2011 January

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As we begin this new year, three powerful words come to mind. They are loyalty, commitment and faithfulness. Let me explain why and see if you can relate with me.

During the past 11 years of ministry, my journey has allowed me to cross the paths of many thousands of people. In most cases, it was only a hand shake and a few words and then on to other things.

In other instances, a brand new acquaintance sprung into a powerfully strong relationship. But even then, some of those powerful relationships, for whatever reason, fizzled out quickly. Sometimes it had to do with the fact that our interests grew in different directions or business got in the way. Other times our paths separated and went in opposite directions because of a disagreement that took place between us (these separations are the most difficult for me; I tend to blame myself and hang on to things I shouldn’t).

But then there is that other group—the smallest of all. They are the ones that hang with you through the thick and thin. They are in it for the long haul. No battle is too large and no squabble is too thick! They are called the loyal ones; the committed ones; and the faithful ones!

Having said that, let me share the conclusion of my heart: I want, first of all, to thank our Lord that He allowed you and me to cross each others path. Secondly, I want to thank you for your loyalty, commitment and faithfulness to MAP during 2010. It would not have been the same without you.

It is my fervent prayer that during this next year, God would use you and us at MAP in a greater way then ever before. Let’s stay totally loyal, fully committed and forever faithful to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. —Joe

Sometime during the month of January, we will be sending out the year end receipts to all of our donors. If for some reason you have not received your receipt by the end of January, please call our office and ask to speak with Tina Duffield.

Also, donors, with your receipt, we are going to include our top goals for the new year. About half way through the year, in July, we will send you a “Goals in Process” report. This is our way of showing accountability to you and your generous and faithful support. It’s going to be a great year, so, go ahead and take the plunge with us!

Many of you continue to ask about Uriah, who shared his testimony in the last newsletter. Earlier this month, he had the opportunity to travel from Wisconsin and visit us for several days and he told us that some of you sent him a financial gift, cards of encouragement, books and music cd’s. With the money, he was able to get his teeth fixed as well as buy clothes and other immediate needs. And as Uriah would say, “I am overwhelmed at the large size of God’s family and their generosity.”

Uriah Writes: To all the brothers and sisters in Christ our Lord, of whose birthday we just celebrated this last Christmas.

Joe thought you might want to know how I am doing. I left the Amish on the first day of Nov, and let me say this, I understand a lot of people go through what I did in leaving my family, but this does not just happen with the Amish; I received a newsletter from OPENDOORS ministry, located in a foreign land, and there are some people who get killed if they accept Christ as there Savoir. All I can say is that we as Amish have to go through so little compared to what they have to, or for that matter, Christ had to go through a lot more than we have to, just so we could have eternal life with the Father in heaven. Isn't GOD amazingly good!

I am going to a good church now and I understand the eternal salvation that we have in Jesus Christ, and that not even our best of good works can help us get into heaven.

The Bible says in Isaiah 64:6, “but we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness's are as filthy rags…”

Doesn't that verse show us that we are nothing without the Lord? And are helpless without Christ Jesus as our Savior?

God has laid it on a family's heart, here in my area of Wisconsin, to take me under there wing, as well as give me schooling and to just be there for me and to discipline me as a father would his son, which I am very thankful for.

You know, we as boys can stumble easily in this world, as can every human, but everything is going good so far.

I want to thank all who have sent me financial support and have taken the time to just pray for me and my family. I was going to send out thank you cards to every one but just didn't get it done yet. I have a job at a dairy farm, which is the same farm I got to hear the gospel at. I really like it. In ending, I would like to give some prayer requests. Please pray that God will open my family's eyes and that God would help strengthen me for whatever lies in the road ahead. —Uriah

1. Thank you for showing me how to trust in the Lord. How I have wanted to tell someone of all my troubles. I told Jesus them, but I wanted to tell it to someone who lives down in this world. So thank you for telling me what to do. I will read that letter every night. I never before had one as beautiful as that one. I love you all. And I hope to meet you in Heaven someday. Love, your sister in Christ. Student age 12, PA.
2. One of your lessons said about taking the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Right then, I took the Lord Jesus as my Savior. Student, age 10, IN.
3. I took the Lord Jesus as my Savior when you sent me these Bible Club lessons. I feel a lot better. Student age 11, IN.

4. Thank you for your time and effort with these lessons. Eric and Randy are quite proud of their New Testaments. Their Mom

   Praise the Lord He works in hearts and minds of people of all ages!

The Bible Club is a ministry to mostly Amish children across 46 states and Canada, however, we also have students in Honduras, Kenya, Belize, the West Indies and Poland. Most of our students are ages 6-16. We mail Bible lessons to the children that they complete and mail back to us. In 2010, we mailed out 68,070 lessons. We have a very dedicated staff of volunteers who grade each and every lesson, write comments on it and send it back with a new lesson. These lessons allow the children to read God’s Word and answer questions that make them think about what the Bible says.

One of the great blessings is when we receive a note from a student saying that they got saved. In 2010, we received 249 testimonies from children, stating that they have accepted Jesus as their personal Savior. Praise the Lord! Just think of what God can do with one soul surrendered to Him. This is the true goal of why we reach out to the young people in this way. We would ask you to partner with us and pray for these young people that God would help them grow in Him and live to glorify His name.

Accomplishments in 2010

1. We reached more children for the Lord. We continued to grow in the number of lessons and salvations. Secondly, God has blessed us with enough volunteers who faithfully serve Him and make reaching all these young people possible.
2. Development of a new series of lessons geared toward young adults. We have many students, many of them new Christians, who have indicated they would like to study God’s Word more in-depth, as they mature spiritually and physically. We have begun writing such curriculum and plan to start providing the first lessons in March of 2011.

How Can You Help?

If you feel lead of the Lord to help, here are several things you can do:

Pray: Pray for our staff, volunteers and students. Specifically ask God to use His word to bring others to a saving knowledge of Him. Pray that we have wisdom as we deal with those God has called us to minister to.

Become a volunteer: If you live close enough to the office, call us and we will be happy to train you in one of many positions that are needed.

Give: It costs $25 per year for each student. With God’s blessings, we have grown from sending 1,500 lessons out in 2000 to sending 68,070 lessons in 2010! Praise God!

Want to adopt a student? CLICK HERE

As you can see, the needs are great but our God has blessed mightily. He uses people like yourself to spread His Word of salvation to the lost.

As you can see in the photo, we receive hundreds of prayer requests from the students. Our teachers take the time to pray over every single request. We get together and share them along with blessings that we receive.

You would be amazed at what is on the hearts of these young people. The requests run from the humorous requests for brothers, sisters, dogs, cats and ponies to the serious matters that have never been told to anybody else. A good number of requests deal with battling depression.

Since their belief teaches them that they cannot know if they are saved, they live in a world that offers them no assurance of the future. For the most part, they are trusting in their own deeds to get them to heaven, and when they do not measure up, they live in constant fear of not being “good enough”. This is part of the reason many live in fear and doubt.

II Timothy 1:7 reads: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

What a joy it is to know Christ as our Savior and understand that we can have victory in this life and hope for the future.

This year’s Christmas Dinner was attended by 61 members of our staff, board and volunteers. As always, we had a great time of fellowship with each other. After dinner, some of our key staff and volunteers made their way up and shared highlights of 2010. I wish you could have been there. At times the stories were very funny and other times they brought tears. Throughout, and again at the end of our celebration night, we couldn't help but rejoice and marvel at all the Lord accomplished through willing hearts like yours and mine.

I Cor 3:9 reminds us of the following: "For WE are laborers TOGETHER with God..."

The following areas of ministry are 2010 highlights:

1. We send out more Bible lessons, Amish Voices and other mailings than ever before in history. All together, we send out 137,000 mailings.
2. Throughout the year, dozens of discipleship and prayer groups continued to meet on a weekly basis; I would guess that about 50 people went through the 26-week Bible study book that we use at MAP. New discipleship and prayer groups sprung up in various states, all the way out to Bloomfield IA.
3. As for the prayer meetings; every week, we pray over a list of 150 names, Amish communities and all that goes on at the ministry. For 11 years, we have prayed fervently that the Lord would awaken the slumbering hearts of our people and help them to understand the pure and simple gospel that Jesus alone can save.
4. We traveled over 15,000 miles to get to 43 churches in 8 different states. Except for a handful of seminars, we presented the MAP ministry in hopes to gain more support.
5. Eight churches either started or increased their financial support.
6. Six new churches/individuals adopted 584 households to receive the Amish Voice. Note: for $22.50 a month, you can help us get the Amish Voice into 100 Amish households.
7. Altogether, the ministry received $223,260.
8. Several young people gave their lives to Christ and got baptized. In one case, the young man looked at me and said, “I have always known about the plan of salvation, however, today I understand for the very first time that because of all the do’s and don'ts that were preached by our church, I totally missed the PURE and SIMPLE gift of God—eternal life.” Moments later, Johnny (not his real name) understood what Jesus meant when He said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”, and at that moment, he placed his trust in Christ alone. The next day he called me and said, “Joe, I have not been able to stop crying; I would like for you to come and share the gospel with my girlfriend.” While many of God’s people prayed that night, his girlfriend also gave her life to the Lord. This week, we will be doing our third ABC Bible study lesson.
9. Our family was able to take in five Amish girls and help them get Social security numbers, jobs, cars, etc. These girls came from OH, KY and MI. At this point, we have 2 staying with us. We are thankful for all the other families in the area who have taken in young people and helped them out. Later this month, one of our girls is getting baptized.
10. We brought Robert McCallum on board. He has been directing the Bible Club promotions, writing articles for the Amish Voice and Old and New Testament Bible lessons for adults. He and his wife, Beth, are involved in presenting at churches and doing Bible studies with the young people.

Is there anything better than to come along side a young couple with tons of potential? If so, it would have to be few, far and in-between. Esther and I have had the best of times with Monroe and Tiffany, and so many other young people, as we journeyed together in 2010.

We have spent time together in Bible studies, prayer meetings, a Love and Respect conference, and together, we have handled many curve ball situations that life threw at us. Here is a short testimony from Monroe and Tiffany.

Monroe and Tiffany write:

And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you. And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves. 1 Thes 5:12,13

We would like to say thank you to Joe and Esther, for all the mentoring, teaching, willingness to talk and listen. They have had a huge impact on our young Christian lives. Currently, we are on our 13th study in the ABC's of Christian Growth Bible study book with them and look forward to our next meeting.

We feel so blessed for the time they have taken to help us and are so glad they answered God's call to ministry work! May God bless them as they have blessed us!

It is obvious that MAP is at a point of needing their own counselor. In the past year, we dealt with numer-ous situations that were desperate and needed im-mediate attention. And, up until this point, we have always leaned on other ministries to help us out, however, many of the counseling ministries that work with a plain people background, are booked full for 1 to 3 years and live in other states.

After spending the past two years researching various counseling programs, we have come to the conclu-sion that “Caring for the Heart Ministries, by John Regier” is exactly what we are looking for.

In order for us to become a certified counseling minis-try with Regier’s program, we would need a minimum of $3,500 to get started.

If the Lord would lay this ministry on your heart and lead you to participate in financing it, please let me know. I would be more than happy to give you all the details.

Last month we introduced you to Mary. She came from Kentucky and is now staying with Joe and Esther Keim. Mary accepted Jesus as her personal Savior and is plan-ning to follow the Lord in baptism shortly. This month Mary wanted to share with you some of her tes-timony as to how God is work-ing in her heart.

Mary Says: I was born into the Amish and lived most of my life in Michigan. When I was 15 my father passed away on Decem-ber 22, 1997. Then on May 20, 2005 my brother passed away in a farm accident. I always thought the Amish church wor-ried more about the rules than people. The night of my brother’s funeral proved that to me. The Bishops came and ex-communicated me, that night, because I knew my brother had a stereo and we had gone to visit my ex-Amish sister. The day after that, they announced it in church. I was eventually allowed back in but was constantly at odds with the leader-ship over various rules.

In February of 2006 I left the Amish Church. I was ex-communicated and separated from my family. I had a friend who helped me leave and I was taken in by people who helped those in need. For almost four years things went well. I was working steady and taking care of myself. My feelings toward God were that He was there, but other than that, if people left me alone about the subject, I would leave them alone. I would go to church with friends, but it had no real meaning to me.

In March of 2009 I met a guy who seemed to be my friend. Unfortu-nately, he led me down the wrong path. I let my feelings cloud my judgment and got involved in a sinful lifestyle. Things finally got so bad that I just wanted to die. God, however, did not permit this to happen. I was in bad shape emo-tionally, physically and spiritually. I had no hope. I was blessed with a good Christian friend, Barbara. She would always listen to me as I poured out my heart. She was in Ohio and I was in Kentucky but she still cared and tried to help.

One day she told me about Joe Keim who is part of Missions to Amish People. Joe called and we talked. He then had Robert call me. I really was not sure, since he was a complete stranger. We started talking and eventually be-gan communicating on a regular basis. I liked the fact that he was positive. We talked a lot about God and who He was. I wanted God to take away all my prob-lems. Robert explained that I needed a personal relationship with Him. I realized that I was missing Jesus. At the time I was still in Kentucky living with friends and going to church with them. It was then I realized that I needed Christ as my personal Savior. One day in church, I went forward and asked Christ into my heart! What a change! I had been suffering from depression for so long. Now that Christ is my Savior I know God cares and will be with me always. I still have problems but I do not have to go through life alone.

I would ask you to pray for me as I grow in Christ. Robert and I are having regular Bible studies and Pastor Bouquet has been a real encouragement. I am spending a lot of time helping in the office at MAP. Please pray that I would be able to find a job. I have been looking and praying that God would lead me to the one He has for me.