Christmas 2011

We had a wonderful Christmas.We started off worshiping the Lord and celebrating his birth. We ate lunch and fellowshipped with each other and exchanged gifts.

Lee made an extra trip to Ebeye during the week to get the last of the boxes of presents to the church.  In this pic, Lee is hauling our lunch to share at the fellowship.

 When Lee arrived at the kindergarten courtyard he had all kinds of help getting it to the classroom door.

 Our sister taught the kids about Jesus birth in Bible class.

 There was not enough room to have everything in one room so we set up one room with the food, and had the kids sit in another room while the adults brought the food to them. We organized the presents in a third room and put them in paper sacks for distribution.







These boys are waiting in line for their sack of presents.  I always take everything out of the packages and we never use Christmas paper to wrap each individual present.  It would be time consuming and it would mean extra weight for Lee to carry over to Ebeye.  The paper is extra expensive and not very plentiful here and the kids are terrible about throwing their trash in the trash can.  We would be picking up trash for days.

The kids were just as thrilled to see what was handed to them in their paper sack that they carried home.

It was a great Christmas for all.  A big "Thank You" to all who blessed the Marshallese people with their presents and cash to buy some of those presents. We appreciate all who went the extra mile for the kids and members.  We hope your Christmas was as wonderful as ours.  God Bless you all.

Mule Day

P-U-S-H, PULL Lee!  We took a load of goodies  to Ebeye with us for next weeks Christmas celebration. We know there are more boxes in the mail on the way to Kwaj.  We are praying they will make it this week in time for Christmas.  If they don't,....the kids will be just as thrilled to get Christmas two weeks in a row like we did last year.

By the time we made it to Ebeye, Lee had figured out it was better to PULL the load.  (Just kidding)  The boxes were sliding to the back of the load in the pic above.  Lee was pushing them back on the cart.

Thank you to Audrey Mauck, Chrissey Glavan, and Jeny Roberts and families from the Edmond C of C Young Families class who sent several Christmas blessings this week. Thank you also to Robert Darby and family for all their boxes of blessings for the people of the Marshall Islands.  We appreciate everyone for thinking of us so very far away.  We wish everyone a very Merry  and Blessed Christmas.

Blessed With Visitors

Jeff Hensley used to worship with Paul Hester on Kwaj.  He traveled with us to Ebeye to worship on Sunday. When we got back to Kwaj 4 1/2 hrs later, Jeff said that the trip gave him a new perspective on members of the church complaining about how far they have to travel on a paved road to get to church and park on a paved parking lot. It poured coming and going to church. We had to walk down a narrow passage way to get to church and walked around the puddles to get back to the ferry. Thanks for going out of your way to worship the with us on this Lord's day.

 Jeff enjoyed hearing the kids sing the songs of worship. Some in English and some in Marshallese.  I think they did a wonderful job of decorating the room with their home made Christmas decorations in the kindergarten room.

Lee lead our worship in another kindergarten room.  God's blessings on two of our members, Heity and Cala, who graciously let us borrow their class rooms every week.

Showers fo Blessings

Dean and Becky Lightfoot blessed our kids with some Christmas  blessings.  Dean and Becky have blessed the Marshallese people since our mission started.
The Shiloh Church of Christ has showered the Marshallese people with blessings.  Thank you to the Shiloh church for all your support.
May God Bless all who have sent your blessings to the Marshallese people. 

Our members who live on Gugeegue have not been able to get a taxi to Ebey for church services for two weeks.  There has not been any fuel at the ONE gas station on Ebeye. It happens every couple months.  Thank God if you have mutiple gas stations all around you to fill up your vehicles 24/7.

We have received 115 inches of God's Blessing in the form of rain this year.  It poured while we were going to, from and while we were in church yesterday. The Marshallese people depend on the water catchments for a large portion of their water. 
Praise God and the angels who have showerd us with blessings.

Christmas Concert 2011

Lee played in the Community Band Christmas Concert Saturday night.  They were about half way through the concert when it started pouring rain.   The music, instruments and players all were drenched.  I think they will get to play in a couple weeks again, indoors.

This is the last week for you to bless the kids from Ebeye and Gugeegue with a great Christmas.  Go pick up a large FREE, APO/FPO box and customs form from the US Post Office.  Take it to the nearest dollar store and fill it with any toys, games, books or kids clothes of any size. Reinforce the box with tape on all the seams. Fill out  a customs form from the post office.  Pay $12.95 to mail the box this week at the US Post Office to the following address:
Avis Cummings
CMR 701 Box 1652
APO, AP  96555-0017

There is a more detailed list and directions in the Oct 9th & 15th blog spots.

Teach your kids or grand kids to give to others.  God Bless you and your families this Christmas.

Imaginations

We met in the courtyard of the kindergarten class rooms. Yolonda is leading the class in prayer.

Heity is doing better.  Her blood pressure and blood sugar was too high. Pray that God will continue to guide her to lower both.

 We did not get a mail delivery for a week and half. We usually get one or two each week. 

If you can help these precious kids have a Christmas, it is time to get busy this week and get those boxes in the mail.

Thank you to Royce & Barbra Hunter for Blessing our children with some Christmas presents.

The kids made birds for their class craft. They enjoyed playing with them after making them. It is amazing to see what the kids will come up with to play games with each other.  They will smash cans flat and they have some sort of game where they throw them on the ground and win by how they land.  God has blessed each child with an amazing imagination.

Prayers and Blessings Needed

Please pray for one of our sisters, Heity Keju, who has passed out twice in less than a week for reasons unknown. Heity passed out yesterday during our English class.  They carried her to the hospital and I'm not sure what the Dr's have said yet. Heity and her husband, who passed away, helped start the church on Ebeye and Gugeegue.






If you can bless the Marshallese people by providing Christmas for our friends, please go to our Oct. blogs and read our list of suggestions and instructions on mailing the boxes .  We are also having a Church Meeting  starting in the middle of January to the end of the month.  If you can help us with those expenses go to last weeks blog for instructions.

Gospel Meeting in January

Lee and Peterson in the pic below take turns every other week preaching. Lee in Engish and Peterson in Marshallese.

 They both do a wonderful job preaching God's word.  Our ladies spread God's word by teaching the kids in Bible class. We have English classes on Sunday afternoons. We have two of our members who share their school rooms with us to spread God's word.  Thank you also for all those that are helping or have helped support or sponsor the Church of Christ at Gugeegue and Ebeye.

Paul Hester, who helped start the congregation on Ebeye, comes every year to help make repairs needed on the church building and to hold a Gospel Meeting.  Paul will be bringing a brother with him in late January.  They will  hold meetings in Gugeegue and Ebeye. That will require us to pay for several taxi's from Ebeye to Gugeegue and back.  It costs $40  round trip for one taxi, (dual cab small pick up). We will be renting the Ebeye Community Center for our Ebeye meetings and taxi's for the Gugeegue meetings.  If you can help with any of these expenses, please send a check to Avis Cummings.  Do not make your check out to the Church of Christ.  The bank will not let me cash a check made out to the church.  Mail your contributions to:
Avis Cummings
CMR 701  Box 1652
APO, AP 96555-0017

Please pray for the missionaries safe travel and a God inspired meeting.
Blessings to all.

Be Thankful

 We had a great day worshiping the Lord.  The kids were well taught about sowing the seed by one of our dedicated teachers. Our kids don't have tables to color on or chairs to sit on, but the story is the same.  They love to listen and they make due with what they have.

We had another good day in our English class.

Ebeye still does not have their public water system fixed.  I have heard it may be six months before  they will get it up and going.  That is what happened when they lost their electricity a couple years back.  Kwaj sends tankers full of water that are pumped into the Ebeye water system.  Be thankful for reliable water and electricity.  Not everyone provides that reliability. Praise God we have had some rain to go into the private water catchments.

Sunday Classes

These are the boys that were in our kids Bible  class today.   At Christmas time we have twice as many kids at our Christmas party. Christmas is on Sunday this year so we will have a very full day.

 These are the girls that we had in Bible class today. Keep in mind that they wear shorts underneath their dresses so they do not have to worry about their bottoms showing.  They also wear their hair pulled back in a pony or pig tail.  Anything to hold their hair up would be good.

We also have about a dozen full grown teens.

We are having a good size group in our English class. It is going well. The hardest part is keeping everyone awake since this is the official Sunday afternoon nap time. :)

If you can help provide any amount of Christmas for our kids, the list and mailing instructions are in the two previous posts. If you, your class, family or church can help, please let me know by emailing me at nothertz@gmail.com.   Blessings to all.

Christmas Mailing Info

Be very thankful that you live at a place where you always have water and electricity.  Ebeye has been without running water to the houses for two weeks.  

It can take anywhere from one week to 30 days to get our mail.  Media rate is the most economical for books, movies, CD’s & paper, but only those products & nothing else can be mailed by Media rate. The heavier you pack the box, the better the rate.

 The fastest service is US Postal Service, First class/Priority.  The post office will give you an "APO/FPO" box in two different sizes (usually found in the lobbies). You can stuff all you can in the box (with any amount of weight) for the same price. We have sent some really heavy boxes that way. When you bring the box back it will cost $10.95 to mail the smaller box and $11.95 to mail the larger box. It is best to reinforce the box seams with tape since they have so far to come and they get tossed around a lot. Packages must be less than 70 lbs & 130”.  You can send any box within those rules by priority mail in which you will be charged by the weight. Again, reinforce the box with package tape.  DO NOT leave anything wrapped in original packages, unless it has too many parts to keep together (like a puzzle, jacks, etc).  Take the tooth paste out of the boxes and just send the tubes.  The packaging just takes up more room in the box and Lee and I do not need extra weight to carry over to Ebeye.

Since the box is going outside the US, you will have to fill out a (sometimes multiple) white customs form (found in the PO lobbies) that they will attach to the outside of the box. The packages need to be mailed NO LATER than Dec.3rd. Without any notice last year they decided to deliver our mail the last two weeks before Christmas only ONE day a week. That caused half our Christmas to arrive a 

week later.  We ended up having presents two weeks in a row and the kids did not mind a bit. 

We live on an Army base so every box has to be loaded either on to our two wheeler, cart or our back to walk to the dock.  The boxes then have to be unloaded to go through security and loaded back on to the cart or two wheeler to be carried to the ferry where we unload the boxes onto the ferry.  They are not allowing people to take as big a load with them on the ferries this year, so we may have to make even more, smaller load trips. When we arrive at the dock on Ebeye, the boxes are unloaded off the ferry and we have to reload the boxes onto the two wheeler or cart.  We either pull it to the school where we are meeting on Ebeye or if we are going to the Gugeegue church building, we have to pay a taxi (small pick up) to take us to Gugeegue on the roughest road I have ever seen. If we go to Gugeegue we also have to pay for several more taxi’s to take all our members to Church and our Christmas celebration. The taxi’s cost more on Christmas day.  In the past they have charged us $50 round trip to go to Gugeegue.  The biggest gamble with going to Gugeegue is whether or not there will be gasoline available to run the taxi’s.

Address:

Lee & Avis Cummings

CMR 701 BOX 1652

APO, AP 96555-0017 

If you would like to send a check to help with our taxi’s or the Christmas meal, please make it out to Avis Cummings. DO NOT ADDRESS TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST.  They will send it back.  God's Blessings to everyone for your help.