Greetings from Southern Spain! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. As usual, ours was full of America's Finest enjoying the holidays with us!
Today, I want to share a little about life and the ministry that takes place because of your prayer and financial support. We could not be here without you and want you to know that we are extremely grateful for the sacrifices you make on our behalf.
Our ministry is multifaceted and spreads out from Spain to Korea! I oversee the Korea field as well as our Hospitality ministry here, so I thought it would be appropriate to share some stories from Korea and Spain to give you a good idea of the value of your investment here and beyond.
Grab a hot drink and enjoy God's stories!
Camp Casey South Korea:
"A New Christmas" from Mike Martin (back left)
Reading the book "Nothing to Envy" and discussing it with a pastor, challenged me to find ways to volunteer in Korea. After contacting a volunteer organizer and getting approved to begin, I started going to the Great Vision School in Uijongbu. This is a Christian charter school that serves around 30 North Korean refugees seeking their GED so that they can go to college or get a job. I go there once weekly and teach English a couple of hours, have lunch with them occasionally, and participate in events with them when I can bring soldiers.
The photo shows the group of students and soldiers who celebrated Christmas together. What an experience for the students! This is the first Christmas of this kind for most of them, I am sure. At this time last year some of them were still in North Korea and this kind of opportunity and demonstration of love from complete strangers-American soldiers, at that-was unimaginable.
I felt much love and gratitude towards each of the dear people who gave of their time, talent, prayers, and finances to make this memorable Christmas for these kids. No doubt it will be a bigger event next year and we'll have many new faces to join us, both American and former North Korean.
This may have been my most memorable Christmas as well!
Osan Air Base South Korea:
This ministry is run by Michael and Jonna Payne. This was their first Christmas serving those stationed at Osan AB. They sought to make this a special time by opening up their home for an overnight on Christmas Eve for all who wanted to stay over. The next morning they got up early to feed them all breakfast, enjoy a gift exchange and then host a house full of people for Christmas dinner. The Paynes run a thriving ministry to single and unaccompanied airmen in Korea. Please pray for them as they labor among our military personnel.
Rota, Spain:
Our desire in ministry is to love people well by teaching and living the Word, and for them to catch the vision of doing the same. The following is a testimony of one of the young men in our ministry who has since returned to his bride in the States. He caught the vision of opening up his life and home to those around him. As you may know, my prior military service was in the infantry, and this young man is a Marine infantryman, whom I really enjoyed getting to know. In a recent letter, he wrote: (shared with permission)
"Sorry it has taken me a while to give you an email. Sarah and me are getting settled in now and are used to seeing each other everyday and it is refreshing. For Thanksgiving we had about 34 marines over for dinner. Our house is small, though, so we had to break it up into two nights. Then last night we had 13 marines over for Christmas dinner. I know how it feels to be away from home, especially on those two nights, so we figured that it would be good to have marines over who were alone. Also on Sundays, I invite marines to come over for breakfast and then we go to church afterwards, then we have lunch. So far I have only two guys who come regularly on Sundays; I might have a third soon. I would like to thank you for all of those times when you had me over to your house. It was always refreshing and enjoyable. It put a spark in my heart to be giving and inviting with what God has given me, and I hope that it has an impact on those who come to my house."
One thing we know for sure is that the military community is very dear to God - and to us! It is our desire to impact the people God sends us by opening our home to them and providing a place of refuge from military life. We long for this to be a place where the Word of God is faithfully taught and lived out in front of them. We are so grateful that God has allowed you to come alongside us on this journey. Support Update: We have lost significant support over the past year and need additional monthly supporters to help bring us back up to 100%. If you do not currently support us, would you prayerfully consider joining our team? Will you also share our common love for the military community with others, whom God may add to our team? We want to thank you again for making this ministry possible.
If the Lord leads you to partner with us all gifts can be sent to Cadence, simply put a note in with your gift stating it is for the Groves family. Our account number is 10553
Cadence International
PO Box 1268
Englewood, Co 80150
Prayer requests:
Pray or our military and their families. This is a very stressful career full of separations and uncertainty. The military is changing, and not always for the good.
Pray for us, our Korea staff and Cadence as a whole that we will be effective in reaching our military for Christ and equipping them to serve Him.
This Christmas season marked our fifth and final Christmas in Spain. (We will let you know more about our future plans with Cadence soon. I hope this will cause you to wait with great anticipation of future news from us!) Pray for us to finish strong in Spain and trust God as He lays out our future ministry.
Pray for additional monthly supporters. We are currently $2,000 a month down from 100%.
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Thanks for reading this far! We appreciate your friendship! Love in Christ -
Lanny Joe, for the Groves family |
