Mosaic Global Mission

We are doing some amazing things in Mosaic Global Missions – church establishing and biblical teaching in Loiyangalani, Kenya and the Masi Mara, Kenya, rescuing orphan children and discipling young Believers in Ethiopia, helping to end the misery and torture of child trafficking in the US and hosting Japanese students in our homes.  The next phase in our efforts to make a difference for the Cause of Christ takes place in San Paulo, Brazil.

How can you get involved?  We are starting teams for each of these areas and we want you to consider joining one to focus your attention on one of these areas.  Initially, we will start a Kenya Team, an Ethiopia Team, a Brazil Team and a Japan Team.

Why get involved in a team?  With so much going on, it is difficult to concentrate in any one area.  The team will allow you to do that while you learn about the culture, language, history and ministry concerns of the country you select.  Eat the food they eat, learn some of the language, and grow to understand the personalities of the missionaries living there.  A person passionate about the country heads each team, and you’ll get together regularly to learn about and pray for the events taking place in that country.  More than that, when a visit is planned to support projects or events in that country, the people in that country’s team are the primary ones considered to help.

The first team starting is the Brazil Team, under the co-direction of veteran missionary from Brazil, John Palmer and Brazilian-born Rafael Cardoso.  This promises to be a spirited team that will get you cheering for Brazilian Soccer teams and praying for the intense complications of being one of the world’s largest countries.  Contact John Palmer at jafhere@yahoo.com for more details and to sign up.

Hello guys!

Well, I am so sorry for not writing sooner but the power has been really low here in Kenya and so we couldn’t get on our computers! Ha! But, we arrived safely in Nairobi late Tuesday night. We ended up not leaving Loy until late Sunday night. Thank you so much for your prayers as we really had a good trip. It was long and the roads were rather awful in places but all in all it was fun, safe, and we had cool weather as we got closer to Nairobi! (A definite blessing!)

So while we are down we are going to be shopping, fixing up our container home, (Paul is welding right as we speak!) and eating as many fresh fruits and veggies as we can! Ha! We leave in about a week and will drive up north with another missionary family. Also, Paul’s family heads to the USA Saturday so please keep them in your prayers.

Thank you again for your prayers for our trip. We only got stuck in the mud once and were out in about 10 min. Your prayers really make a difference!

Love,

Callie

[Note: Paul’s family, Jim and Barb Teasdale, is moving to the Master’s Mission where Jim will serve as the Executive Director of the program.  He will travel throughout the United States to speak and work with churches and organizations, helping them understand what is really happening in missions and encouraging them to adopt a Biblical approach to missions.  Jim is a captivating speaker with an amazing story to tell.  If you desire to have Jim come and speak at your church, event or ministry, contact the Master’s Mission at 800-419-8618 to schedule a visit.]

Things in Sacramento are going very well. I have done some specialized training in the church to address problems of child trafficking.  This included training over 120 volunteers to be mobilized into a human trafficking prevention plan.  40 staff members from a church of about 5,000 were taught how to leverage their resources and location to prevent human trafficking in their communities.  There has been great success in networking various organizations so that there is a massive community collaborated prevention plan. Foster care, law enforcement, and community churches are really beginning to work together to solve this problem.  After doing a training in a suburb of Sacramento called Roseville, we mobilized the church to put pressure on local law enforcement to do something about the human trafficking problem locally. Law enforcement responded and arrested a man who was keeping under age children at his house for the purposes of child pornography.  I have been encouraged that the church has responded so well to all of the training and challenges.  We are beginning to make a difference!  Please pray for us and also for the politicians, law enforcement and other leadership involved.

Greetings to all,

Callie has finally recovered from the disease she had. Many of our workmen have experienced the same symptoms recently. I think it was just a bad virus that was being passed around. We are really grateful for all you prayers.

Things have been going well, and the work continues on our new church building. I have finished fabricating the main steel roof trusses, and my brother is cutting the steel for the smaller trusses as I write. Dad has found another water source for our side of town. He is working on that right now with our backhoe. It will eventually provide safe drinking water for 1/3 of our community, who are without safe water. The Lord has really blessed Dad’s effort in locating the spring. The spring was under 20’ of top soil. Pray that we can locate a spring closer to our location, so we can provide water to our mission station.

I have been teaching morning devotions to about 20 people for the past month or so. It has really helped my Swahili, and it is great to see the enthusiasm from the locals. They are there from 7:30 to 8:00 every morning during the week. Friday is quiz day and they are quizzed on the books of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, and general Bible knowledge. We also learn memory verses, as we go through a book of the Bible. Right now we are finishing up Matthew. We head down to Nairobi the 20th of August.

We will be dropping off my parents at the airport the 28th and head back to Loyangalani two weeks later. Callie will be learning Swahili, and I will be converting our 8’ x 20’ shipping container into a temporary home, so we have a place to stay while we are in Nairobi getting supplies.

Please pray for us, as we return to Loy by ourselves. Callie will be continuing with Swahili as I do the finish work on the children’s home. Callie and I will also be teaching more, and I will be preaching from time to time. Language learning is still one of our main priorities, because it is hard to be effective without it. Thanks again for standing behind us in the work that is going on out here. We couldn’t do it without you.

In Christ – Paul, Callie, and Annabelle

Many have been praying for Callie who was suffering with sickness this past week. We just heard from Callie this morning and she said she’s doing a lot better. Her fever broke last night at about 2am. She took a natural antibiotic yesterday and has been trying to get as many probiotics in her body as possible. They do think that it’s a bug in her gut and that’s why her fever was so high and why her body is trying to flush it out. She was able to sleep last night, though she’s still very tired and has a lot of pain in her stomach. But she is doing a lot better than she was yesterday. So thank you all so much for your prayers – Callie appreciates them so much!

Dearest Friends,

Well, we have survived a month! And oh my what a month it has been! There have been several VERY hot nights with little or no wind that were really pretty bad, but otherwise we have been adjusting rather well, working and getting to know the local church family.

My Swahili is progressing but please keep praying for me! One day during morning devotions I was trying very hard to listen and understand what Paul was saying. I caught a few sentences and was so excited! Then, LaSarge closed in prayer and I seriously understood about 2 words. I was rather sad and told Paul. He said, “Callie, he was praying in Samburu, of course you didn’t understand!” haha

Paul’s parents and sister went down to Nairobi to attend his brother Robbie’s, high school graduation. They were gone for about 1 ½ weeks and it was fun to get a little glimpse of what life will be like without them here. It will be rather sad!  Oh, but God was good and we really did have a good time—although it was very busy. Among other things, there were two cement pours that lasted until 3:30 AM each. Annabelle and I served the work crew goat stew one night and camel stew the other night with chapatis both times. Two sweet church ladies helped me with the goat stew. We had such a fun time trying to communicate and not let Barb’s pressure cooker explode! I have also increased in my respect of Barb who keeps her house so clean. You clean one day and the next the spiders with their webs are back! It is rather vexing!

Annabelle and I are starting to figure out the wringer washer as well. Annabelle helps me toss in the clothes and loves to be a little helper! She loves helping her daddy as well! Many times I have wondered where she is and then noticed that she is in the garage with the guys, or on the 4-wheeler or tracker with her daddy, or Grandpa Jim. Her life is good.

Thank you for your prayers. We are doing really well. Please also pray for Jim, Barb, Robbie and Jade as they leave for the USA Aug 28^th.

We are so grateful for you all.

Love,

Callie, Paul and Annabelle

Mom and Dad [Jim and Barb Teasdale] are back from their trip to Nairobi. We were busy while they were gone. We had two concrete pours Tuesday and Thursday till three AM. I have started making the roof trusses for the new church. The believers who have been in the adult literacy class are reading during morning devotions every morning. Callie has been working on Swahili classes at the same time. I also jumped right into 911 calls as two days in a row I drove several hours to get 1 snake bitten lady and then the next day a black scorpion (the REALLY bad ones) bitten pregnant lady! Life is never dull.

We are having a great time with Chuck Holton and his son, Mason, who are visiting with us for 2 weeks. Friday night there were ten camel rustlers in the area. They got in a small firefight with the armed owners. They were promptly chased off and no one was hurt. Yesterday we went fishing in our boat, and caught three 20 lb Nile Perch. My 18 year-old brother, Robbie, was with us and we had a great time using the flip video camera. When we got home I filmed Robbie eating a rather large Nile Perch eyeball. I will send you the footage when we get to Nairobi. Bear Grylls [from Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Network] would have been proud.

Oh, here are our cell phone numbers. If you call us it doesn’t cost us anything and the connection is generally not too bad. So, email of course but it you would like, please call too.

Paul—011-254-712-267-795

Callie—011-254-712-267-773

Paul

Greetings Mosaic,

Things are busy here at Loy. My parents leave today for Nairobi for a couple of weeks. Dad is speaking at my brother’s graduation at RVA.

We will stay at Loy and keep the work crews going. Tuesday we will pour the ring beam around the walls of our new church and a small second story slab connected to it. It will be a large pour and will probable go throughout the night and into the next day. The local church ladies will help Callie cook food for the work crew of 13 men.

Callie is doing great and hopes to be speaking Swahili by Christmas. Annabelle is loving life, and all the animals out here. She was head butted by a goat the other day, but she probably deserved it.

We are looking forward to having Brody and Rachael nearby.

Thanks,

Paul

Hey Mosaic,

Greetings from Masai Mara!

Tari and I are fine. We just returned from a week in Goma, Congo DRC where we were asked to represent TMM and to address the 20^th Anniversary of Lake Kivu Christian Center, the place where we served our first term in Africa. It was good to go back and see our old friends there and it was Tari’s first trip since we evacuated from Rwanda in 1994. For her, I think the trip was especially important and she got some closure on the Rwanda and the genocide. We made sure that we had time to visit the Genocide Memorial in Kigali while there. Anyway, now we are back at work in Masai Mara and are blessed to have moved into our new house. It isn’t finished yet, but it is far enough along that it is much easier camping in our new house than living in our old tin container house that has been our home for almost ten years. This month, I am working on trying to get the rest of the electrical lines pulled and plugged up so that we have electricity throughout the house. We are also hanging some exterior and interior doors. Until now we have had the exterior ones boarded up and have hung sheets in the interior doorways. Anyway, all said and done, it is coming and we are loving life and ministry, as Paul T. would say.

I wanted to say thanks to Mosaic for your monthly support. You guys have really met a need and the timing was absolutely perfect.

By the way, I’m excited to hear about the opening of Axum Coffee. How is it coming along?

Shayne