Monday, April 1, 2013


Newsletter February 2013              ICH on Mission in Guadalajara, Mexico

Thanks to the Lord for the HUGE blessings and opportunity we experienced already this year!  He connected us with new friends a few months ago, Carlos and Sandy Rios, who have been serving as missionaries with TEAM as church planters in Mexico for 12 years. (Thank you to our friend and colleague Linda Gill who operates “Joy in the Mourning” Life Losses Center in Lexington, S.C. for this piece of “Divine networking”.)    Their love for the people of Mexico definitely rubbed off on our team!   

Our time of ministry began with a 1 ½ hour drive from the Guadalajara airport into the beautiful countryside to The Rock Bible Institute.  This campus is situated on a hillside and offers seminary classes during the school year, retreats and camps during the summer.   We got to know and share our teaching with 50 eager students as well as a group of 20 from several local churches. 

Our ICH Team consisted of Mike and Maria Saeli, ICH missionaries in Nicaragua, Arleen Jennings, Professional Christian Counselor and the two of us.  We always are in awe of how God blends the gifts and abilities of the team members to accomplish the work He sets before us.  We were so touched by the openness of people as we shared our teachings on the subjects of God’s plan for life and death, coping with a terminal illness, the dying process, walking with the grieving, children and grief, practical comfort measures in the home and sharing hope in Christ in the face of death.   Many attendees told stories, some with tears, from their own lives and family experiences with death and grief.  This personal connection we are making with the people is so important!  To quote one of the seminary students, “Before you came to teach us this workshop we did not understand what people are facing during the end of their lives.  We did not know what to say or what we could do to help.  Now we know and God has helped us so we can help others!”   

Carlos and Sandy continued to take very good care of us as we returned to the city, Guadalajara, and stayed as guests in their home.  They promoted and scheduled our hospice workshops with local Bible Churches and even got us all there on time!  Not easy in a bustling city of 5 million people.  Thank you also to Marisio and Anna for their hospitality in housing part of the team.  Pastor Toledo who leads Iglesia Biblica de Guadalajara (IBG) opened his church and his vehicle to help with logistics also.  What a blessing to worship our Lord on Sunday morning with other believers and to be allowed to share ICH teachings in 3 services!  Throughout that week we held 5 seminars between 2 churches with approximately 300 people attending.  At this point we must say a special thank you to Carlos who stood with us and translated every teaching session, and also to Sandy (our cook, hostess and organizer) who helped to improve our written Spanish training materials.

As always, we feel the highlight of our ministry is meeting people in their homes.   Pastor Toledo and the Rios arranged for our team to visit with 3 families.  The situations they are experiencing are challenging and touched our hearts deeply.  We were given permission to share their stories and also ask you to join us in praying for each of them. 

Marta is a new believer and attends IBG.  She is diagnosed with HIV and leukemia.  Her older sister, Margarita, has breast cancer.  They are the matriarchs of a family of 2 young adult daughters and 6 grandchildren who all live together.  Marta nor Margarita are able to work and spend their limited energy caring for the children.   Daughter Lucy is a believer and tries to bring all the family to church as often as possible but they live 3 bus connections and fares away.  Travel is expensive and they are poor.  We were honored that they ALL came to the church on Saturday morning to meet with us and share their story.   We were able to spend individual time with the children and adults in grief counseling.  The BEST outcome from that morning is that Marta’s 3 teenage granddaughters chose to follow Christ as their Lord and Savior!   Pastor Toledo assured us that the ICH training we brought to his church will be invaluable to them as they organize a hospice care team to minister to this and other families.  Please especially pray with us for Marta’s daughter Kelly (and mother of 2 of the teens) who is heavily involved in drugs.

Marcos is a deacon at IGB church.  His wife Mary gave birth to a baby girl, their fifth child, 8 days before our visit to their home.  It has been a tumultuous and emotional 8 days for them because the baby was unexpectedly born with many defects and is not expected to live.  Mary and Marcos are exhausted with trying to be at the hospital neonatal unit and maintain a family at home not to mention all of life’s other responsibilities and pressures.  What a precious time of hearing them tell their story and also express their faith in God amidst this tragedy.  As we chatted we touched each child in the family and said “You are wonderfully made and God made no mistakes in your life.”  As we embraced we quietly reminded Mary of this same truth.  God made no mistakes with the new baby either!  How comforted we all felt as Pastor Toledo read Psalm 139, especially verses 13- 18 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb…I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;…my frame was not hidden from you when I was made …your eyes saw my unformed body.“  

Rogelio and Irma, an older couple, smilingly welcomed us into their home.  Rogelio has been battling cancer for several months and admitted that he tires quickly these days.  We sat together listening to Irma and him sharing stories from their life together and their family.   The discussion came around to how he would prepare his family for the time that he would die and leave them.  Rogelio had given this much prayer and thought in his “private time with God.”  It was a gift from God to openly discuss his concerns with us.  Irma and his brother listened tearfully but Irma was able to spend some time talking privately with our team member, Maria Saili, to voice her fears and concerns.  Pastor Toledo read more verses from Psalm 139, “All the days ordained for me are written in your book before one of them came to be.  How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast the sum of them…When I awake I am still with you.”   Before leaving we joined hands and hearts in prayer then sang “Yes! Jesus loves me!”

This is only a glimpse into the experiences of 3 families from one church body in one city in Mexico.  Just think how many more people throughout the world, most without hope through faith in Christ beyond death, are in need.  In our ICH seminars we teach other believers about the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of dying.  We also teach practical ways we, as everyday people, can help people through this time in their lives.  Wherever we take ICH we hear people say that they are so thankful to have the information and see God’s plan for helping those who are so often forgotten.

 

 

Opportunities

Mission teams to Central America in August.  Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.  Contact us for details if you are interested in going on a trip.

Prayer and preparation for future work in Mexico. 

Prayer for the Saeli’s ICH work in Nicaragua.

Prayer for LaVerne Busbee ICH work in South Africa. 

Prayer for the Banis’s ICH work both in the US and abroad.

Prayer for Ron and Susan in ministry management as well as ministry travel in the US and abroad.

 

Thank you to those who are partnering with ICH in prayer and also in financially supporting this work around the world.  May God bless your lives richly with His grace, peace and presence!

 

Serving Him with you,

Ron and Susan Naish

Directors of International Christian Hospice


803-781-0656

 

Tax deductible donations received at:

ICH

c/o Rich Banis

303 Madison Heights Dr.

Marshall, N.C.  28753