Psa 68:35 God is awesome in His sanctuary. The God of Israel gives power and strength to His people. Praise be to God!

Dear friends,

It’s so good to be writing to you again. You may wonder why it seemed that I fell off the earth! I’d had bad news in late January that Kate, my friend and pastor’s wife, was diagnosed with Stage 4 thymoma, cancer of the thymus. It had us all reeling, praying and fasting! She is a much loved woman and though of course God is all sufficient to answer all of our prayers at the same time, I didn’t want any of our mutual friends spending even one minute praying for me when they should be praying for Kate.

God has been incredibly gracious with amazing reductions in the size of Kate’s tumor and though she is still in a serious situation, I feel released now to ask for your prayers as well.

And I really need them! I leave tomorrow for Tajikistan and a tricky situation:

1. First, the ash cloud is back and Istanbul airspace was closed today. Would you please pray that I can fly tomorrow?

2. I have three days of training in leadership development with our ten team leaders. The field leaders will help train some of the sessions and I’ve spent most of the time finishing their sessions so they’d have good notes. I still have three sessions of my own to finish. Would you please pray these would be just what the Lord wants me to say?

3. Our team leader in a city in the Pamir mountains was given two weeks to leave the country and Thursday is his last day. I will go up there to debrief the team and give them some training on transitions – it is 30 hours by jeep and right now ALL the team has lice! Shows how soft I’ve become that I’m struggling a bit with this. Please pray I would have great JOY and be an encouragement to the team. Also, on the way back, I only have one day leeway before flying back to Istanbul and then only one day before flying to the US for some meetings. There is a plane that tries to fly daily but it flies THROUGH the mountains so it has to be crystal clear with no anticipated weather situations. It would be good if I could get this flight. 60 hours in a jeep in three days might just finish me off. J

Please pray as well for Dave who’s on tour with a great group of people and who are getting good opportunities to share. Sadly, the concert tonight was cancelled by the government. Please pray that all the rest of the venues would work. In the biblical city of Antakya (Antioch), the church is so excited they have prepared 6000 handbills to give out! At the same time they have had a bomb threat. Please pray for the protection of both the church and the team.

Tomorrow morning before my flight we are have a meeting about TRANSFORM – wild and crazy out-of-the-box-evangelism we have planned for this summer in Turkey. More later!

Lots of love, Pam

God does a miracle!

God answers YOUR prayers! On Thursday I went to the foreign police with my bag full of plenty of reading material and a toothbrush. J The policeman that had been so nice the last time I was there called me into a room where he yelled, screamed, called me an infidel….and then handed me the paperwork for a 5 year residence permit!! Obviously he didn’t agree. J But the decision had been made in Ankara. I picked it up on Monday. What a wonderful conclusion to this long saga. I am here to obey Psalm 68:34:

“Tell everyone about God's power. His majesty shines down on Israel; His strength is mighty in the heavens.” Amen!


Gizem was not able to go to the ship but she has been promised the first spot that opens up in August/September. Remember me asking you to pray for many of those on Doulos to go to landbased teams? Well, we are now part of the answer because we will accept five “Doulos grads” in January! One will join TACO and four (with a fifth to follow in April) will become our AAA team – “Anything, Anytime, Anywhere!” Let’s see how long that lasts. They are five different nationalities and it will be quite a bit of work finding accommodation they can afford and planning a programme for the seven months they’ll be with us. Please pray. Thankfully there are others on the team who will take a lot of that load.

That’s because we’ll be having four longtermer TACO members arriving as well in January – with two interns who will be with us for three months. All this growth is quite exciting and we’re wondering what the Lord is doing. Do pray for strength. I am in Istanbul for over two months without international travel and was looking forward to getting lots done – but it may now turn to be all people time.

Dave is busy beginning annual reports for both BCC and TACO. Both may go bankrupt unless I can get caught up on finance – that’s a big request. I’m so behind in both bookkeeping as well as the financial development I need to do for the BCC. Can’t do fund raising without a good picture of where we are. It would be great if one of these new people love numbers. Please pray!

The internet’s too slow tonight for me to change the photo so that will have to wait for next time.

Have a wonderful Christmas – unto YOU a child was born – YOUR Saviour, Jesus the Lord.

Love, Pam

Dear praying friends

Oops, this is going to sound like our former printed letters – always beginning with an apology! So sorry for the delay in writing to you. It’s been a very eventful six weeks. I’ll give a quick recap so you can catch up and I’ll scatter prayer requests throughout.

October was a frenetic month of meetings and trainings. The beginning of the month found me in Mosbach, Germany for our İnternational Executive Committee meetings. We had some very difficult subjects to deal with so I was grateful to have my spirits lightened by the gorgeous fall colours! Since that meeting, the ministry of our ship Doulos will be coming to an end on 31 December 2009. This has been a big blow. It has had a devastating impact on our one Turkish recruit to our other ship in January. With Doulos’ ministry having a sudden end, there is a need to find places for the 300 people aboard and so no new people are being accepted for January. This has been traumatic for Gizem, who had planned to go to Logos Hope in October and only delayed for a few months so that she could have her 18th birthday first. I am trying to pull every string I can think of! But the best one is prayer – would you pray that so many ‘Douloids’ might move into landbased ministry that there would be room for Gizem on Logos Hope in January?

I attended the “Common Ground” conference in Antalya in the middle of October. This was five days of exposure to the “insider movement”, a contextualised approach to reaching Muslims that is catching on in Turkey. There are definitely some useful tools and the approach is sensitive and caring, something that is very important in ministering in the Mus. World. Other things were extreme, like the speaker who said “I do my quiet time just as much from the Qur’an as I do from the Bible!” Pray for me as a I write a paper for our 1000+ workers amongst M-sl-ms. I don’t want us to throw out the baby with the bathwater but I believe there are some serious longterm ramifications to some of this teaching.

I hosted a Mentoring Clinic for our workers the end of October. Only two OMers attended but it was a blessing to have many ‘oldtimers’ from other groups and even one Turkish believer! That’s us above, though I forgot to bring Manni with me so she could get her picture taken, too.

As you know, I was the speaker for the women’s conference the beginning of November. Remember me asking if some of you could come? Well, God did it and brought Beth – thanks, Beth! Besides blessing me, she blessed the whole conference by running a Creative Memories workshop. You’ll have to ask the attendees how my messages were but I certainly enjoyed the studying and preparing – I feel I could write a book on refuge now!

God also gave me fresh fodder from which to minister. As you may remember, back in July when we applied for the renewal of our residence permits, Dave was granted five years and I was denied. I have appealed and so every month go in to the police to have a paper stamped until the answer comes from Ankara. Two months ago a very nice policeman explained to me the issue was with a deportation I had under my maiden name and which our later court case did not clear. He thought it unlikely I’d be able to get residence – and thought it very likely that they’d be asked to deport me again!

While in Antalya, Dave called to say the police had come to the house looking for me so when I got back, and since it was five days before the ladies’ conference I ‘hid’ – they came twice again but I kept the curtains closed and turned out the lights whenever the doorbell rang. I didn’t think it would be good to be deported before the ladies conference! And then in the midst of this – on the way down to the ladies conference I lost my passport!! Yes, it’s true. I discovered the loss within 10 minutes of driving away from the airport but no phone call could convince them to go back to the plane to check the overhead bin where I was almost certain it had fallen from my bag. Since I had a lot of problems with the American consulate only a year ago when my purse was stolen, it seemed a very tangled mess and an interesting situation from which to speak about refuge! But God was good and I had total peace during the conference. A wise flight attendant on the way back to Istanbul told me to call other airports in Turkey because the plane would have made trips there as well. You can imagine my delight when Izmir called me a few days later to say they’d found it!

I’m currently on a plane on the way to the UK for some training meetings and a board meeting of Al Massira – my current new passion that I can’t remember if I’ve told you about but this letter is already too long. More soon. I’m determined to get this out in November. J I will “turn myself in” when I get back to Turkey so pray God turns the whole residence thing around.

Psa 68:28 says Summon Your might, O God. Display Your power, O God, as You have in the past.

Love you all,

Pam

Back in touch

Dear friends,

I’ve missed you! It’s been six weeks since I’ve written and I’ve felt the lack of connection. One reason was a great one - Dave and I had a fantastic holiday in the south of Turkey at the end of September. Maybe you followed our travelogue on Facebook! We explored historical ruins, rode motorbikes, kayaked, read Scripture and prayed together, swam, and ate tons of great food. Definitely our best vacation ever.

Life is always crazy busy in spring and autumn and this year is no different. I attended our International Executive Committee meeting in Germany two weeks ago and last week I was in Moldova. The picture above shows a beautiful skyline that is in contrast to the very stark Communist government they still have there. But at the same time there are many young people interested in mission, so I taught in a missions training course and led a prayer night about our part of the world.

While I was gone, Dave was on a TACO tour in southeastern Turkey and into northern Iraq - the first TACO tour to go there. There was incredible openness - Dustin, our unicyclist, was able to preach openly in several places and there were some huge events with over a thousand people there. Northern Iraq especially was a highlight with a clear Gospel message going forward.

The next few weeks are equally busy and I’d appreciate your prayers for:

1. A mentoring clinic that I am facilitating this week. I will try to attend myself as much as possible but things are so busy at the BCC that I’m not sure I’ll be able to. I am training a new bookkeeper and I have at least half a dozen literature projects going on, with frustrated translators because I haven’t had time to move these projects forward.

2. Our last TACO tour of the year - Dave will tour with our houseband, StoryBox. We’d love to get some small venues where good conversations can take place.

3. My messages are coming together for the women's conference in early November. I would say the foundation and framing are done but I need prayer for the drywall and decorating. :-)

4. There is bad news about my visa, but God could turn it around with your prayers! It appears that my deportation in 1986 under my maiden name has raised flags. Dave and I opened a court case against the Department of the Interior back in 1992 and won but we never thought to get this old event ‘covered’ by it. But Ankara has still not given the final word - which could mean another deportation - so I am definitely eager to have you pray for this one!

Psalm 68:17-18 says,

"The chariots of God, twice ten thousand,

and thousands more besides,

The Lord in the lead, riding down Sinai -

straight to the Holy Place!

You climbed to the High Place, captives in tow,

your arms full of booty from rebels

And now you sit there in state,

God, sovereign God!" (The Message)

Bless you, Pam

A day in the life

People often ask us, “So what do you do every day?” I’m always at a loss to know how to answer that question and last Monday was good example of why.

I got up at 5 am to be at the foreign police by 7 am. After three hours of standing in line and then going from desk to desk, I was told that no answer had yet come from Ankara about my residence permit and so I should come back again in another 30 days. Better than deportation at least. PRAY: That I would be granted, like Dave, a five year residence permit.

On the way back home via tramway and two buses, I stopped at the bank to get money for the Kazakhstan tour and then I shopped for food for dinner guests, going to a grocery store that offers a free service back home. I had seven plastic bags so that was helpful. But the driver, apparently intending to set his land speed record, clipped the end of a car in front of him as he was turning. Because this is Ramazan, the month of fasting, when everyone is more irritable both drivers jumped out of their vehicles and began to pummel one another. A crowd quickly formed to pull the two guys apart and everyone parted with no apparent blood or other trauma.

Back at home the food bags stayed on the floor for hours because I had emergency emails from the ad agency that puts in our newspaper ads regarding the new ad we are doing for the More Than Dreams DVD. We wrote back and forth for an hour until we agreed on the ad as well as payment plan - we are tripling for this month the size of the ad that we normally use.

PRAY: For amazing fruit to come from this special four weeks of newspaper advertisements!

One great thing about working at home is that you can work and cook at the same time! And it’s just as well - in between browning chicken pieces and chopping vegetables for salad - I was working with our travel agent on tickets for TACO team members for the tour in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - a combination of concerts in schools, prisons and in the open air. PRAY: For God to increase His kingdom through this month of tours in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan!

Our TACO team girls came over for dinner, together with a visitor from the US. While we were waiting for Priscille to come from her language lesson, Ashley worked with me on a logo for a new training ministry I’m starting called “Yanaş” (means - come alongside) while Michelle worked with Dave on details of the Kyrgyzstan tour (Michelle will lead that one). Then we all ate dinner, during which we had phone calls from friends in England who had recently been deported, my sister in the US and a delightful call from Raymond, a short-termer who was with us for two months and who was calling from Canada to say hi. He got to speak to five of us at once!

Priscille and Lou Ann went home, I washed dishes and then tried unsuccessfully to access the live feed of the funerals of two of our team mates who died in a traffic accident in Canada two weeks ago. Please PRAY for Lizyanet, the mom and wife, who has lost her whole family.

Dave, Ashley and Michelle went to the airport at 11:30 pm to pick up Dustin and Katie who arrived at midnight - Dustin is our world famous unicyclist and he and Katie (who dances) will be with us for seven weeks touring Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Northern Iraq. All in bed by 2 am and up again at 7 the next morning to serve breakfast and send these guys off to the airport.

An ordinary person doing ordinary things for an extraordinary God who gives supernatural results! A good example is the pic above - some of the women from our CP school. Seven women from seven different countries - South Africa, Malaysia, Scotland, Mongolia, US, Germany, South Korea - ministering in seven different countries. God is amazing.

"The Lord gives the word and a host of women brings the good news!"

Psalm 68:11

Love, Pam

Seeing God at work

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for the notes, letters and encouragement I received after my last posting. Your love and support have meant so much! God has really been doing a work of healing and I’m much better – after three weeks of a liquid diet I can now eat many different solids. I still don’t know what happened but I really appreciate your prayers! It has been a difficult time. Two of my team mates were killed in a car accident ten days ago – Lizyanet survived but she lost her husband and only child, 11 year old Rachel. Another one of my team mates has been under significant attack that has caused her to start ‘cutting’ – slashing her arms and abdomen. I could list dozens of situations that have happened to close friends recently – there does indeed seem to be an intentional attack against workers lately.

I’m in the ‘third stage’ of the three ministry commitments that I had back to back. The field orientation went very well and we were able to find a simple bed and breakfast near Ephesus where we could meet on the terrace. I enjoyed getting to know all our new recruits - it is encouraging to have new people in three new cities with more on the way!

Your prayers were answered for the Kanat camp! It was an opportunity to see God work in amazing ways. We had over 45 participants and were grateful that of the 15 teachers, most were Turks. We found that some of our brand new participants from two years ago were now the worship leaders in their church. We initiated a mentoring system this time that really increased the learning and change. Our last session of worship and communion included much weeping and repentance. Of those that stood up to give testimonies, not one person mentioned music lessons, worship seminars or creative workshops – they all testified to the new work of God in their lives. We are very grateful.

I’m currently in Azerbaijan where we have 14 participants who work in Kazakhstan, Kygyzstan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Oman. It’s a privilege to serve them. It seems to me that we are teaching pretty basic stuff but it’s the first time many of them have heard these things. The couple from Yemen – who have been there 7 years – said, “Why is this the first time we are being taught this – we needed to know this years ago!” So we are encouraged that the teaching is hitting its mark. Each participant will present their action plans on Friday – please pray that the Lord will help them to implement everything that He wants them to.

I return to Istanbul on Saturday the 29th and then on Monday I will go back to the chaos that is the foreign police to find out what Ankara has had to say about my residence permit. One of three things will happen – 1) I may be told that I can apply and will need to go back outside and fight the crowds again to get a number and restart the application process; 2) I may be told that I have been denied a residence permit and will need to go in and out of the country every 90 days or; 3) I may be deported then. I will go with money, toothbrush and plenty of reading material but I would love you to pray that God would give a breakthrough and that I will be granted the 5 year residence that Dave has. (though he keeps telling me that if I want to get a little house in Greece, he’ll come out and visit me :-))
Grateful for your prayers,

Pam

In the shadowy valley

Friday, 30 July 2009

Hello dear friends,

Come with me to some of the most difficult weeks I’ve had in my life. Though there is no end in sight, I am still grateful for them! God is teaching me deeper empathy for those that suffer debilitating illnesses all the time. I am growing in the fruit of self-control as second by second I clutch at the Lord for His grace. I am learning patience in a new way (still kicking and screaming though!) as I navigate what might be a new normal in my health. And I’m exploring some new spiritual realities. A friend asked me the other day if it was possible that a curse had been placed on me. I began thinking not of myself but of so many other dear friends that are experiencing difficult things at the moment that are highly unusual. The worst was getting news of a coworker who after months of depression and insomnia threw himself off the top of their apartment building a few weeks ago. You can go to the mosque and buy a curse. Very easy. Scripture says a curse without cause does not alight and I can see that I am being attacked in an area where I was inexperienced. Can you pray about this? This may be something as the Body we need to stand against.

On Monday it was time to renew our residence permits. We have five year permits so thankfully we are spared the experience on a more frequent basis. :-) We got to the foreign police at 7 am to find already several hundred people in line. After waiting hours we were told they already had too many for the day and to come back the next day. Thankfully they gave us slips of paper with the date. The next day we got there at 5:30 am and were 61 and 62 in line. At least until all the people with slips of paper from not just Monday but also Friday turned up. In short, it was hours of being pushed and shoved, watching fights break out but finally getting in the door. We are happy to announce Dave was awarded another 5 year residence permit but for some reason they spent an hour having all sorts of different meetings, going to the archives and then deciding that they would need to send my file to Ankara (head office) for their decision. This is not good news – but God can turn what the enemy might want to use for evil through YOUR prayers! Please pray that Ankara would agree I can be given another 5 year residence permit.

Dave was going to Lebanon yesterday for not just a tour but a new church plant amongst some of the counter culture people there. He kept telling me he was going at 11 at night but when I went to check him in there was no flight for then – it was in the morning – 10 minutes later! But what a blessing – he got a lot of work done yesterday that was piling up and went this morning to ask if he could go standby. Off he went – business class. :-) God is good.

Thanks to your prayers we have gotten the Turkish teachers we need for our Kanat camp!! We also have a good number of registrations – thanks for praying! Keep praying for the Spirit to be poured out.

TURKEY FIELD ORIENTATION (8-9 August) still does not have a venue! Izmir didn’t work out and we were offered one place until they found out we have 7 kids amongst us. So we are still looking and it’s in just over a week. We’d love to have it near Ephesus – can you pray we can find accommodation and a meeting room for 11 adults and 7 kids?

Still need to prepare for the Church Planting school. I debated canceling because of my health situation but have decided to hang in there.

I am being upheld by your prayers! And the Sovereign Grace version of “Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus” has also been SUCH a blessing to me! (thanks Renee!) Have a listen:

http://www.imeem.com/people/hX0Ft9/music/AjLY6QO2/sovereign-grace-music-oh-the-deep-deep-love/

Psalm 68 1: Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered!

Blessings, Pam