Special Ops Bus

Everett has been busy working with CRI on retrofitting an old school bus with equipment to be a Special Operations Bus for CRI.  We’re in a major thrust right now to have all our equipment ready to roll by the end of the summer to function fully self-contained in the midst of a disaster. Check out the link below for a peek at the Special Ops Bus and what Everett has been up to.

Special Operations Bus

An Update from Carissa

Hey everyone!

Wow, I wish all of you could be experiencing life here in Mozambique with me. I can’t say in words how much joy it brings me to wake up every morning to the African birds and hearing all the iris kids getting ready for school. There is something about being constantly dirty that is so freeing too. 

Though its not going to be as good as being here, I hope my email gives everyone a small picture of life and my time here in Pemba, Mozambique.

Lets, see..where to start. First off I want to thank everyone for all your prayers, wonderful emails and for the financial support. I am COMPLETELY amazed at Gods provision for me while I am over her. Thank you so much for the love you’ve poured out to me! Also, I want to give a shout to everyone and say happy 4^th of July! Classes have been absolutely amazing, all the people that have come to pour into our school have been spectacular. Some of our teachers have been..well of course Heidi, then David Hogan, Randy Clark, Paul and Cheryl Black, Bob Ekblad, and several amazing missionaries from here in Mozambique and other parts of the world. Its so humbling to have these people take their time and effort to train come train us up to be laid down lovers and are part of sending us out to bring in the harvest.

I feel like I’m learning so so much here. I feel like my sight is shifting from the way I see people to the way God sees them. The other day I was sitting with some people and some of the street vendors came up to us and tried to sell us over priced chocolate. Here the only way to rid yourself of the street vendors is to completely ignore them. I was a little set apart from the group so I just sat there quietly and watched the vendors. The more I watched the more my heart ached for them. It was probably around nine at night and here are these kids, they were between 10-15 yrs old..nine at night begging us to buy over priced candy form them. I wanted to start crying. Now these kids are usually out all day doing their rounds with their sweets. I hurt because they were just kids, they had their childhood taken from them to make a way to live. I wanted to know their story, where do you live? Where dose the money go that you make? Do you get to keep it or dose it go to some mean man that lets you have a semi-safe place to live and gives you a bit of food once in a while? Do you have parents? The youngest kid looked tired and like he just wanted to go to bed. I wanted to give him a safe place to be, make him a yummy supper, let him take a bath and send him to bed. Some of the guys with us started playing ninja on the beach with them. The vendor boys beamed with joy. They laid down their chocolate boxes, threw off their shirts and wrestled ninja style ill everyone was exhausted. It was like a little childhood was given back to them.

I think that we (I, whoever) makes ministry into such a big deal. Its not. I don’t even know if the guys from my school realized how much joy they were bringing the vendor boys..how much they ministered to them and gave them back parts of their childhood that were lost. I only realized it because I was sitting and observing it all.

Ministry really isn’t about doing the whole mission trip, evangelism outreach etc. Its such a valuable part of it yes..but the longer I’m here the more I see that its really about stopping for the one. What if the guys in my school would have just gotten fed up with them constantly asking for us to buy stuff and did then walked away. An opportunity would have been missed to do so much more that buying chocolate…instead they brought a little bit of Jesus to them.

When ya think about it like that it really makes it more simple…but I can already see its so to effective. I’ve been praying God to show me who to stop for. Sometimes its one of my classmates, sometimes it’s a village kids, Iris kid..whatever..sometimes I miss it too..i can think of a time or two that it had the opportunity to be a God moment, but I had other plans that I wanted to get to. But I’ve just been asking Jesus to show me who to stop for, what His plans are. How to help, what to say.

Something else I’ve been excited about is getting involved with Iris doing roof repairs. A couple weeks ago Heidi Baker came up with the idea to patch church widow’s roofs. I went to the village with a team and re-built the bad side of the widows roof. Right now its dry season, during rainy season she will be so blessed to have a roof that isn’t leaking over her head. I had a blast you guys. It was crazy, since we were in the village I had to wear a skirt. So I had my Capri pants with a skirt over the top and was on the roof putting new grass down. I’ve helped with roofing before, but never laid grass and NEVER had to do it in a skirt! : ) After we were done patching we prayed for the widow and blessed her house. She was absolutely beaming. She was completely overjoyed by her new roof.

I wanted to tell you guys that because of the support money you have given me, I was able to funnel a hundred dollars of that to help buy supplies for the widows roofing. You guys have been a part of giving the poor widows here in Pemba a dry place to be. I can guarantee that they will be thinking about us all when it gets to be rainy season and they are all cozy and snug in their houses. You guy have blessed them so much! Thank you for what you are doing here.

Also, I wanted to share something Heidi said the other day. She told us that our tuition a bug portion of our tuition money went to feeding the kids here at Iris. Their daily diet is a cup of sweet tea and sourdough bun in the morning, beans and rice at noon and then rice and some type of topping at night…chicken fish mutapa, cabbage….well you guys were part of feeding them. Thank you so much! These kids are amazing people.

A couple weeks ago my color group went on outreach. That was so good. We went with Mozambique pastors, it was so cool to see them lead out in the outreaches, and be right in the mix while we were praying for the sick. During the outreach we saw lots of salvations, people with poor hearing could hear better, headaches were healed. It was a lot of speaking destiny into many many people. I love being out in the bush with the people there. Though they have such a hard life, they possess so much joy.

Oh, I almost forgot…dad a deed a! The akunas (white people) won the soccer game against the makuas (Mozambique pastors) this last Friday. This was a very momentous point in the history of Iris Harvest School 10. Before Friday we played two games against them. We claimed this last Friday as Resurrection Friday..that our game was going to rise out of the dust and we were going to dominate and intimidate. Well, we did. We won 3:1!!!! It was SO exciting!

Much Love,

Carissa

June Update

We’ve stepped out of the whirlwind long enough to bring you this timely update.  “Timely?” you may say with a hint of disbelief… hardly. Well, we apologize. Things have been developing faster than film in a darkroom, so hang on and smile, you’re in for a quick snapshot of all the Marsh’s have been up to.

The Great Geographical Shift

After several months of uncertainty from the collapsed local economy and not even a hint of work, we were left searching the Lord for answers as to what we were to do.  We had an extended season of prayer and fasting, and God miraculously made a way for us to purchase a house to rehab in Kansas City, MO where our daughter Stasha currently resides.  We soon discovered that God had more for us in Kansas City than we imagined.  We were looking at a short-term solution, but He had a much larger picture in mind.

But let’s back up even further still. Before landing in Kansas City, Janet and Hannah went with Siren Assembly of God church on a mission trip to Monterrey, Mexico. We did door-to-door evangelism where we led several people to the Lord.  Our team hosted five church services in four days where dozens of people were saved. We also worked on a construction project, visited an orphanage, and gave away hundreds of pounds of food and about two dozen hand-made quilts to the poor. Hannah broke through fear in a major way when she gave her testimony in front of 150 people. This was Hannah’s second missions experience, and she found a love for the poor of the earth, especially the children.

Shortly (as in one week!) after returning to Wisconsin from Mexico, we embarked on our journey to Kansas City.  Upon arriving in Kansas City, we became involved with Crisis Response International (CRI), a ministry we have been connected with for about a year.  The next three months consisted of:

• Five tons of debris in a 40-yard dumpster, twenty-five cans of paint, 200+ hours at Home Depot, midnight journeys to pick up Craigslist finds, dozens of sandwiches for work crews, endless wireless and plumbing issues, many sleepless nights and achy body parts, and one newly refurbished house a block and a half from the International House of Prayer
• One life-changing CRI training where Everett, Janet, Stasha, Hannah, and Abby became certified responders to deploy with CRI in case of natural disaster and two newly obtained positions as CRI staff
• One drastic shift from quiet country homeschool life and running a small business to a fast-paced, action-filled, schedule-shifting, hair-raising life on a busy city block that required buying a day planner. Through it all, we’re experiencing Jesus in a brand-new way.

Suddenly, we’ve run smack-dab into what’s been in our hearts all along: we’re all missionaries.

In the midst of all that, Stasha has moved in, Carissa visited twice, and we’ve obtained a roommate from Norway, Åse. We love Åse like one of the family. Her time with us has been a beautiful gift. We’ve also been blessed to host a parade of friends and strangers  from Hawaii to Massachusetts to the Carolinas and beyond. We also squeezed in a trip to Wisconsin and a day at the zoo, much to Hannah and Abby’s delight.

As CRI staff, we are finding our niches.  We are prepared to go disaster sites and offer food, water, search & rescue, first aid and pastoral care.  In the meantime (when we are not responding to a crisis), we continue to support the daily functions of the ministry. Janet is working as an event coordinator and Everett in logistics.   Janet will be heading up the disaster relief training in Madison, WI this August 27^th -29th.  We are working toward training and equipping thousands of volunteers across the nation to respond with CRI and bring His Kingdom to those affected by disaster.  We currently have invitations from 10 cities and are developing strategies for taking training on the road.  Janet is also on a team working on personal and community preparedness that will culminate with a Preparedness Expo later this winter.

Everett has spent countless hours building the Mobile Kitchen Unit (MKU) that will enable CRI to self-sufficiently feed hundreds of people per day in a disaster. He has many tasks ahead of him in getting equipment prepared to use in responding to a disaster.  This will allow CRI to set up a base camp that will house the CRI staff for weeks at a time without relying on the public utilities that simply aren’t available when disasters hit.   Everett has also been able to use a host of practical skills he has developed over the years: all aspects of construction, survival and outdoor living skills, even basics like compass and map reading, and he was able to teach the search and rescue portion of our last training.

Hannah and Abby are enrolled this fall in The Daniel Academy, a school that combines private Christian school with homeschooling. They are excited and a little scared too.  But they are looking forward to learning new things, having some extra help in their hard subjects, studying things Mom doesn’t know much about, and most of all, making new friends.  We are so thankful for this opportunity for the girls.

Stasha is still on staff at the International House of Prayer. She’s getting to do her dream of using business to serve the missions movement. She uses her background in marketing to serve the marketing departments of four different ministries, including IHOP-KC. Her life is pretty exciting, but this update is long, so we’ll catch up on her in a subsequent update.

Carissa is currently in Mozambique, Africa at Iris Harvest School of Missions. She left at the end of May and will return in August with pictures and stories to tell. She was chosen to participate in a medical outreach in ‘the bush’ of Mozambique this past week.  They treated many people for a variety of ailments and infections.  Best of all, Carissa got to introduce 2 people to Jesus.  One was a Muslim woman. We don’t have many more details right now, but she said it was such an amazing experience she could have gone home to the USA right then and been completely overjoyed and satisfied with the trip.

As we hear from her, we’ll post it on our blog. Just prior to leaving for Africa, she finished her degree in Wood Technics at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College and began work on the prerequisites for Paramedic.  Her dream is to use her training in medical missions.

We would like to ask each of you to both pray for us as we serve God’s purposes here in Kansas City and also to consider partnering with us by financially supporting us on a monthly basis as Crisis Response missionaries.  Also, please keep us posted on what is going on in your life.  We would love to hear from you.