Hello Everyone!!!

We are sending this out to let you know that we are headed out to China on a mission trip from Oct 27th until Nov 20th.

It is exciting to see how the Lord is bringing both of our previously single lives together and sending us out to help.

When I (Graham) was on the tropical island of Hainan, China during 04-05, I was visiting a village with another missionary. As we were walking around, an old man was following us and finally stopped us and asked us if we would come help his son. We said ‘Sure’, thinking that he wanted us to teach his son English or something. We entered into a village house and came upon his son who was laying on a bamboo-slat bed. He had a tree fall upon him and was subsequently paralyzed from the waist down. They rolled him over to show us his bed sore that was about 9"X5", full of mold, dead flesh and was so deep you could see his bones. Having very little medical training for this type of thing, we told him that we would come back the next weekend with a nurse and more people to help. What we could give him, we gave him. The gospel. To which he promptly replied, “If your God heals me, I will believe in Him”. We gave him an eternal perspective on things, prayed for him then began coming back almost every weekend.

Things were provided for him - a washable pad for his bed, a wheelchair, a system for which he could pull himself up to sit up-right and training for him and his family on how to care for his bedsore - even boiling water in order to kill bacteria. We also gave him the Gospel and various Bible studies - praying for him each time we came. Eventually, Paul (We dubbed him this - as in Paul Bunyan) did receive the Lord along with his wife, 2 kids and parents. I believe this was attributed to seeing God’s love lived out consistently. He was healing up well, but not totally. After I left China and came back to the States, the missionaries there moved Paul to the missionary house in the city where there was air-conditioning, a soft bed, daily care, a close proximity to the hospital and a much more wheel-chair accessible life. Since then, this is where he has been living and growing in his faith - going through various studies conducted at the house there.

After a time, Paul’s bedsore had been healed, but he was a little down because he could not provide for his family. Back in the village, they have their own rice paddy, vegetable garden and animals which they grow, harvest and live off of. Paul is unable to help with this work - let alone even get around the tropical jungle village in his wheelchair. In the city he tried to get a job with some other physically handicapped people which consisted of making works of traditional Chinese art. Lets just say the conditions were deplorable and he was paid literally $1 per day. This left Paul feeling very depressed about this whole situation.

Sam and I were praying about going to China and what we could do there. Through a variety of ideas and situations, we felt the Lord leading us to go and help Paul. As you know we work with leather - rebinding and recovering Bibles. We also make leather-bound journals, but the price point is just too high to make the journals viable besides it is not being our main ministry. We believe God gave us the idea to go and teach Paul how to make leather bound journals and set him up with all of the necessary tools.

The concept is this: Paul makes the journals - which cost much less to produce there. We import them from him, then provide them for youth groups, missions organizations, Churches, Christian schools, etc.... as fund-raisers. We are not looking to make money off of this. We want it to be a ministry. The purpose is to give Paul a way to provide, so we want to pass on the profits to him. Lets say he can produce a journal for $15 including the materials, his time and shipping/customs. We then would take a bunch of journals to a Jr. High pastor looking to raise some money to take kids to summer camp. He could present these to the congregation and sell them for $30 per journal. That means half of the money would go back to provide for Paul and half of the money would go to the youth group for their camp and people would get a hand-made, quality leather-bound journal for $30.

This is the vision we believe God has given us and the direction we are stepping out in.

We are also hoping that this will be a great testimony of God’s love and truth to people there in China, including those in the village that God puts an incredible amount of personal value on this man Paul, who, in a Buddhist/Communist system would be considered worthless and a write-off.

We need a lot of prayer for this - everything from finding the supplies/suppliers in China, to the cost factors, to all of the logistics on this end and especially the things that go on in the Spiritual realm.

PRAYER REQUESTS

Please pray:

~ First, that GOD may be glorified in all we do, say and think.

~ That as we go, we would be filled with the Holy Spirit and fulfill that which He has sent us to do.

~ That we would be able to find all of the tools, equipment and supplies there in China that we need - especially the leather.

~ That Paul would grow closer to the Lord in this, be able to provide for his family and that others would know the love of Christ through him and his situation.

~ For our physical safety, strength and support during our time out there.

~ For our personal preparation and walks with the Lord and each other. As we have already experienced much warfare, may we recognize it and walk in a humble love with our Lord and each other.

~ That the Lord would do all he wants in and through us in this trip out there.

~ That we would be a blessing to all we come in contact with.

~ For divine appointments.


Thank you for taking the time to read this and especially for your prayers! We will try to write an update about once a week while we are there. If you would like to receive this, please let us know by sending an email to saamo1

This is Paul, his wife and 2 children at his house in the village.