Vision Ministries Amazon Missions Update-Our New Blog!

January 14, 2013; Vol. 6, No. 1

The Missionary Minute

Principles & Perspectives of Missionary Practice

Breakdowns & A New Blog!

Dear Friends,

Well, we're a week late getting this out to you. January is always our busiest time of the year, and things were complicated a bit with the breakdown of our boat motor right after Christmas. There's a lot to catch you up on, so this monthly edition is a bit lengthy.

Before I jump into this update, let me pause and say thank you for all the calls, emails, and special offerings we received in and around the holiday season. It was great to hear from so many of you.

His for the Harvest,

Missionary Joe Barraclough

The Missionary Minute is a periodic e-letter sent free to friends and supporters of Vision Ministries International, the missionary ministry of the Barraclough Family. The purpose of the letter is to communicate the activities of our family in missionary ministry to foster partnerships in prayer.

Vision Ministries

the ministry of

The Barraclough Family

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Address for Correspondence and Support:

Vision Ministries

PO Box 429

Neosho, MO
64850

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Quick Links:

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Quote:

"Happiness comes not through selfishness, but rather through serving."

JungleJoe.org

Announcing Our New Blog!

In December I worked on getting a new website up for our ministry, www.junglejoe.org to keep you better informed of our ministry. Since the middle of December, I have been adding blog posts which include picture slide shows, narrative, diary journal entries, reflections, praise reports, prayer requests and even some audio. This is a great way for us to communicate in more detail about our ministry here, so please get the word out about our new site. If you are a Facebook user you can 'like' our site, or you can go to our Facebook ministry site (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vision-Ministries-The-Barraclough-Family-Missionaries-to-Peru/121596345361?ref=hl) and share it with others in your network so others will know about the work.

Christmas with the Tribes

This year was the first year that we had planned activities during the Christmas holidays in the tribal villages

With the Harakmbut we had special Sunday services with two days of children's activities, ending with a festive time of fellowship on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Day we awoke to beautiful sunshine and the children were excited to break into their stockings. After breakfast we packed up to arrive by noon with the Shipibo tribe and enjoyed Christmas Dinner and lots of fun and games. We were served special tribal food and drinks during the week leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Day that we have never had the privilege of trying before. I'm amazed at how well the Indians have received us and how well the children did in ackward food moments. You can read more about these events in our blog posts.

Barraclough Family Update

Family Christmas

We were very blessed and humbled by so many that gave special Christmas offerings that made Christmas special. I was able to purchase a nice full size mattress for my wife as a surprise gift. All the children kept the purchase a secret for a good long while. The mattress didn't arrive until the 29th of December, and when the truck arrived at out home, Judith was genuinely surprised and couldn't stop "complaining" to the children that they kept 'Daddy's secret. And you were part of that provision and secret! THANK YOU!.

Becca's Big Day

On January 8, Rebecca celebrated her 4th birthday. She was very proud to be 4. She told the older children that she was four now and didn't have to listen to them anymore and was big enough to wash dishes. Perhaps the most amusing thing was that the following morning when Becca woke up, she came and wanted to celebrate her birthday again--because she was still four years old. A great piece of logic!

Thank you so much for your prayers for our family! We hope your Christmas season was wonderful and God blesses you greatly in this new year.

A Special Thank Your Huffman PCG

We really appreciate the sacrifice of time and energy from the members of Huffman PCG, who folded, stuffed, stamped and mailed our newsletters in December.

We send out over 1,000 printed newsletters at a time, and when we are out of the country this is a considerable task for which we seek help. The congregation of Huffman PCG has now sent out two newsletters for us, and we want to express our gratitude to them for their help.