1st Newark Update

6 Jan. 2009 (Newark, NJ)

 

To my brothers and sisters in our dear Lord Jesus Christ,

First, I am writing to thank those of you fell to your knees so readily when Asa and I called out for help today and those of who have been praying for us all a long. We could not do this on our own. We are so grateful to God and to all of you for you prayers and support that you have so generously given us. It is our prayer, that through praying for us and supporting usa, that you would in turn be blessed. I was pushing back tears of joy seeing how many of you quickly and joyously responded to my call for prayer. I thank God for you.

Second, I am writing to give you an update of the work God is doing here. Over this past Christmas with the help of many supporters we were able to feed around five hundred people at our Christmas party, as well as giving away nearly five hundred gifts. It was a huge success which we are thankful that God was able to use us to bless so many families. The battle here between good and evil is still raging strong as ever. The devil has been using many different attacks to distract us and keep us from doing God's work. The church has been broken into three times since thanksgiving by some of the very kids who frequently come to the church for our help. He has stirred up dissension between our brethren. He has plagued us with sickness. The last couple of days Pastor and Danny and his wife have been so sick they’ve had difficulty getting out of bed. His wife, Kimberly, is seven months pregnant and they have two kids DJ and Trinity who have also been sick. Due to Danny’s sickness Asa and I have had to step up and try and run the after school program. Yesterday a fight broke out between three of people, in front of the kids, unfortunately those trying to handle it lacked the wisdom and maturity to do so and it threw the program into complete disarray and into the laps of Asa and myself. Thankfully God did send us a team of four college guys who have been helping out this week. Without them we would have had to shut down the program. Thanks be to God for always giving us strength equal to our challenges, and not for challenges equal to our strength. In James 1: 2-4 I have found encouragement:

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Third, I am writing to ask you for more prayer. We may very well be running the prayer on our own the rest of the week and whether we are or not your prayers are needed. Below this letter I will be putting a list of things that we would ask of you to pray for. Please keep them in your daily prayers as we daily pray for all of you. Let us all work together whether it be in Newark or Seattle or anywhere else, we all serve the living God and unite in prayer that the generational curses of the families here will be broken and that there would be a revival in the city of Newark and that countless souls would call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and seek to live under His Glorious reign.

In Christ,

Joshua Halinen

Prayer List

·      For the health of Pastor Danny Iverson, his wife Kimberly, their children, and their unborn baby.

·      For unity among our Christian brothers and sisters.

·      For the community to respect the House of God here in Newark (Trinity Reformed Church).

·      For theft to stop.

·      For strength, both physically and spiritually for all those working here.

·      For the after school program (SHAQ).

·      For the high school youth group (Crossover).

·      For the middle school youth group (Crossover).

·      For the high school retreat this coming weekend at Lake Champion in upstate New York.

·      For the peace among the gangs.

·      For the kids to respect those in authority.

·      For us to love the kids wholeheartedly.

·      For all the kids, and families of our community, that they will be developed for God’s glory spiritually, physically, mentally, and socially.

 

P.S. I will try and get a list of names of kids so you can pray for each of them individually.

Six Months Turned into Six Days

Bogota, Colombia

23, September 2008

By Joshua Halinen

Being alone in Colombia is a nerve-racking thing at times. I arrived in Bogota 2 days ago very excited, but once the taxi driver dropped me off a block from my destination, the United Church of Bogota, he pointed me in the wrong direction. The horror stories from friends and family began to re-enter my memory. Sweat formed all over my body. With a 50-liter pack on my back and a large duffle bag thrown over my shoulder, I was drenched within 5 minutes in the cool weather.

After about 10 minutes of wandering I began to ask everyone, well not everyone, I avoided the people who looked at me like I was a crisp one hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk, but I asked everyone else where the United Church of Bogota was. Which consisted of me pointing to the name of the church and the address directly below.

United Church of Bogota

Carera 4, #69

I became frustrated when each person I asked pointed me in another direction. The air was getting cold, my cough was getting worse, and my forehead burned. It didn't help that the little Spanish I learned in high school and college wasn't coming back to me. I recalled sitting in high school classes just before the teacher handed out a test. They'd say, "if you cheat, you're only cheating yourself." Now as far as other subjects go, I'm not sure that even to this day I believe them. However, at that moment I knew my Spanish teacher was telling the truth. Unfortunately, back then I didn't know I would travel South America alone.

The last man I asked, who looked to be a guard, I chose one of the few without a machine gun, responded to what I pointed at by asking, "hotel?" and after I answered "no" several times I don't know what else to say. Then he asked "iglesia?" I suddenly felt stupid for not saying that earlier. It was a word I knew. I took Spanish at both a christian high school and college, but it was only bits of Japanese and Finish that came to me. Even when I thanked him I nearly said, "kiitos" before I said "gracias." To my pleasant surprise I was only a 20 second walk to the church, which the guard was happy to walk me too.

The first day I was still riding the high of being in a new country to do what I'd been waiting to do for so long, to write. But the next couple of days I began to feel sick. And it wasn't the traveler's diarrhea I got from drinking the tap water. It was the feeling of being alone on a continent where I couldn't communicate what I needed to. It was that and the fact that the FARC and the guerillas were ambushing policia in the hills and bombing busses. It was nice to know that Colombia had lost it's trophy for having the most kidnappings to Iraq, but I was skeptical that Colombia's kidnappings had actually gone down. I though it more likely that Iraq's amount of kidnappings had just gone up. These among other reasons were what kept me indoors most of the first few days of my trip. Sure, I could think positively and say, "out of all the gringos in Colombia it would be unlikely that I'd be chosen to kidnap" but then I thought, "well how many other gringos have I seen?" However, I think the most frightening thing to me was what Pastor Box, a long term missionary to Colombia and the pastor of the United Church of Bogota, told me when I first arrived. He told me about a type of drug thieves use in order to rob people. The drug is a powder that they simply blow or throw in your face. Once breathed, the victim is hypnotized to do whatever they say. Usually they simply suggest to the victim that they should go to an ATM and empty their account. The rest is self-explanatory. My six-month trip through South America turned into six days in Bogota. So advice to those who want to travel South America, if you don't speak the language, don't go alone. And to 'he that hath an ear, let him hear' the warnings of lady wisdom.