Archive for the ‘SIM’ Category

Super Support

Posted: October 30, 2014 by Lenny in Egbe, Lenny Miles, Miles In Missions, Prayer, SIM
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Super Support

back_patReach your hand up in the air, bend your elbow down so that your hand go towards your back, raise your hand up and give yourselves a great big pat on the back! We wanted to take the time to say thank you for all of the wonderful support for our first year in Egbe.

Thanks you to all of you that have joined us in one way or another, from financial partners, prayer partners to people gifted at sending care packages. We pray you are feeling the blessings of your sacrifices to God’s work here in Egbe. It certainly couldn’t be accomplished without you.

Let me just say that our family is blessed by having a firm foundation of support for our ministries here. We have only lost two monthly financial supporters during the first year in Egbe. God has been faithful and it seems each time he has an answer for the needed support that was lost. We are so very blessed to not have the added stress of looking for more donations while we serve from more than 5,000 miles away. This is an important thing to note because this happens too often to many missionaries in the field and takes away from their focus on their ministry.

Screen Shot 2013-12-06 at 1.07.13 PMMany of you have answered the call to sponsor several children’s school fees. You have no idea what this can mean to a child and their family here. If you could see the huge smile on their faces when we tell them that they get to go to school it would melt your hearts. Many times their family is so thankful that they periodically bring us fresh fruit or other items from their farms. It’s the one thing they can bring to us that says, “Thank you”. Just this morning, a man came to bring us several bunches of fresh picked bananas. It was more than our family could ever eat, so we had to give some away to other missionaries.

Prayer warriors! I wish I could know just how many times your prayers put a hedge of protection over us when evil was lurking in. I guess I will find out in Heaven. We certainly feel your prayers in everything from safety, to the progress of the work getting done, to emotional stability and also being able to see changed lives when God acts and they choose to follow him. It’s really amazing.

DSC_0242Some of you seem to go into stealth mode for our support, acting like spies trying to go under cover and figure out what we need or like so that you can send it to us. This is a great encouragement to us too! We know that you took time out of your day to shop for us or ship something to us and it really means a lot.

We’ve had several opportunities at receiving things directly from you and every time it’s like Christmas morning opening gifts. Some of you have sent boxes and things to the containers that come sporadically, while others have taken advantage of groups that have come to visit us. They bring extra luggage with them so that we can have some creature comforts that we cannot find in country here. The most recent example is when, “Grandma” came to visit us and we went through customs with 12 checked bags, five carry-ons and five backpacks. We certainly gained the customs agent’s attention and turned heads everywhere we went!

After all of this, the point is to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you. We look forward to continuing to share our lives with you from here in Egbe and pray for your continued support in every way.

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1 Year Furlough

Posted: August 9, 2014 by Patrice Miles in Lenny Miles, Miles In Missions, Patrice Miles, SIM
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milesSoon my family and I will be heading out on our one year furlough. Four months ago when my husband started planning this, I wasn’t that excited. I love Egbe so much that I didn’t feel like all the work to plan and leave was worth it.

Traveling out of Egbe isn’t so easy. The first battle is planning your trip through limited internet access, blocked websites and emails because we live in Nigeria and bad phone service. Once that is planned then you have to book tickets trying to use points so we can travel for close to Free.  Then plan your 8hr drive to the airport that will be an exhausting venture for our family. Both Lenny and I have roles and duties in Egbe that have to be delegated out to other Missionaries and national staff. We have to plan for the care of our dogs, cats, house, yard etc. and pack our entire family for different climates than we are used to. Sometimes you need a furlough just from planning your furlough…haha!

workAfter all this planning we are less than two weeks from our furlough and I am so glad my husband made us do it. We are exhausted from the past year of work. Just in the past two months alone we have prepared 5 new missionary houses, oriented 6 new Missionaires to Egbe living, hosted over 24 volunteers, moved into the new OPD, moved CSR, put a facelift on maternity, built a new guardhouse and gate and I am forgetting so much more as the past two months is a blur. Needless to say our family needs this time together on furlough. So why do I feel so guilty for taking it?

kids 3As I think about the comfort and rest that this furlough will give my family, I also think of so many I leave behind that can barely afford to buy food and water.  How do I not feel guilty? When our supporters see our pictures on Facebook and wonder if we are using their hard earned money to play abroad, how do I enjoy my time away? These are the thoughts and feelings I battle with as we prepare to leave.

towerMark 6:31 Then because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them. “Come with me by yourselves to a quite place and get some rest” This verse reminded me that even Jesus and his disciples needed to get away from their ministry to rest. We all need rest. So many of us go go go no matter what country we live in. When we finally sit down we feel guilty because there is still so much work to do. I have come to the conclusion that I am good to no one without rest. When you burn the candle at both ends it burns out so much quicker. When you live were you work you have to leave to find rest.

We are excited to find rest in Europe in less than two weeks. I hope you will enjoy our pictures on Facebook as we find rest in multiple SIM guesthouses. I pray you will celebrate with us as we get to spend time alone with God and our children as we re-energize for another year in Egbe!

Video of Our Journey to Egbe, Nigeria

Posted: May 7, 2013 by Patrice Miles in Egbe Nigeria, Fundraising, Nigeria, SIM
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Many of you already know our story and many of you don’t. We have made the final touches to our video that guides you in 5 minutes and 22 seconds through Our Journey. I hope you can take a few minutes to watch and share with as many people as possible.

Less than a year ago we went on our first mission trip. Our hearts were changed. We felt God was calling us to something bigger than anything we could imagine. We started to look for opportunities to serve locally and internationally. After searching for months through different service projects, Lenny came across the Egbe Hospital Revitalization project.  We both kept coming back to Egbe even when we tried to push it out of our minds. We felt God calling so we answered with a “Yes”. Lenny made a site visit and was given confirmation that this was where God wanted us.

Now only a few months later, we have SOLD everything we own and plan to head out in August for Egbe, Nigeria. We have committed to 2 years, but we know that this is something God might be calling us to for much longer. We are open to his plans and cannot wait to get to Egbe to help serve and evangelize.

Lenny will serve as the maintenance supervisor and I will be homeschooling the kids. We hope to also get involved with the local HELP orphanage and visiting hospital patients. Thanks for watching our video and feel free to visit our site at www.MilesInMissions.com for more information on how to give to our mission. You can also find out more information on Egbe Hospital and the project by visiting our site.

Pack Your Coffins….Let’s Go!

Posted: April 10, 2013 by Lenny in SIM
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By: Lenny Miles

Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) began in 1893. Canadians Walter Gowans, Roland Bingham, and American Thomas Kent had a vision to evangelize the 60 million unreached people of sub-Saharan Africa. Unable to interest established missions—most of which said reaching the Soudan was impossible—the three set out alone.

SIM Founders

SIM Founders

Malaria overtook all three. Gowans and Kent died of the fever in 1894, and Bingham returned to Canada. On his second attempt, he caught malaria again and was forced to go back home. Unable to return to Africa, Bingham sent out a third team. They successfully established a base 500 miles inland at Patigi in 1902. From there, the work of SIM began in Africa.
Many people in their day dubbed the Soudan (specifically, Nigeria), “The White Mans Graveyard” because of the high mortality rate of Western missionaries trying to Evangelize this remote part of the world. Diseases like Malaria, Yellow Fever, and Typhoid claimed so many victims, that most missionaries headed to this part of the world would typically pack their possessions in their own coffin. They would say good byes to loved ones to board a ship with the realization that they most likely would come home horizontally and not vertically. Still they pressed on with a God given sense of urgency.

 
Here is an excerpt from Walter Gowan’s Diary attesting to the desire to reach a lost people. He writes this during his final days on Earth and is dying of Malaria. Please take the time to read this, it’s quite amazing…
August 9, 1894
Written in view of my approaching end, which has often lately seemed so near but just now seems so imminent & I want to write while I have the power to do it.
Well Glory to God! He has enabled me to make a hard fight for the Soudan and although it may seem like a total failure and defeat it is not! We shall have the victory & that right speedily. I have no regret for undertaking this venture and in this manner my life has not been thrown away. My only regrets are for my poor dear mother. For her sake I would have chosen to live.
Mother Dear: And what a mother you have been. It seems I appreciate you now more than ever I did. Oh how often I have thought while lying here of your love and how I have longed to see you again in the flesh. Don’t mourn for me darling dearest mother. If the suffering was great, remember it is all over now and I think of the glory I am enjoying and rejoice that your boy “was permitted to have a hand in the redemption of the Soudan.”
Oh! How I did wish to live for your sake…..
……Goodbye dearest, till we meet at Jesus feet,
-Walter
Lord, give me the same heart this man had.

Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Rabies, Polio, Meningitis, Hep A & B, Tetanus anyone?

Posted: March 12, 2013 by Patrice Miles in Egbe Hosptial, SIM
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Africa ShotsYellow Fever, Typhoid, Rabies, Polio, Meningitis, Hep A & B, Tetanus are words I never thought I would hear myself saying 9 months ago. If you had asked me in June of just last year if I would be watching my children get vaccinated for things I never even knew existed….I would have told you that you were crazy! That is how God works….when you let him. Day 4 of SIMGo and we are surrounded with like-minded people all heading out to different places all over the world to work for God’s glory and not theirs. I am so honored to hear their stories. From saving children’s lives, to God showing up with resources when they thought all was hopeless to standing on a hill watching the radiation cloud in the distance in Japan at the wake of the tsunami. WOW is all I can say as I stand in amazement of the purpose driven life these people lead daily. I am so excited and spurred on to live a life full of meaning and purpose where at the end of the day I may still be exhausted, but for such a fulfilling reason. Helping people learn about the fire inside of us and the promise of eternity through the Egbe Hospital Revitalization Project.

Our departure date of August is growing closer and SIM will not allow us to order VISAs or plane tickets until we are 85% funded. Please prayerfully consider being one of out $25, $50 or $100 monthly senders. God calls us all to missions….some he calls to GO, some he calls to SEND and some he calls to PRAY. Please let us know which one he is calling you to by emailing me at Patrice@MilesInMissions.com or visiting our website at www.MilesInMissions.com and clicking on the GIVE button.

SIMGo

Posted: March 9, 2013 by Patrice Miles in SIM
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SIM LogoWe are excited to have arrived safely by car to Charlotte NC for SIMGo. Our family will spend the next two weeks digging into policies, procedures, finances, cultural training, internet, security and much more. We start off together every morning with the SIM family in prayer for missionaries in the field. Lenny and I then take the kids to MK (missionary kids) school. The kids will have everyday filled with world view education. They will only spend 1.5 hours on their school work that they brought from home. The other time will be devoted to learning about Nigeria and other people groups. They will even learn about the Fullani children and have a trip to a museum. Lenny and I will be meeting with the SIM staff to work on finances & budgets to GO, security and internet, cultural training and much more. We will have lunch and dinner as a family with SIM and then the evenings we will be on our own. The weekends have some free time but we will have an international night with a Latino church at Good Shepherd.

Next Steps for our family;

1. April: Purchasing 2 year supply of clothing, supplies, food and driving to Fort Lauderdale to ship on  large shipping container to Egbe.

2. May: Packing and moving into parent house.

3. June: Cross cultural training for 1 month in South Carolina at CIT.

4. July: Return to Louisville to finalize everything and say good byes

5. August: Leave for Egbe, Nigeria!

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