July 2018 MAP Update

P.O. Box 128 | 575 US Highway 250 | Savannah OH 44874 | Office: (419) 962-1515

In This Issue

Breaking the Silence Bible Club Testimony

Reaching the Amish Before It's Too Late A Letter to the Amish Churches!

Mid-year Update, By Joe Keim

Here at MAP, we are enjoying the church groups and individuals who continually stop by to take tours of the ministry and see all that God is doing. Some have traveled great distances—all the way from Texas and Nevada. Some are long-time acquaintances, and others may have read the book, My People, the Amish, and chose to take a road trip to visit the ministry firsthand. All are welcome! We love to show off God’s amazing grace and His eternal purpose and plan in our generation. All the glory, from beginning to end, belongs to Him alone!

Community Crusade: We have been seeing signs of a spiritual awakening coming from one of the oldest and largest Amish settlements in Ohio. Many in this area are asking questions, seeking a deeper relationship with their Creator, and forsaking their man-made religion and taking up the cross. As of this writing, we are right in the midst of planning a first ever four-night community crusade. We are not holding back, knowing the Lord is moving and shaking the hearts of men. We will have more to share in the next update. In the meantime, I urge you to pray.

New Beginnings Update: We are so thankful for the faithful support that has continued to come in to help us complete our New Beginnings apartment units. This spring, we suddenly realized that we needed to raise an additional $35,000 to finish the basement, concrete steps, and excavation. Your response, as always, was immediate and generous. We are just $12,000 away from reaching our final goal. The excavation, concrete work, and carpeting have been completed. We just need to buy and install the basement doors and trim.

In addition to financial giving, we have also been blessed by all who have given of their time. Thank you, Trinity Baptist Church, for buying and hanging all the blinds! Thank you, Ryan Smith and Thomas Maki, for donating one whole month. A great big thank you to each and every person who came for a day or two, and thank you to all who prayed and gave. Your names will be written on the walls of New Beginnings.

The upper-level units are now finished and ready for girls to move in. Please contact us if you hear of single girls or families from an Amish background who need help.

Beyond Measure Market: Our general manager recently decided it was in her best interest to move on and accept another job offer, which created the need for us to find a new person to fill her position. The board met and decided to give this new responsibility to Esther Keim. She is doing a superb job of juggling her new responsibilities, in spite of the many short nights and long work weeks. Esther would appreciate prayer.

At the time of this writing, the bulk food store is being turned into a non-profit entity. In order to stay non-profit, we have to continually meet certain requirements of training and helping single girls succeed. This was an answer to prayer!

Financial Update: First, we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your faithful and generous giving this year; it has been a huge blessing to the ministry! God has certainly been at work and has been keeping us busy. One of our largest ministries is the Bible study correspondence club. In 2017, we were sending out 7,000 lessons a month, but now our numbers are over 9,000 every month. The larger cost of printing and purchasing postage has been hard to keep up with. In fact, we have not been able to keep up, and we have fallen about $15,000 behind.

If the Lord were to lay it on your heart to give above and beyond what you normally do, or perhaps to start giving as a new supporter altogether, it would greatly benefit the kingdom of God.

May the Lord bless you abundantly in return for all you have done to support and partner with Mission to Amish People!

— Joe and Esther Keim

GED Class of 2018: This year we had 23 students come into our program here at MAP! Out of those 23 students, 20 of them have obtained their diplomas! Over the holidays, I had 17 students in my classroom. It was a challenge, but also it was amazing to see them all work so hard to earn their credentials.

— Rachel Arnold

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Ministry and Family Expansion, By Samuel Girod

Greetings to you from the Girod family and our Savior above.

Something exciting happened to us on May 18: Jethro George Girod was born at our home! He weighed 9 lbs. 15 oz. and was 22 inches long. This healthy bouncing boy is our fifth child. We now have three girls and two boys. We are beyond blessed.

Although we are still making progress, we did not get our apartment completed by June, as we had hoped; we have been very busy here. An English couple in northern Indiana called us a little while ago and asked for help reaching out to their Amish neighbors, where incest is going on. The victim is hurting, of course. We have been able to reach out to the Amish family and share the gospel, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is working in the heart of this incest victim.

About six months ago I got a call from a pastor in Hardinsburg, Indiana. Their church is near a large Amish settlement, and one member especially feels led by God to have some sort of tent revival meetings or some other event that would bring in the Amish to hear the gospel. In my fleshly mind, I was thinking that it’s a waste of time to try something like that, but God let me know that I need to listen to what this man has to say and what God laid on his heart. I have no doubt that God is in this, and I am very excited to be part of it.

We are still in the planning stages, but we decided to try to have a farmers’ tent meeting. We plan to post the dates on our website when we know for sure, but we are thinking about having it the first week in August. We would allow the Amish to come and set up booths and sell their goods, and then we would preach a message in the evenings. Even if they don’t come, we want to plant seeds and give God the glory.

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building (1 Corinthians 3:6-9).

Please pray for the incest victim in northern Indiana and for the event that we are planning in Hardinsburg. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I know God is in control. We must simply look to Him and obey. I am excited to see what He will do!

Until next time,

— Samuel and Polly Girod

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Breaking the Silence, By Jonas Yoder

We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3).

We are thankful for you, our friends and supporters, who pray for us in the work of ministry, and for those who have given and continue to give selflessly for the advancement of the kingdom. Many times when discouragement tries to creep in we are lifted up by a power that is not ours, but comes from the prayers of those who believe in the ministry the Lord has given us. We could not do what we do without your kindness and generosity.

In the last update I mentioned some needs that we have for our ministry to the Amish, and some of you immediately responded by giving, for which we are very thankful. That need has not yet been fully met, but we will continue to move forward, trusting the Lord to provide.

We recently went on a trip to Wisconsin to encourage a young Amish family that is struggling through the process of being rejected by their church and family for their newfound faith in Jesus. We had the opportunity to meet and worship with their new church family, and we were encouraged by how they are surrounded by a loving body of believers. Please pray for Ephraim and Sarah as they go through the difficult process of transitioning into a new and unfamiliar culture.

If you are interested in having me speak at your church about MAP Ministry or to learn more about it, please contact me.

Thank you for your continued support and prayer.

— Jonas and Mary Yoder

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Reaching the Amish Before It's Too Late, By Joe Keim

It is very important that I make you aware of the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses are aggressively going after Amish people throughout the United States right now. This religious group is holding seminars to teach their people how to speak in Pennsylvania Deutsch, or “Dutch,” which allows them to meet Amish people and speak to them in their own dialect. In addition, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are praying for the Amish in Dutch, and they are having conferences and printing and handing out Dutch literature to Amish communities and families.

I would also like to make you aware that several other false religions are making their way into Amish and former Amish homes of people who are searching.

Today, I challenge you in two areas. First, I would ask that you would join us in prayer, asking God to stop these false-ministry outreaches and lead searching hearts to the truth. Second, we must take the initiative to do all we can to fight darkness with the Light! It is our responsibility, our generation, our turn! Jesus said in Matthew 16:19: And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

— Joe Keim

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We're Getting Soft, By Rachel Garwood

At the end of April, we sent an email update that shared some of our remaining needs at New Beginnings housing ministry. One of those needs was twenty-four pillows to stock the twelve beds in our apartment units.

We were given the advice to reach out to the My Pillow company to see if they would be willing to donate toward our cause; so we went to their main company page and sent them an email letting them know about our need. Within an hour, we received a reply from the company asking for our ministry’s address and letting us know that twenty-eight My Pillows were on the way!

We cannot adequately express the gratitude and blessing that we felt as we opened our donated package of pillows! We want to publicly thank My Pillow for their support of our ministry. We pray that the Lord blesses their company in return for their generosity!

— Rachel Garwood

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Help Me, By Ivan

Please pray for me and my dad. I'm leaving the Amish. I am currently going to a Mennonite Fellowship Church. I could never do anything right for my dad, and I want to move out and go on my own. I'm single, twenty-eight, and am a member of the Amish church. The church will likely ban me soon because I have driver’s license.

My dad is angry with me. He's hurt that I want to leave. He threatened me and condemned me and said I'm spirituality blind. It’s not easy to walk out on my parents, but I’ve struggled with this Amish church for years, and I want to live my life in the light. Pray for reconciliation between me and my dad. I don’t know if it is okay to ask for prayer, but I need help! God bless.

— Ivan

Because of you, MAP Ministry was able to help Ivan and others who contacted the ministry this year.

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Bible Club Testimony, By Nathan Miller

When I was still Amish, I did the Bible club lessons through the mail. I was eleven when I started doing them. They made a big impact on me. I used to read through them before I sent the lessons in, and they taught me something different than the Amish ever taught. The lessons gave me a hunger to go after these new truths that I was learning through the lessons. I started comparing the lessons with what I had been taught, and I saw that the Bible club was teaching the true gospel of Jesus.

So, at age seventeen I left the Amish. I wasn't really into going to church when I first left the Amish, and I sowed some wild oats. Then I moved to a different state and started getting exposed more to Christ Jesus. I went to church then, but still didn't really understand what I was going for.

Then, just a couple month ago, I really started realizing why I was going to church, and it has impacted me. I wanted to know Jesus better.

I recently got baptized, and I feel like I'm on fire for the Lord. I would like to be a part of MAP so I could tell other Amish the truth, and so they would get to know Jesus just like I got to know Him.

— Nathan Miller

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A Letter to the Amish Churches

The following letter was recently written and signed by a group of former Amish and mailed out to 10,000 Amish families in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area.

Dear Friend,

Peace and blessings in Jesus’ name.

It is with great joy and great concern that this letter is written. Great joy knowing that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins so we can have eternal life and live with Him, and great concern with the deception that is accepted and embraced in our community right now.

Our forefathers, who wrote the articles of faith while they were on fire for Jesus Christ, went out boldly sharing the Word of God to the people in their generation. They wrote the articles of faith around the time when many villages and towns were being turned right side up for God. Now we see people getting excommunicated from the Old Order Amish Church for doing these same things that our forefathers were doing (the ones we call the Oldie). Holy-Spirit-filled men and women are being shunned for helping in prison ministry, going to prayer meetings, attending Bible studies, and doing the works of God. How can we expect to be a light of Jesus Christ if we do these things to each other?

How do you think this great abomination sits with our Father in heaven?

If you have excommunicated or are shunning someone with the life of Jesus Christ inside of them, then you need to REPENT! You just put God out of your midst. Saul, who later became the apostle Paul, thought he was doing God a favor when he was persecuting the early church, but Jesus said you are persecuting Me (Acts 9:5). Jesus wasn’t okay with that kind of religious behavior then, and He is not okay with it now, either! In Haggai 1:5, God says to His children, Consider your ways. They were off course.

Recently, a brother in Christ (Aaron), was at the funeral of his grandmother. There were approximately eight preachers that ended up preaching throughout the whole day of the funeral, and Aaron agreed with everything they taught and preached; but later in the day, they wouldn’t eat with him. That grieves the heart of God. How do you expect to eat at the same table in heaven if you hold unforgiveness toward born-again Christians while we are living together on earth?

We are asking you to quit agreeing with this demonic spirit that is trying to divide the Body of Christ. If Jesus lives in your heart, then you should eat and fellowship with others who have the Spirit of Jesus inside them, also. (Don’t be double minded.) James 1:8 says that a double- minded man is unstable in all his ways.

If you are reading this and you never were truly born again, and if you are becoming upset as we speak, then you need to REPENT and give your life to Jesus Christ so you can have eternal life and experience the glories of heaven when you leave the earth.

If we want to see the Old Order Amish people free from sexual immorality, drugs, alcohol, gossip, and child abuse, then we need to follow God’s Word and His ways and not man-made religion. Culture is not all wrong, but putting it before God makes it an idol (idolatry).

In closing, we are asking that you REPENT from SPEAKING OUT, OR AGREEING, to the cutting off of peace and the wrong use of the Bann and Meidung over Christ’s people. Repent so that you can experience heaven in your life, receive an eternal reward when you leave this earth, and be free to experience the joys that God has available for you. Together, we can let Jesus Christ shine forth out of our lives like our forefathers did.

God is releasing His Holy Spirit and is calling the Body of Christ in this generation to unity and to walk in unity. As the body comes together, multitudes of people around you that are walking in darkness will see truth and be saved from going to hell. We humbly ask that you pray and seek the Lord concerning these concerns. Will you choose today to make a difference for God?

Psalm 133:1: Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

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