Impacting the Urban Poor

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.