| | | | Seeing is Believing or Believing is Seeing My sister has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, will you come and pray for her? After Spanish class, Ned and I went to visit a friend of ours who is making some furniture for us. We first met Leo when working on a Chapel Project build in 2013. As we sat and drank coffee and water with him and his wife and our friend, his wife said quietly to him that he should ask us to pray for his sister. With a strain in his voice he told us the doctors had just diagnosed Luchi with terminal cancer and asked if we would be willing to go to her house and pray for her. Yes, of course! We prayed there in the living room for Luchi and I felt like God was saying that he wanted to heal her completely. Now this is NOT something I feel every time that I pray for someone. Actually, I have NEVER felt this so strongly as this time. So two days later we went to Luchi's house. I had continually prayed for this meeting. What do you say to a woman who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer? I know without a doubt that God does heal people....I mean my husband is one of them but what did He want me to say to Luchi. I felt like the first thing I was supposed to ask was if she believed in Jesus as her personal savior? So I did. Yes, she is a strong believer and we chatted for a bit about this and how our lives are to glorify God regardless of the circumstances. In the bad and the good, we are to glorify God. Now let me add that we had quite the crowd there on Luchi's front porch and in the street. Family and friends and neighbors had gathered and I felt the urge to remind them that they were to hold up Luchi's arms during this battle. Especially her two brothers that were there. So Ned and I prayed for Luchi and then family members and neighbors asked to be prayed for. I lost count in there somewhere. A neighbor, Rosa, even gave her life to the Lord for the first time ever! That was so cool. God was using Luchi's battle to draw people to Him already...but God wasn't done!
Luchi went to the doctor 3 days later....there was NO sign of cancer! Luchi was healed!
Thank you Lord. What a blessing to be a part. Now you may not believe in healing but believing is sometimes seeing. And I have no doubt that I believe that God is still in the healing business. What a blessing to get to serve alongside an incredible God!
We are called to be obedient! Leo and Nina were obedient in asking for prayer for Luchi. Ned and I were obedient and went and prayed. Luchi was obedient in believing in faith! God is good. | | | | |  | We are busy with planning for SUYO Camp! This is a program that other countries call King's Kids. It is a camp that helps to train kids in being missionaries. Not to leave their homes today and move around the world but to be a missionary to their own families and communities.
WE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD!
This is the theme for the week of camp and out of this camp we will do weekend retreats all year with these campers and do city outreaches.
We are all called to be light in this dark world no matter our age.
We are also super excited to host a couple of short term teams this summer. One being at the same time as SUYO camp so they will be missionaries helping to train future missionaries!
| | | |  | http://LifeforYouthCamp.com
What a great place for children of Central Florida to spend their summer! Ned and I have been so blessed to be a part of Life for Youth Camp since the summer of 1990! 25 summers ago, I went to work at camp for the summer for the first time! Man do I ever feel old now :)
Each summer Life for Youth Camp picks a missionary to support through their coins for camp program. This is a weekly contest for the boys and girls to raise funds to help support an overseas missionary. This year our family was picked!
THANK YOU LIFE FOR YOUTH CAMP FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!
Also thank you to the staff and counselors at camp for serving their local community! We are blessed to know the Stevens Family! | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | Our house warming SURPRISE party with Glenn and Rhoda Martin and the Orlando team and friends. | | | | | | What a blessing to work with a great organization, Chapel Project. Building the locals up. | | | | | | | We are officially moved in and living in our own home here in Santiago, Dominican Republic. (see above picture) Not everyone throws a housewarming party for you at your own house when you're not prepared! haha! What a blessing this time of prayer was. We are still in need of furniture and some kitchen items. We would appreciate your prayers and/or financial help with these needs. Please ask for an update needs/wish list if interested. | | Catch-Up-Date January to March 2014
Catching you Up and an Update All in One! 2014 has been crazy busy for the Walkers!
We welcomed the Martin's back to their home and we moved into our own next door. This included a 40 hour lost dog drama that started when we came home from celebrating the New Year. What a way to start the year.
We hosted a YWAM Orlando DTS group of 25 in January. 8 of the 25 went and worked on NIKOland each week and camped up there while the other 17 did ministry here in the city. We worked alongside of them in a lot of the poor areas of town, did some street outreaches, and joined a ministry with a local young man playing sports with shoe shine boys who mainly live in the street. It was a super busy month.
February brought the departure of the DTS and the welcoming of the Ellis Family as they completed their outreach phase of their school. It was a lot of fun working with this family of 7 who work with children in Knoxville, TN. They came to help us prepare as we look at hosting more family groups in the future and they plan on hosting them stateside.
Chapel Project was a huge success with 2 projects during the end of February and March. We helped build the roof on a church in Los Tocones an outskirt of Santiago. Also was the finishing of the roof on the upstairs classroom, nursery, and office of the church in El Ejido where the fire was. And we were able to put a roof on the partial church building in village of Tamboril that the DTS had helped lay the foundation for and build a roof on a better home for a local pastor whose home was severely eaten by termites.
| | | | | | The Ellis family from Knoxville, TN who has worked with YWAM Orlando came and did a family outreach to help prepare us and themselves to host future family outreaches! Here we are eating lunch during a day of ministry up at NIKOlando.
Please be praying NIKO camp is in 2 weeks and will be a life changing week for many area youth. | | | | | SUYO, Kings Kids a program that combines learning about God, discipling local youth and reaching out to those in their own cities and around the world. | | | | | This is David. He is 4 years old and a good boy.....do you want him?
This was the question posed to me by the people across the street from a church we were working at. He had wandered up the day after a massive fire that destroyed 55 plus homes and had been "unclaimed" for a couple of days. Talk about a broken heart! Wow...God created David just as He created all of us and wants us to be in relationship with Him.
David is being cared for by his grandmother and it was a blessing in January to get to see him again and see him doing well in her care. | | | | | | | | |
| | Merry Christmas!! Feliz Navidad!! Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas from the Walker Family!
We love and miss you all. Can't believe we have now lived in the Dominican Republic for 4 months. Some days it seems like we have been here forever and others it seems like just yesterday that we were with you in the States.
May you realize how much God loves you and that He wants to be a vital part of your lives. Not just during the Christmas season but all year long.
Please remember to keep in touch. You can respond to this email or use Walker5forGod@yahoo.com
Our Mailing address is:
Walker Family
AGAPE Flights STI 27519
100 Airport Ave
Venice, FL 34285
| | |  Our First Home
in the DR! Well, here it is! This is officially our new home here in Santiago, Republica Domincana!
El Dorado II, Calle 4, Casa 26 House update: We have signed a contract for the house and are just waiting to get the keys from the previous renter. She is finishing up some repairs, painting, etc... Please be in prayer for her to finish up quickly. She is to give us the keys as soon as she is done which was supposed to be on Friday. This is where the language barrier is very frustrating as I can not even call her to ask what the progress is because we don't speak the same language. The sooner we get the keys the better so that we can be moved out of the Martin's home for their return. We also have a group coming from YWAM Orlando on Dec 30, so we will get quite busy after their arrival for at least the first few days!
We still need furniture! We found a refrigerator at the Chinese/Korean store where we buy fancy fingernail polish. Yep, pretty random!
Thank you to all who have given towards our furniture. Please be praying that we find good deals on good items!
You can still give directly for our furniture. If you would like a list of what we still need or any information, please let us know! | |  Surprise Visit from Uncle Thom!
A Visit from the Haiti side of the Island!
Christmas Visit from Thom: We had planned to go see Debbie's brother, Thom and his family who live in Port de Paix, Haiti for Christmas, but it was not possible financially. So Thom took a couple days of his Christmas break from school and came to visit. We were able to do the tour of the city with Thom that we have our visiting teams do so that they are able to get around town on their own. We ate some amazing Dominican food and enjoyed each other's company.
The relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has been a very up and down not so friendly to say the least relationship. Tensions are quite high right now as the DR and Haiti both try to figure out residency and status of their people. Please be in prayer for these tensions to come to an agreeable and favorable for both sides end.
Our family has started to help in a ministry to local shoe shine boys who mainly live in the streets. We were able to help feed them a nice Christmas meal at a local restaurant and bless them with some candy, fruit and marshmallows as a gift. Probably the only one many of them will get this Christmas. | | |  Sammi turned 19! This is one of my favorite pictures of Sammi! She is sharing the love of Jesus with Antonio. Everyone is loved by God but not everyone knows it. Sammi loves sharing the word of God to others. Praying for people in the streets is definitely one of her favorite things to do here.
| |  Hannah is a blessing! Hannah is definitely a favorite to many of the Dominican children. Here she is with a pastor friend's little boy. Whether it is the SUYO kids that we work with once a month or with little children at church or at meetings. The kids love Hannah! She has a calming effect on them and can usually get them to smile, sleep or whatever is needed. What a blessing this is to so many! | |  Hardworking Jesse! Jesse is really getting to learn some practical skills here. He is quite the hard worker and is quick to learn. He loves going to Casa Grande which is a local ministry and learning to weld amongst other things. Here is a great picture of him screwing sheet metal to a chapel roof with Chapel Project. | | | | | |
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What are the Walkers doing right now?
We are moving!!
The last week of August, our family will be moving long-term to Santiago, Dominican Republic. We will be working with YWAM Santiago and the Martin Family! We are super excited about this transition. But also praying for wisdom as we figure out visa's, residency, what to do with our things, etc...
As always, we are praying that the Lord will use us wherever we are!
Lord, help us not to miss the things you have prepared for us to do!
