TIME Travelers: 2013

Greetings Brothers and Sisters in Christ!
With this update we return to the blog. It's been awhile since we've used this resource but since we still have it listed on some of our contact material we figured we should update it every now and then. It's a challenge figuring out which method is best for communicating with all of you. From in-person visits, to email to pdf newsletters, blogs, videos, and Mail Chimp, it's a challenge to keep up. The Lord is doing so much in our lives and here in the Dominican Republic it's sometimes difficult to set aside the time to communicate. We've heard that missionaries should spend at least two days a month working on communications with their partners because of the investments in the ministry, both prayer and financial, that those supporters have made. You, along with the Lord, are key to the work we do here, so let's get to it!

Visiting our home church, Indianola Heights Evangelical Free Church

Speaking of in-person visits, it's hard to believe we've been back in the DR for a little over a week. As we
mentioned in our video update a couple weeks ago, we had an opportunity to visit relatives, friends and churches in Minnesota, Iowa, Texas and Florida. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and sharing the ministry, although we never seem to have enough time. Thank you to all who were able to make time to visit with us in various venues, and we apologize to those of you weren't able to connect with this time.

Foundation Love Your Neighbor

We arrived back in country on October 10 at 9:30am and just a few short hours later received our first group at the TIME Center. You may recall the Foundation Love Your Neighbor group from this past summer. They returned with another group from Georgia to partner again with Pastor Ramon Soto. This time the group was staying with us on what we call a "service group". Instead of building a chapel, we housed them and provided meals. They conducted a VBS program at a camp a few hours out of town and then returned to conduct a pastors discipleship meeting where over 80 pastors and wives met and shared a meal in the TIME Center. It was a blessing to have them and a blessing to be able to use our facility to it's greatest potential. (more photos below)

First Federated Church

On Saturday of our first week back we also hosted a group from First Federated Church from Des Moines, IA. You may remember they also sent a large group this summer to work with Pastor Carlos at Pica Pica. This group was considerably smaller, consisting of nine people, but was no less effective in ministry! Their primary goals were to conduct training for the Sunday School teachers at Pica Pica, sports ministry for the youth, and construction of a wall to divide one of the chapels into two rooms. The team was also able to construct some benches for use on the TIME Center's new roof pavilion. It is such an encouragement to witness an American church partnering with a Dominican church long-term and we pray that others will be led to make similar partnerships! (more photos below)

What's Next
We will begin meeting to formulate a 1, 3 and 5 year plan for the ministry. Please pray with us through this process. Anyoly Figueroa, our hospitality coordinator and wife of site director Noe, will be conducting a women's conference later this week. The theme is "Clothe Yourselves with Christ". Pray for a good turnout and lives to be affected. We will also be hosting TIME missionary Robert Scheele again. Robert's construction background helps us with periodic visits to the Monterrey and DR site. He'll be here for two weeks and we'll try to get some of those things fixed up that we never can seem to get to! In November, we'll also be hosting a high school group from Ovilla Christian School, TX, who have been faithfully serving the DR for many years. We have a busy schedule ahead!

Residency
We met with our lawyer today and it sounds like the first thing we need to do for our residency process is get a medical exam to prove that we don't have any communicable diseases! We will need chest X-rays, blood and other tests. We hope to get those done this week, please pray that things will go well.

Financial Support
We continue to marvel at how the Lord provides for our needs. The last time we set a goal for increasing our support level, we were overjoyed at how He provided through His people. We have met many of you since we set our last goal for financial support in the spring of 2013. As a reminder, all missionaries at TIME are "faith-based" supported, meaning we do not receive a salary from TIME. We are dependent on what God supplies through his people each month. It is through you that we are able to continue in the ministry here. As Americans we seem to respond so much better with goals and deadlines. With that said, we feel led to propose another challenge. Our current committed monthly support stands at 65%. We would like to set a goal of reaching 80% by January 1, 2014. That could be seven supporters at $100/month, 15 supporters at $50/month, or 30 supporters at $25/month. We ask that you prayerfully consider joining our team! If you'd like help, simple navigate to timeministries.org and click on "ways to give". Fill out the form online and select "Anderson" from the drop down menu. Thanks for your consideration!

Praises

A rewarding time of home assignment. Paul traveled wonderfully, thank you for your outpouring of love!
A good week of readjustment returning to the DR and two awesome teams to work with.
Continued good health for the family
Funds for the repair of Noe's truck, but please pray as it is difficult to find parts here, we may have to have them imported which can be a challenge.

Prayers

Upcoming women's conference
Residency process to go smoothly
Our 1,3,5 year planning process
Continued growth of our financial support
For the quick sale of our home in Des Moines
Interns and teams for 2014
Cindy's wedding ring is missing. We're not sure if it got misplaced or slipped off her finger somewhere. Please pray that we will be able to find it.