V2H February 22, 2016 Update

AWAKEN 2016 LOGO FINAL

 

 

 

 

Over the last week, here are a few things things that have happened. Thanks for your continued prayer and support of Vision 2 Hear.

Valentine’s Day Everyday.

Vision 2 Hear El Salvador hosted a Valentine’s Day event in Suchitoto to celebrate love with the people of Nuevo Renacer. Complete with decorations, gifts and food, everyone enjoyed the festivities made possible by the love of Christ through His people. We are so happy to be able to partner with Vision 2 Hear El Salvador as they continue to demonstrate the love of Christ to those in the mountains of El Salvador. Here are a few pics of the heartwarming event.

The Movement Moves

TN MovementAs many of you know, The Movement, a church ministry of Vision 2 Hear, had been praying about securing land and a building to formally organize. Growing out of the storefront location over the last two years, The Movement had been packing about 60 people in the tiny space.
Through lots of prayer and “only God” moments and connections, 12717688_10207420691094249_8416725333321148262_nThe Movement was made aware of property of a church that was going to dissolve but wanted to give their church property (building and van) to another church in need. The Movement filed paperwork to become its own church and has now become an official “church” in Tennessee under the pastorate of our good friend Terry Davis. Vision 2 Hear and The Movement will still serve together in future ventures and we are excited to see all that God does now that they have launched with their own ministry. Continue to pray for The Movement and church as they make renovations and preparations to impact the Chattanooga area even more with the love of Christ! Congrats to everyone at The Movement and praise God for His faithfulness. If you are in the area and want to visit or join, come to 6739 Levi Road in Hixson, TN.

Awaken India

2016-02-19 07.32.44Right now I’m in India and it’s been a jam packed first week. I’m just now getting adjusted to the time change, which may have been a little easier had I not had a full 24 hours of no sleep due to a bug lodging itself in my inner ear! It’s fine now so no worries. Here’s a summary of the trip so far.
Leaving Atlanta at 3:15pm on Tuesday I traveled for about 29 hours to Hydrabad. With a stop in New Jersey and a little delay, the trip as a whole was what I expected. I even got some fairly decent sleep on the plane which is not usual for me.
I was warmly welcomed on Thursday morning about 6am by Pastor Rajendra and his wife and daughter at the airport and off we went for a 4 hour drive to Vijayawada. As we drove we spoke about upcoming events.
We stopped for some breakfast at a jammed packed rest stop complete with Baskin Robbins and Subway among other local fare. It was a welcome sight to get some food My stomach would recognize. I had a little subway sandwich and of course the others had some Indian cuisine.
After getting to the house and settling in the next few days played out with early 5am prayer meetings. We met for an hour of devotion and prayer and then took about an hour to exercise and get into shape. One of the things that is essential to me staying on top of my game is to make sure I push myself in the area of physical training regardless of where I am. It’s nice that Rajendra wants to join as well. So we have been having a daily boot camp of training.
After exercising and breakfast we then had meetings at 10am-1pm and took rest after lunch until the evening meetings from 7pm-9:30pm which really meant 10pm haha. This was the structure for Friday and Saturday. There were a good amount of people coming to the meetings. One very special lady attending the meetings had heard about them through the TV program Pastor Rajendra does daily and decided to travel 150km to be with us for the three days of meetings. Wow, what commitment!
DSC_0072The weekend ended with several meetings as is usual for Pastor Rajendra. We had a prayer meeting at 5am then church at 8am and 10:30am and then we had lunch. We departed at 3pm to make a church service by around 4. Pastor Rajendras brother spoke at one location and we went to another. We all came back to have the final celebration services which went from 7pm-10pm and then a huge feast afterward. The last service was packed with people literally sitting on the floor in the aisles.
It wasn’t long after the final service ended that I snapped a few pics of the people in the streets and then I went to bed. I was exhausted from the travel, exercise and no sleep the night before from the bug incident. I still don’t know what crawled into my ear but I had been asleep about an hour before being rudely awaken by hearing and feeling something deep inside my ear.
Immediately jumping up, I tried to extricate it with my  fingers, q-tip and of course just shaking my head. I eventually got the spray shower and blasted it into my ear hoping to drown whatever was there and expel it from the canal. This ordeal went on all night until everyone awoke for the prayer meeting and I got some ear drops to apply as a final resort. My ear seems to be fine, a little popping seems to happen when I swallow but I’m sure all will be fine in a day or so.
It’s Monday here now and I’ve had a nice long sleep. Aside from being a little sore from the workouts and travel, I’m doing well. This week we have the conference for two days which will involve all day sign sessions, along with some Bible studies. For the end of the week it will be a little more planning intensive as we meet and prepare for the summer. We will also discuss further the radio station and plans for launching that in the summer too.
The orphans are doing well and growing up quickly! It’s wonderful to see them happy and in good health. All the churches are doing well also and send their greetings. Thanks for your prayers and I’ll update you again next week.

India Awakening 2016

Awakening IndiaHaving just returned from El Salvador and had a great trip, we are now planning for the next leg of the mission tour to kick off the 2016 year with the trip to India.

The V2H WAVE Team of India just celebrated their 1 year anniversary on Christmas Day. It was a wonderful time to check in with them via Skype and teach them a couple of new songs and share in the festivities of what God has done. It was also about a year ago, Mike Liebler and I were there hosting the WAVE conference for them, pouring into students and adults, teaching them songs and Bible as part of our ministry.

 

The time has come now to make the trip back and host the 2 WAVE Conference: AWAKENING and teach them new songs, disciple more students and prepare for the summer camp in August. I am looking to generate about $1500 for this trip to cover travel, the WAVE Conference with supplies, and bring some of the donated school supplies to the orphans. Would you help me get back to India and encourage our sister ministry there? If you would like to help in this effort, you can make a tax-deductible gift through paypal.com

Thanks so much for your generosity and love!

George

Vision 2 Hear Update January 11,2016

awaken 2016 logo

 

I’ve been in El Salvador for several days now. It’s been a great trip thus far. From spending time with old friends to making new ones, Vision 2 Hear is off to a great start for 2016. Here’s some of what’s been happening.

Before we even left from the USA, we were already excited about being able to offer this trip for Angela Lowe, a college student from Messiah College in PA. She found Vision 2 Hear online, actually looking at 2016-01-04 10.01.15sign videos from YouTube. Needing to have a cultural “deaf experience”, she contacted me to see if there was any way we could help. With El Salvador being the primary place we have ministry with deaf people, we were able to work things for her to be part of this trip and spend the required days she needs in order to graduate on time. If this didn’t work for her, there was a very good chance she would have to postpone her graduation until December…So we praise God for His mighty power and the use of the internet to connect us so that she could benefit and help us in ES. The first time we met was at the airport in Atlanta.

Even though the plane was delayed several times, the overall trip wasn’t too bad. But we were basically awake with travel for about 24 hours.  We were met at the airport and made our way to San Salvador, discussing possibilities for the week. Angela is here to learn about deaf culture and interact with the deaf primarily and I am here to assist with teaching music for the WAVE Team, which is primarily made of deaf students, preach at a church, host a couple of meetings and plan for the summer.

2016-01-04 16.13.41-1We plan to disburse the school supplies to several groups of people since the primary school we were going to give them out at has closed down. These school supplies were collected from Christ Fellowship in Palmetto Bay last October while I was there for Spiritual Emphasis Week. We brought down three suitcases of glue, pens, pencils, markers, etc. and still have more to bring back in June.

Because the school were going to go to has closed down, we thought we would have the students all deaf, along with their siblings come over and spend time with us at the mission house. So for three days last week they came over and we worked on music, signing songs, playing games and watching Netflix. They have loved it. Most of the don’t get to do things like this, so it’s a big deal for them to be able to come and have fun and build community as well.

As we met and talked about the things that happened with the closing of the deaf school we explored the idea of having the students meet at the mission house for some of their educational needs. It was a wonder to me why couldn’t we do this? So after talking a bit and finding out what the real problems might be, we decided to move forward with using the mission house as a temporary location for these students to gather, learn, continue their education and get tutoring on the weekends, until they find a different location sometime in the future. School technically is just starting back so the timing is perfect! God knows what He’s doing! Because we were here, I was able to use some of our ministry donations to help provide the chairs, tables and school supplies they will need to use this facility. We give God praise for what He’s doing!

2016-01-06 12.11.20 2016-01-08 14.26.47

 

Another thing that is really coming together is the work Daniel is doing with several children teaching them English and of course sharing the gospel. These kids all live in the area where Daniel grew up and are faced with gang-related violence everyday. If you didn’t know, El Salvador has about 40 people killed each day!!! We have been supporting Daniel with his college education and now he’s investing in the lives of others. We are very pleased to see and hear of all he is doing. He’s given me a budget and we are going to have the Love Feast Fundraising event on Valentine’s Day weekend, a 30-hour fast to generate some funds for his program.

love feast promo

 

 

 

I was able to get a filling for one cavity while here, which was a huge blessing as I had started to feel some pain and discomfort from it. Also one of the local church plants had me speak and share the message yesterday, which was very well-received.

Last night I met with some of the Vision 2 Hear El Salvador staff and a couple of missionaries from Oregon who support the work here. We had a great open and honest talk about the future work in Suchitoto, which is growing tremendously. Some of that work includes helping with water irrigation, discipling families by providing special meetings for men, women and children. Jorge and his whole family are deeply involved in this work there and they have seen God’s hand moving in people’s lives. So please keep that ministry in your prayers. They travel to Suchitoto twice a month for programs. Only twice because it’s a couple hours away in the mountains.

So that’s a quick update with what’s been happening here. Thanks for your prayers. Another update to come soon!

George

2016-01-07 21.19.18 2016-01-04 16.35.18 2016-01-08 17.02.08 HDR

 

 

Korea VBS Day 1

Several children and students from the area attended the VBS English Camp we held yesterday. Along with games they did some praise and worship along with a message, presented in Korean. They made a passport and filled in their information then went through some different stations where they learned about American culture and practiced English sentences and vocabulary based on those stations: Hotel, Airport, Restaurant and Shopping.

Nicaragua Mother’s Day Event

The Mother’s Day event for Padre Ramos was a huge blessing this year. With over 150 moms attending and about the 100 children, the camp was packed with people on this day. We served hot dogs, played games and honored the moms in the crowd. A few ladies from the team shared inspiring words and challenges to encourage them to continue striving at being godly women and influencing their families for Christ. Here are a few pics from that day.

Nicaragua Day 1 2015

A few pics from the beginning of the trip. More to come soon….just busy with travel and can’t get them all loaded. thanks for your patience!