Help Repair a Ministry Center in The Philippines

Liebenzell Mission USA missionaries Tess and Ethel are two of the most dedicated missionaries I know. (You can click on their names to read brief bios) Both of them ministered in Micronesia, but moved back to their home nation to minister in a

rural area of the Philippines.
I'll let Steve Stinnette's (Pacific area leader for Liebenzell USA, and decades-long friend and colleague of these women) letter tell the story. In brief, their community, including the home and center where they minister was just extensively damaged by Typhoon Pepito.

Read more below. Steve's letter has information about how to help these women reach the modest goal of receiving $4,000 in donations to repair the damage to their ministry center and motorcycle.

The goal of raising $4,000 is so doable and will make such a difference. Pray for these ladies and their community in the Philippines. Give, if the Lord moves you to do so.

HM

Here is Steve's letter:

Typhoon Pepito blasted its way across the island of Catanduanes in Bicol, Philippines, this past weekend, where Liebenzell missionaries, Tess Ngiraiwet and Ethel Laco, live and minister. Tess and Ethel report that there was no loss of life on their island, but that there was extensive damage throughout the entire island community. Even the house and Ministry Center where they conduct evangelistic outreaches, Bible studies, children’s ministry, and Sunday morning worship services lost half of its roof. Their new motorcycle with sidecar, called a tricycle, was also damaged. Almost every tree in their garden, which supplies a large amount of their food, went down. Local government officials estimate that it will take up to 6 months for power to be restored. Tess and Ethel walk to town to recharge their phones and to communicate with others as needed.    Pray for them as they join the community in cleaning up. Pray for opportunities for them to minister to people. Pray the Lord uses this situation to open hearts and draw people to Himself by granting saving faith.    Pray also for $4000 needed to replace half the roof on the Ministry Center, repair their tricycle, and install a solar power system so they can begin ministering to people sooner.    If the Lord leads you to contribute, please click on this link (https://lmusa.org/give/pacific-rim/) to give to the Pacific Rim Ministries Fund. Follow the prompts and on the next page, under Additional Information, put “Philippines Typhoon Relief.”   Thank you for your prayers for Tess, Ethel, their ministry, and the people of Catanduanes.    In Christ,   Steve and Anne

July Ministry Report

 Dear Partners,

Thus far 2024 has been a full year of ministry opportunities.

·         Howard began the year with a trip to Zambia. Please pray for the missionaries there. The drought is having a huge impact. Praise the Lord; we received a report of a number of students at Amano Christian School professing to trust the Lord. Howard spoke at the school’s staff retreat.

·         In March Howard represented LMUSA at the Biola University Missions Conference. He also spent time with LMUSA missionaries George and Prisca Shakwelele.

·         In May Kathy and Howard returned to Guam where we spent extensive time with LMUSA

missionaries and other partners. Kathy spoke to a gathering of ladies. Howard also participated in the Pacific Islands University two-day board meeting. He was appointed as a member of the Board. Howard also spoke at the Founder’s Day event at the mission HQ in NJ.

·         May and June contained graduations and a wedding. Lots of good family time.

·         Howard is involved with several other missionaries in providing leadership to our missionary endeavors. A smaller group is working toward offering local church missionary conference type events, Network Z. Our goal is to help and support churches in having a greater global impact. If you want to find out more, please write.

·         In addition to these mission-related activities, Kathy and Howard continue to minister in an interim role at Woodland Church near Fincastle VA.

Future plans include:

•       Participation in a Member (Missionary) Care conference, next month.
•           Our hope is that Network Z will actually become a reality this Fall.
•       Howard will be representing LMUSA at a missions conference at Columbia International University.

A word about the difficulties that missionaries face:

Many things that we take for granted in the USA are uncertainties where some of our missionaries serve. Our colleagues in Zambia are living in a time of drought. Not only does this impact food production—in particular for the indigenous population—it also limits the availability of electricity. Zambia depends on hydro-power. As water levels go down so does electric generation. It’s just one of the difficulties that these precious servants face. We can’t raise the water level, but we can elevate encouragement.
A number of our missionaries are traveling over the next six weeks or so. Please pray.

We thank you for your support and encouragement. Please keep us in your prayers. If you are in our area. Please stop by. We’d love to see you. Please continue to pray as we seek to minister to those who are reaching.

I’m including two donation links below. One is for our account. The other is for a project that supports the infrastructure of our mission. Your generosity has enabled us to continue our ministry without dipping into the mission’s general fund. Our home office staff is mainly dependent on that general fund to keep serving. Click the link to find out more.

By His Grace,

Howard & Kathy

 

https://lmusa.org/give/general-fund/, https://lmusa.org/give/hk-merrell/

PS: The picture has nothing to do with this letter. It was just too cute to pass up. 😊

Here is a publication our mission just sent out. The editor was kind enough to include my article about trust.

 Here is the latest edition of around the world. It contains several items that may be of interest to you.

Click here.

HM

June Ministry Report

 Dear Partners in Ministry,

A number of encounters and observations over the past few months of ministry have impressed me with an essential component of any endeavor that involves teamwork, trust. Kathy and I are very aware that you extend trust to us. We don’t take that for granted. Thank you.

One of the ways we encourage our Liebenzell family is by hosting a Zoom meeting once a month, every second Monday. At our June meeting we’ll be discussing how to encourage greater trust between team members and partners. Pray that we can help each other.

The second half of May, Kathy and I were busy. May 17-18 we were at the Mission’s headquarters in

Schooley’s Mountain, NJ. We participated in a weekend in honor of Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary to China who was the inspiration for the start of Liebenzell Mission. It was my privilege to be one of the speakers at the event. Here is the handout that I gave to the guests. While there, we reached out to one of our missionary couples who serve at headquarters. They are dealing with a serious health issue. Please pray.

On Sunday, May 19, we drove to Newark Airport and left for Guam, where we served for four and a half years. Our time in Guam was full. Our colleagues there have had a lot on them in the recent past. Hebrews 10:24-25 speaks of “stimulating one another to love and good deeds,” and “encouraging one another.” The two main things we did while in Guam was encourage our colleagues, often that took place over a meal. Encourage and eat.

Kathy was the speaker at a ladies’ luncheon. I was involved in the two-day Board Meeting for Pacific Islands University. The recent typhoon and other matters have been tough on the school. You can read more about it here. I have been appointed to serve on the

Board. Please pray that I and the rest of the Board can be an encouragement to the new President, Ian Richards. Pray for all of the personnel at Pacific Islands University.
(The picture is of us enjoying breakfast with the chair of Biblical Studies at PIU, Iotaka Chorum, and his wife Vivian. In addition to his academic responsibilities, Iotaka is teaching a non-credit program for Chuukese pastors and other leaders. He is teaching the classes in his first language, Chuukese.

While on Guam we attended the funeral of a good friend and colleague, Dr. William Wood. We were able to spend time with his wife Christel. Kathy spent time with a good friend whose husband had just died. On the way home from Newark, we attended another funeral. It was for Barb Schuit, the wife of the former LMUSA Global Ministries Director, Bill Schuit. We arrived back in Covington on the evening of May 30. Our Lord counseled us to work while it is day.

It is a privilege to minister to these servants of the King. Praise the Lord with us, for this opportunity, you help make possible.

On a personal note: We’ll be in South Carolina the end of June. One of our granddaughters is getting married. All of our family and two of Kathy’s siblings will be there. We’re taking our camper down for an extended time with family.  

Thanks for your partnership in our ministry.

 

By His Grace,

H&K

An opportunity to invest in a good institution

 I don't normally use this blog for fundraising, so let me say up front, "this post is about fundraising." I'm not making an appeal for funds for Kathy and me, though a report and thank you note will be in another post soon to be posted.

So, if you aren't interested in reading a fundraising note, now would be a good time to surf elsewhere. Do so with my blessing and thanks.

As most readers of this blog know, Kathy and I have invested a significant chunk of our lives in the ministry of Pacific Islands University (PIU). PIU is not operated by Liebenzell Mission (LM), though it was founded by LM and maintains a close relationship with the mission. Kathy and I serve with LM.

A combination of integrity and lack of space prevent me from going deeply into all of the causes for this, but PIU is in a difficult situation.  A couple of reasons I can mention are the devastation Typhoon Marwar caused to the campus and the ongoing deterioration that a tropical climate brings to buildings and equipment. As the former defacto maintenance director on the campus, I can speak with some authority about the latter. You can see some pictures and read more here.

When I was in that maintenance role, I noticed that it was important, when things were in the process of deteriorating, to reverse that momentum. Even if the upward progress was small, it was significantly better, for morale, than watching the campus rot, erode, and be blown away. A significant step forward that the school made was taken not long before I went there to serve as President. The installation of a solar panel array on the library roof not only brought a significant saving in utility costs but also enhanced PIU's position in the community as an institution that was helping to care for the vulnerable environment of Guam. All the public generation of electricity on the island is by diesel generators. Solar power makes great sense in that isolated tropical island environment. 

The two entropic forces I mentioned, above left the solar array inoperative. Currently, the school does not have funds to repair the system.

The new President of PIU, Ian Richards, is raising funds to restore the system and continue the repairs that become necessary from those relentless forces. The figures President Richards was given indicate that the money invested in repairing the solar-power system (some of the repairs costs are covered by warranty) would be paid back in utility savings in less than three months.

If you are willing to join Kathy and me in investing not only in fixing a broken solar system, but in helping President Richards to reverse the downward momentum in campus infrastructure, please visit the site I mentioned above, https://lmusa.org/give/piu/. Funneling funds through the fund at LM will make your gift totally tax deductible and allow LM to assume the clerical work of responding properly to your donation. (Truth in advertizing: LM uses 10% of project donations to pay for their administrative costs.)

Whether you invest financially in the project or not, please invest time in prayer. While Kathy and I were on Guam, I had the opportunity to talk to a graduate who had been in a couple of my classes. He and I had used some COVID relief funds to build picnic tables to maximize students being out in fresh air during the days when the virus was spreading. My friend was rightly pleased that our tables had survived the storm. :) He is currently working at the school, as part of the Student Development Team. He told me about his brother, who is teaching school out on one of the "out-islands" of Chuuk. I used to call this guy "my cousin" because he had a gap in his teeth, like me. I'll call these brothers "M and M." They are what it's really all about. Micronesia needs young servant-leaders who, M and M, teach and encourage from the viewpoint of a Biblical worldview. 

That's a power far greater than what is produced by a bunch of solar panels.

Thanks.

Handout from HM's Session at the LMUSA Founder's Day Celebration

 LMUSA, An Ongoing Heritage

Here is the book I spoke of.

You can get a free copy at
https://archive.org/download/cu31924023067972/cu31924023067972.pdfx

Here are some other resources that will help you learn more about Hudson Taylor and how Liebenzell Mission USA is a part of his heritage.

Here is a brief biography of Taylor published by Christianity Today:
https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/missionaries/hudson-taylor.html

Here is the link to the History of LMUSA from our website (Note, this page needs to be updated. LMUSA currently works with around 55 missionaries).
https://lmusa.org/gm/history/

Henry and Anna Zimmerman were German missionaries to China, serving with Liebenzell Mission. They and other LM missionaries saw their lives and ministries disrupted by cataclysmic events of the mid-Twentieth Century. Those events, tragic as they were, provided the catalyst for what is today Liebenzell Mission USA. Anna Zimmerman wrote an account of the first sixty years of Liebenzell. The story led to this property where we are meeting today, but it hasn’t ended here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hq--wkZofBdUelfrmgRlrb2v1hvTj2bQ/view

Read results of a 2023 study that indicates how little American churches invest in missions. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/where-do-missions-dollars-go/

I know all of these links are difficult to copy. Here is a one-stop link where you will find a digital copy of this document. That way you can just click on the links that interest you. If you want, you can look around on the sight and find out more about what Kathy and I are doing with LMUSA.

 

Some Questions for Reflection:

·         Think about the way Hudson Taylor uses the word “claim.” Does this apply to us today? If so, how?

·         What resources do you have that you could invest? This question goes well beyond material possessions, but it includes them.

·         If you regard LMUSA as a worthy agency, how can you help us further the work that Taylor helped us start?

·         Many of you are faithful supporters of LMUSA.
Have you thanked the Lord for that privilege?
Will you commit to encourage those servants who are serving, often in difficulties we don’t know about, with a simple card or letter? If you don’t know how to do this, get in touch with me. I’ll be glad to share some ideas.
Can you follow in Hudson Taylor’s footsteps, by advocating that others join our team as prayer-warriors, supporters, or goers? One way to do that is to suggest to your church that they host a “Network Z” conference at your church. Ask Chris Matthews for more information.

 

I’d love to help you help. Feel free to get in touch.
Howard Merrell, 2106 S Carpenter Drive, Covington VA 24426
hmerrell@liebenzellusa.org, (540) 620-8429

Note: We’ll be leaving Schooleys Mountain to be on Guam for most of the rest of the month. The phone # won’t work there, but I will be checking email.

A Heads Up on Where We'll Be and a Request for Prayer

 As I said in our last newsletter, Kathy and I are very thankful for the support that our partners offer. This, and Divine blessing, is what makes our ministry possible.

We leave Covington in the morning, 5/16.

We'll be participating in an event at our mission headquarters, see here.

We fly out of Newark 11:30 AM, 5/19.

5/22 & 23, Howard will be part of the PIU Board meeting

5/25, Kathy will be attending a ladies brunch hosted by the ladies of Faith Church where we attended while living on Guam. (This might change because of what is below.

5/25, 11:00 we'll be attending the memorial service of our friend and colleague, Bill Wood. Howard has been asked to act as the LMUSA rep.

The 27th we'll be part of a gathering of the LMUSA missionaries on Guam.

We'll be visiting with and listening to our missionary colleagues on Guam, and reaching out as opportunities present themselves. Included in this will be reaching out to a dear friend whose husband recently died. We'll miss his memorial service by one day.

We fly back on 5/29.

Use email or facebook to contact us.