amy0b87982ac418
bluewatergigi
dbeville
Patrice Miles
Lenny
About four months ago we were posed with the question, “What do you think Cason should do for high school?”
We were shocked and then almost saddened to realize that our children are in fact growing up way too fast. We asked Cason, “Do you want to go to a real high school or continue in Egbe with homeschool curriculum?” He said, “I really want to go to a real school for high school.” Then we asked, “Do you want to go to college?” Once again he said, “Yes, and I want to study business!”
Living in this very rural setting, an education that will prepare our children for an American university is hard. We thank the children’s teacher, Katie, for all the amazing work and education she has provided for our children over the last three years. She felt undoubtedly that she could provide a high school education for Cason, but her resources in a one-bedroom house turned schoolhouse would be limited.
Since then, we have been in prayer and seeking guidance through SIM leadership for what should our next steps look like to accommodate a high schooler. We visited Jos, Nigeria recently and went to look at Hillcrest School. The school has a deep history for many missionaries in this region that we have grown to call family. We are glad to announce that our children will be attending school there starting August of 2017. Cason will enter as freshman for 9th grade and Jolie will enter middle school as a 6th grader. They are both very excited about this, but are of course sad about saying goodbye to their Egbe friends.
So what does this mean for the whole family? It means that we have a large transition ahead of us. We will be moving from Egbe to Jos where we will resettle at another SIM station. SIM Nigeria has recently appointed a new director and with him comes a grander vision to reach 75+ million least reached people in northern Nigeria. Our family feels God is calling us to move closer to the north and live in Jos to assist with this new vision.
One of Lenny’s Masterpieces
Patrice will continue to manage the C.A.R.E. Africa and Spring of Life HIV/AIDS Project in Egbe. She will travel back and forth between Egbe and Jos many times a years utilizing the resources of a number of other ministries in Jos to grow these two ministries in Egbe. She is very excited to now be able to dedicate her full time to these two ministries, helping to grow them and make them more sustainable in the future.
We are planning our move for the middle of the year 2017. At that time we will have served for almost four years in Egbe. We feel like God has used us mightily and his kingdom has grown through the revitalization of the hospital, C.A.R.E. Africa, Spring of Life HIV/AIDS clinic and through our relationships with the many Nigerians we now call family.
This move will be costly, but we trust God will provide for all our needs. We were blessed to be able to borrow furniture, cars, generators and appliances loaned to us in Egbe from the hospital project itself. However, in Jos we will be required to buy all of these items. Plus we will now be responsible for full school tuitions for Cason and Jolie.
Please be in prayer on how you might be able to help our family continue to serve in Nigeria to grow HIS kingdom.
With love,
The Miles family
See below for pictures of our new home and Cason and Jolie’s new school.
Might sound like a great book idea, huh? However, there really is no book that can entirely prepare you for missions… However, you can do missions if you are a dummy!
The wife, a great nurse in real life, knew from conversations with the medical team on the ground that she would be a great fit to teach the nursing staff on many subjects. She thought, “What if I could teach CPR? Do you have any training dummies?” We told her no and she went on a “mission” to find dummies all on her own. On the surface finding dummies around you might seem like an easy task, but for her dummies were suddenly in short supply. Asking and searching for months, she had no luck. Finally, the miracle dummies appeared. Just a few days before her trip to Egbe, the Louisville Fire Department called her and said, “Come and pick up these 24 dummies. Our training people just brought us 24 brand new ones and we have to get rid of the old ones.” 
The husband and wife couldn’t believe their ears. They felt like shouting in celebration and grabbing the woman to hug her! But they thought it might cause a huge scene in the airport. 
The wife has completed CPR training with many of the nurses in the hospital and the trainees have gotten certificates proving their education. She even had time to train a few nurses to be trainers themselves. Leaving the dummies, literature, and dvd programming for them to use in the future. The hospital will now always have dummies around. How wonderful!
“As Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” – Proverbs 27:17
This member and his wife are dear to our family. (I will not name them, because sometimes they visit “closed” countries and I do not want to endanger them or the people they meet in the fields there). We met them a little over four years ago, when Patrice and I took the Prospectives class at SECC. They were the “course facilitators” and this class was instrumental in helping us to become missionaries. With their heart already set for missions, this couple was determined to go to the field to see graduates of their class, SECC members, and friends (us). 
Also at SECC is another great program which many know as simply DC which means Developing Co-leaders. It is a 21 month class based on bible study and meeting in a small group to discuss many topics throughout the two years. It can also be thought of as discipleship training. Both Patrice and I have completed this course in the past, which is dear to our walk with the Lord and so had our fellow SECC member who was coming to join us on the field. It was brought up one day that he could come here and teach a few of these classes and build into our sphere of influence here on the ground in Egbe. We picked two topics, Managing Conflict and Intro to Leadership.
We used the scriptures for many discussion questions on judging others, tolerance, where each of us sees conflict in our lives, how to handle that conflict, and many more topics. We even covered the book of Philemon (only 25 verses). Where Philemon was asked to take back his old slave who had stolen from him and ran away. Talk about conflict!
However, our motto for the three weeks wasn’t about managing conflict, it was about iron sharpening iron and one man sharpening another. Our thought and prayers through this teaching is that a few of the 75 in attendance will step up and say they want to be able to sharpen other men (and women). We offered the entire course of DC lessons to them when they are available to start up their own small groups. We ask you to pray that the seeds that were planted bring good fruit, that at least two or three of these groups gets started and we begin to have a multiplication process of leaders developing co-leaders, in turn developing more co-leaders, and so on.
Miles In Missions 