so touching...that in the middle of all this poverty, that this little old lady had any compassion left. I can't imagine growing up in a place like that. Had she been there most of her life? Probably. Was she a Christian? I don't really know. But to me in that moment, she represented the face of God. She was the picture of wisdom and tenderness. And I think about all the times my life gets mucked up, and I get myself in a swirling mass, and God plucks me right out again.

I love going to church here. I love that God understands every language, and that every Sunday, He hears millions of people worship in so many different languages. A few Sundays ago, I was sitting in a Haitian church. Haitian people are so beautiful, and I love to watch their expressive worship. Haitians are really mistreated in this country. They flee to this country, because they see it as a chance for a better life. In Haiti, over two thousand people inhabit each square mile of tillable soil, and what farmers manage to grow, is taxed heavily to and from market. Here in the Dominican Republic, they are considered the inferior race, and they do the labor in this country that no Dominican would ever do. They are refugees here. Their history has been a long one of oppression, deprivation, and suffering. Where we live, it's pretty peaceful, but every now and then we hear stories of the horrible treatment of Haitians, and of the injustice that they have to endure. That's the reason I love to visit their churches. The church that I visit here in Santiago, is a cement building with a HOT tin roof, very little breeze, and the building is packed. You have a people that are strangers in a strange land just so that they can survive. As they begin to sing in Creole, you can feel Gods love and His presence.... I am always awed. I ask my self if I could rise above my circumstances if I were in their shoes. Could you?

As most of you know, on April 21st, my mom passed away. Thank you all so much for the cards and flowers...and for those of you who stopped by the funeral home to see Eric and I. It meant so much to us, and to my family. All things considered, my family is doing well. I do not know how people go through the loss of a loved one without the love and comfort of Christ.

In the beginning of April, I had the opportunity is participate in a inner city missions health fair. Several of the local churches met at the Omaha Baptist Center to have a place for the homeless and refugee populations of the inner city to come and take free items. We had formula and diapers, games and books for the kids, a clothing drive, and of course a health booth and doctors to see them if they had serious health issues. At the health booth they could get their weight, blood sugar checked, blood pressure checked, and just talk with them about what was going on in their lives. Most of our patients were women, so we talked about our weights and what we could do about it, kids, and just visited. We also provided sack lunches for everyone( bologna sandwiches, cookies, chips, and chocolate milk). I am from KY and we love bologna! I really enjoyed working there that morning. It was a great opportunity for me to meet other nurses and to educate myself on the Sudanese refugee peoples of Omaha, and that there are about 3,300 homeless people in the city. The Sudanese are beautiful people. I wish I had taken a picture of a lady named Niarobi, she was about 6'4 inches. She had beautiful blue-black skin, and this amazing head dress on her head that I just don't know how she kept it up there! She was majestic and gracious. She talked about how much she missed her home land but loved the Americas. She had her son with her that was about 18 years old. I could tell that when I met him, something seemed a little off. It was quickly explained to me that many of the older children suffer from Post Traumatic Syndrome. Her son had been in the United States for a couple of years, but he still suffered from seizures and nightmares from all the war that he had seen. He was in and out of jail. Not for bad behavior, but he would be found wandering the streets, and because he sometimes couldn't talk because of the seizures, police would hold him until a family member or a member of the church would show up to take him home.

In the beginning of May was Derby. It was so great to see all my missionary family, but to see all my friends who volunteered those long hours so that we could raise money for missions is always the highlight! For me, that is what makes Derby so special. Last year we raised around $23,000.00 for missions in the Dominican Republic and this year we raised even more! We raised $33,000.00 for missions! Isn't that awesome!?

After Derby and spending some time with my family, I returned back to Omaha May 8th. Eric came down for my mom's funeral, but had to return after about 4 days for work. Now, I am getting ready for my summer in the D.R. ! I am so excited about what God has in store for me this summer. How He will continue to shape and mold me. I will miss my husband though and wish he was going to be there with me. Eric will be here working in Omaha. This is going to be a long summer for him. Not only will the love of his life be gone for 9 weeks, his family is all going on vacation! So there will be a lot of time on his hands going solo!

Our fund raising is going well. We have made a lot of new contacts and working on recruiting some teams. We still have another $2000.00 a month to raise before we reach our first budget goal. I have no doubt that we will raise what we need. God is always so faithful. He is rarely on our time schedule, but He always provides!

Would you like to support us financially and become of a part of a ministry that will not only change your world view, but you will also feed families, support the work of a Pastor, and bring the love of Christ to thousands of Dominicans and Haitians that need His love and forgiveness? Under our links section, you can go to a page that gives you all the information that you need to become a part of our financial team.

I am so excited! I believe that spring it just around the corner...even here in Omaha, NE where I have just about froze to death! Living in the Caribbean for two years has adjusted my internal body temperature I do believe.

Eric and I have been keeping pretty busy this month. We are on a major fund raising campaign right now. We are so excited about the plans that God has in store for us!

Here is what we are up to right now. I am keeping busy right now preparing for the summer. We have several medical teams that will be providing free clinics this year in the D.R. and the Bateys. I am soo excited! We have some pretty good sized teams coming, and that means that thousands of families will not only get medical treatment, but they will get treatment for their souls as well!! I have been helping the teams with their paperwork, advising them on where to get medications, and just answering any general questions they may have. We are also preparing the team leaders guides for next year, and so I have been busy working on updating the medical part of that as well. I really enjoy it, it gives me the opportunity to learn more about the ministry and ask our other missionaries questions that have been with GO a lot longer than I have been. Eric & I have also been working on our Spanish. SO of course I am not fluent ( I will be one day) but after not speaking Spanish for about 6 months, I am surprised as to how much I remember. I have been teaching Eric the Spanish alphabet and other Spanish vocabulary. Our apartment and it's furniture is covered in post it notes. On these pieces of paper are in Spanish whatever they are sticking to. It really works and I get a kick out of peoples response when they realize what they are looking at! We also just ordered the Rosetta Stone program to help us along with the language. Eric & I just had some great support cards printed, so if we have contacted you about support and you have not committed yet, you will probably be seeing those in the mail soon! :) Eric is staying really busy at his job with the Omaha Royals. Please keep him in your prayers, he has quite a bit of responsibility, and if you live here in Omaha, you know that there is a lot of controversy over what is going to happen with Rosenblatt stadium. So, in addition to his day job, he is also networking for support, and trying to recruit more teams for the ministry. Plus we are working on presentations, and setting up meetings with family and friends for support. Eric has a men's breakfast scheduled in April for a missions presentation, and Eric's mom and I are working on putting together a luncheon for some women that she knows who would be interested in supporting us as well. If you all know someone who is interested in supporting a missionary or who loves missions, let us know! We would love to get them personally involved with GO Ministries!

God has been so good and gracious. Since our wedding we have 4 brand new supporters! Eric and I are trying to raise $3000.00 in monthly support so that in September, Eric can resign from his job, and together we can just focus completely on raising the rest of our support that we need. We are over half way there!! If all goes according to plan, we will move back to KY around September/October. Eric and I will get to spend a lot of time at the GO office, with our friends, family and then January we will be off to the Dominican Republic full time together! We can hardly wait!!