JH Update, April 2nd (2009)

Please continue to pray for Roger and his team as they spend the next two weeks in Sierra Leone. They arrived safely with all but 2 of the suitcases! (This seems to be a growing trend....)

Praise the Lord for successful and positive meetings that Roger was able to have in Freetown. Pray for wisdom for Roger as he makes decisions and deals with the staff and children.

Pray for Shannon and Kelly as they minister to the kids. They are doing health assessments on all of the children. Pray that God would help them to recognize any problems that the children are having.

Pray for all of our school children! We have many students in class 6 and class 8. All of these children will be taking exams at the end of the school year which determine their future educational plans!

Please pray for Christie! She is preparing for a 15 month tour of duty at the orphanage starting in the middle of May! Praise the Lord for her courage! Please pray that all the details will fall as God would have them fall as she prepares for this mission!

THANK YOU AGAIN TO EVERYONE FOR YOUR PRAYERS FOR THIS MINISTRY! WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY EACH PERSON WHO HAS SUPPORTED THE CHILDREN OF SIERRA LEONE!

Message from Roger

We come to the end of the year and the season of the celebration of Christ's birth. We have so much to thank Him for....His salvation, His abundance He bestows on us in so many ways, and His constant care for us. We at Jonathan's House are continuously grateful for the kindness that all of you show all year long. That makes this note more difficult. We know you have so often sacrificed and given. Believe me, we never take that for granted. We come to the end of this season however and we find ourselves significantly short on our budget. If we were just hundreds of dollars short we could cut and make it work. But now we are 5 days away from wiring money for the month and we are about $6,000 short from meeting our budget. We have about $1600 which will feed our kids for the month, but it won't do any more than that. We still need to pay the staff, buy toothpaste and such, buy gas for the bus, feed the street and foster kids, buy fire wood, pay our bills, etc. I ask that each one of you join us as we ask Him what we should do or give to meet this month's need. I know He is able to meet the need however He deems fit. He is the God of all miracles. We know that this season and we trust Him as we have so many times before. He has called us to care for those with nothing. This gives Him so many opportunities to show His love to them. Thanks for caring and praying and sharing. I pray that the God of abundance will show Himself strong in your lives this season and the new year.

Sincerely and for all our kids,

Roger Hatch

School Exams & Emmanuel

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry this has not been updated for a few weeks. I was out of town for a little while. This won't be a full update, but check the website for more information.

• John Sessay, Joseph Bangura & Christiana Bah did an outstanding job on their national exams (Joseph finished first in his class!) and will be moving on to the next level.
• Emmanuel passed away. :-/ See Roger's message on the front page of the website.
• The website has been updated.

Jonathan House website

Updates on Store, Fundraiser, & Blog

Greetings! I thought you would like to hear some of the follow-up on recent posts.

1. Store...The Grand Opening was a great success! Unofficial numbers--$1900 in profits this weekend! What a blessing the store is. If you're in the area on a Friday or Saturday, remember to stop by. Or if you have any donations, let us know and we'll work out a time.


2. Fundraiser...I haven't heard an official number on money raised Tuesday at Culver's, but there was a great turnout!


3. Blog...There are some added features on the blog that I hope you check out soon.

• World Clocks--> There's a clock with Sierra Leone time and one of Iowa (CST) time.


• Contact Links--> Even there is a list of links further down the page, there is an easier way to find the link to the online albums, etc. In that same box, there is an invitation for you to contribute to this blog.


• Subscribe to the blog--> I've enabled the RSS feed (or whatever) so you can probably figure out ways to get new posted emailed to you.
• Friends/Followers--> To be truthful, I'm not entirely sure about this feature. :-) But it could be fun. If you read this blog often and want to keep up with JCC, I would invite you to become a friend! And if you don't....you're still a friend. No worries!

That's all for this edition. Have a blessed week!

Goodsearch

This has been mentioned before as an easy way to earn money for the organization. Since this was last posted about, there is a new part of this website: Goodshop! Read about it below. As Christmas draws closer (just two months from yesterday!), if you buy from any of these online stores (there are quite a few...) then go through this website after you've picked Jonathan House (or whatever organization you choose) and JH will receive a portion of the profit! How simple is that?! And it doesn't cost you anymore than had you gone to the store's site without going through Goodsearch. Search for Jonathan House Ministries where it instructs you to and it should come right up. Or click on the title of this post and it should bring you to the website with JonHouse already chosen! Thanks!!


Straight from the Goodsearch.com website:

Here's a new easy way to raise money for your favorite cause. Just start using Yahoo! powered GoodSearch.com as your search engine and they'll donate a penny to your favorite cause every time you do a search! In addition, do all of your shopping through their online shopping mall, GoodShop.com, where you can shop at more than 700 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will go to the charity or school of your choice. You pay the same price as you normally would, but a donation goes to your cause!
Here's the web site — http://www.goodsearch.com/. You can also read about GoodSearch in the NY Times, Oprah Magazine, CNN, ABC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Store Grand Opening & Pictures, Culver's Night

Here are two different views of inside of the store. I have many more, but not as much time to put them up. The third picture is of an event that several supporters came to (maybe you were there?) and we voted on the name of the store. The Grand Opening of the store is this next Friday, Oct. 31st & Saturday, Nov. 1st, 9 to 5 both days.

Grand Opening:

If you'd like to help work in the store on either day for the Grand Opening, email Jan @ jabuhatch@hotmail.com. There will be opportunities to set up and get it all ready, too--one of those being Tuesday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.. And everyone helping Friday & Saturday is invited to wear African clothes.

Culver's Night:

This Tuesday, we will have a fundraising night at the Marshalltown Culver's. Stop in between 5 and 8 p.m. and Jonathan House will receive 10% of the proceeds of whatever is bought! If you'd like to come and help pass out brochures that would be great, too. Wear any African clothes you might have.

Come out to Culver's Tuesday and the Grand Opening Friday/Saturday and tell all your friends!

"Second Chance on 3rd"

The Jonathan House Store....newly dubbed "Second Chance on 3rd" celebrated its Grand Opening this weekend. There was no advertising, yet it is reported it was busy enough to make $1700 (in two days). Our pastor who was helping out said that one guy donated his change when he found out what the money was going to. Wow!

The store is located in Marshalltown, IA on the corner of Boone and 3rd Ave. It will be open every Friday and Saturday (except holidays assuming) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.. If you are ever in the area on those two days step by and visit. And if you'd like to help out, email Roger at roger.hatch@gmail.com. Even if you are unable to stop in on an open day there will be opportunities to serve (ie cleaning, stocking shelves) so consider that too. Also, if you have things to contribute you can also email Roger to arrange a time to drop it off or maybe even have it picked up.

Pictures to come soon....

Big Week for Jonathan House

1. The store opened this weekend! Without any advertising, $1700 came in. What a blessing! See a later post for more information about the store.
2. John's adoption was approved this last week and his parents will be leaving next Saturday, Sep. 21 to bring him home! Pray for all of the last-minute "stuff" that Mark & Karen need to finish before leaving. And pray for John's last days at Jonathan House.
3. Tenneh (adopted) will be having heart surgery on the 18th. Pray for her. I talked to her this morning--she is nervous understandably but I think relieved ultimately that this problem will be taken care of. Pray for all those details that will have to be arranged for the care of her younger two siblings.

Other points:

-If you have any stories, contributions for this blog, please email JHM.Salone@gmail.com

-If you have an idea for the next poll, also email above address.

-If you find any relevant articles that you think Jonathan House supporters would find pertinent, also email those links to the address above.

Thanks!

Updates (as of July 19th, 2008)

Here are just a few prayer points:

1. Pray for Christie--she has malaria! She called Karen 3 days ago now. Malaria & some other bacterial infection. She is on a new medicine and antibiotic. Pray for her recovery and her wisdom in decisions about resting and recovering when she would like to be with the kids and helping out. [Karen]
2. Pray for John's adoption--the family is awaiting word from the U.S. embassy (Dakar) on his visa. Pray for peace for all 8 family members!
3. Pray for Jerry's adoption, which is in the early stages. Pray for peace for his family also.
4. Pray for Rachel & Leah who are with their mother. Pray for Rachel's health that God would marvelously provide and answer prayers--and maybe even heal her! Pray for the influence they might have on their family and neighbors in their village.
5. Pray for Tenneh (adopted, home in Nov. '07) who has a heart problem. Pray for her parents as they make decisions regarding this. She will see a cardiac surgeon soon. Pray for her to be at peace with everything going on around her!
6. Pray for Roger (international director) who also has malaria. He was recently visiting Sierra Leone for several weeks. He is a full-time nursing student and all-around busy guy. Pray that God would restore his health.
7. Pray for the school. Over half of the funds have been raised to complete the building. The work on the foundation will begin this month.
8. Pray that the goats on the farm are quick learners with their new (& operational) solar electric fence. They have been a handful and there have been many options on trial for keeping them from running out into the road. Pray that this one works! The goats are given to foster families of JCC to help them out.
9. Pray for Pastor Peter and the ministry team in Sierra Leone.
10. Praise God for each and every supporter of JH!!

Update: Pray for these kids--Hassan & Rachel

Here is the latest update from Karen:

Please pray for Hassan. You may have heard his name before. He has been in and out of the orphanage for several years now. Hassan has repeatedly run away from the home to return to Freetown and life on the streets. This past month Hassan was returned to the care of an aunt in his home village. Please pray that he would be a light for Christ in this village. Please pray for adults to come into this young man's life and help him grow.


I only had this picture of Rachel to put up at the moment (she's the one in the middle), but I noticed Hassan is at her right (far left). Go figure....




This request is one of the most difficult I have had to write. Many of you know that Rachel, one of our teen girls, was diagnosed with a very serious kidney problem over a year ago. She has an ectopic, necrotic kidney. She and her twin sister, Leah, have been in the orphanage for several years. After a long run of tests, second opinions, third opinions, and a thorough examination by an American doctor, it was determined that the necessary course of action was for Rachel to have surgery to remove the necrotic kidney. There is only one surgeon in Sierra Leone that we felt comfortable with to do the surgery. He agreed to do the surgery and plans were made. Days before the scheduled surgery Rachel's mother appeared at the hospital and refused to let Rachel have surgery. We believe her mother is misguided and lacks the understanding of the consequences of not having the surgery. At that point, the doctor refused to do the surgery because of the problems caused by Rachel's mother. Rachel returned to the orphanage in Bo. When Roger arrived at the orphanage, arrangements were made for Rachel and Leah's mother to sign a relinquishment of the girls over to the ministry. This was completed and Roger was able to convince the surgeon to re-schedule Rachel's surgery. Rachel was admitted to the hospital days after Roger's return to Iowa and was ready for the surgery. Again her mother appeared and caused problems at the hospital and with the doctor. The relinquishment was taken to the police and the ministry of social welfare to be sure we did have the right to insist that Rachel have the surgery. Neither agency would support the ministry's position and said that we must abide by the wishes of the mother. The ministry was forced to ask the mother to either let Rachel have the surgery or to take the girls home into her care. As of today, the mother has taken Rachel and Leah back to their village. This is heartbreaking for the girls and the rest of the children at the home. It could also put Rachel's life in danger. This was a difficult decision, to say the least, but the medic at the home and the doctors agreed that to do nothing is to put Rachel at great risk. The ramifications for the ministry should something happen to Rachel while in the care of the ministry are numerous and could make it impossible to continue on in the ministry. Please PRAY. Please pray that God would miraculously cure Rachel's kidney. Please pray that her mother would seek proper medical care for Rachel. Please pray that Rachel's mother would have the means to support Rachel and Leah. Please pray that God would use the difficult situation to reunite the family and provide means for the needs of Rachel and Leah. Please pray that God would use this situation to bring the light of Christ in Rachel and Leah to their village.

The Latest Updates....

Hello!

Here are a few new "news" items:

• A family has decided to adopt Jerry Benya. They just started the whole process, so pray that it will go smoothly and for patience as they wait. By the way, this is Dylan's family who are adopting him. Before Dylan came back the family called over and were able to talk to Jerry too.
• Roger and many of the teams are back. Pray for good health for each of them and just the whole adjustment process back to life in the States.
• The next newsletter is going to be published soon. Karen is looking for anyone who would like to share a testimony of your experiences with Jonathan House. Email kjb5@mchsi.com if you would like to contribute. If you'd like to contribute to the blog, email JHM.Salone@gmail.com.
• Hopefully more videos and pictures will be added soon.
• Continue to pray for all of the kids as they finish school.
• Continue to pray for the school building project. If you'd like to "buy a brick", email Karen at the address above.
• Hopefully we will hear more about the recent trips on here.

Update: School Campaign, etc.

First of all....Sorry it has been a little quiet on here lately. Working on that. Here are some updates that have come out recently. God is doing great things in Sierra Leone through Jonathan House and that is so exciting!

Second of all...If you are interested in helping with this blog, let me know. (JHM.Salone@gmail.com) This could be in a variety of ways:

• Send in a story of your experiences with Jonathan House--getting to know the kids and staff at JH, getting to know some of the kids who've been adopted and live in the U.S., getting to know your sponsored kids, and so on.
• Look for articles about Sierra Leone and appropriate themes.
• Help in posting and recruiting people to send stories (see first bullet). :-) I would like to definitely start on a regular schedule of when to post.

--------------------------------------------------

1. School Campaign (from Karen): Praise the Lord. To date God has provided $25676.33 for the school. This is amazing! We really need a minimum of $50,000 to get started and a total of $60,000 for the entire project. (This includes floating a second floor for future growth and/or housing, guestrooms, etc.). Please keep praying that God would touch just the right hearts to help provide support for this project. God is good and HIS timing is perfect! I am so excited for the day that we can call the orphanage and announce that God has blessed them with the funds for their school building! THANK YOU!
2. Roger, Outreach (from Karen): Please pray for Roger this week! He will be going to southern Sierra Leone to visit and begin ministering to a group of people who have had little exposure to the Gospel. We do know of one rudimentary church in the area, but it is largely a group who have little knowledge of our Lord. Pray that Roger would travel safely (there are really no direct routes to this area). Pray that he would make connections with just the right people. Pray that God would speak through him and show him the paths we should take in beginning to minister to these people. [He should be there about now...]
3. Teams: Pray for Kayla, Dylan, Rachel & Roger who still have some more time left in Sierra Leone. Several team members left earlier this week and should be back home now (or will be shortly). We will hopefully hear from them soon. Pray for Christie who is there for about 4 more months! Her dad and sisters have been in Sierra Leone spending time with her and working alongside her and just left with this last group.
4. Children's Day: Pray for the staff, as well as Christie and Dylan (that I know of) who will be traveling a Children's Day event soon.

Happy Memorial Day!

Greetings! Here are some of the latest updates.

1. The kids (minus Mary Ina) at Center Street Baptist sang this morning as part of special music. Perhaps I'll put a video up of that soon.
2. Pray for the team that is leaving Tuesday (the 27th). They are flying out of Cedar Rapids in the afternoon. This team will be tackling different projects that the members have each chosen.
3. Roger will be on this team and is looking forward to visiting a part of Sierra Leone that is unreached. Pray for safety for him and those who will go with him. Pray for the receptiveness of the people. We're looking forward to seeing pictures! This is a very spiritually dark place in the country--many secret societies' influence.
4. Pray for Kayla, Rachel and Dylan who have been there for a week already. Pray for their outreaches and travels. Dylan will be spending a week in Mattru with Pastor TY.
5. Pray for Christie who has been there a month already with five months to go. God is using her in amazing ways and allowing her to learn Mende at an incredible pace. Pray for her as she continues to grow in her relationship with the Lord during her quiet times. Pray for her relationships with the staff and children.
6. Pray for the staff at JCC! This is an ongoing request.
7. Pray for Christie's family who will be visiting the next couple of weeks.
8. Pray as the next team forms...possibly in March. If you're interested, leave me a note and I'll pass it on to the right people!

Those are the biggies for now. I'll try to get up some video and photos from recent presentations.

Marshalltown E-Free Church Jonathan House Presentation

May 18th, 2008

The presentation went very well. All nine children from Jonathan House in the area were able to come along with most of their families! It was a great time. Roger did well. The kids sang beautifully! The video clip included is from this morning. Pray for those in that congregation who might come alongside the ministry. There are already several families that support JH. Praise God! Oh, and Mary Ina is the one in the middle of the video (I think the first time she's been involved in a presentation since she's been here--all three weeks).

Otherwise, pray for Kayla, Rachel & Dylan as they left for Jonathan House this morning. They will hopefully be there tomorrow. Pray for connections and their time in airports and in travelling. Pray for their health. All three have been there previously, so pray for the many reunions that will transpire tomorrow. :-)

Roger and a group will live next week. Pray for them also and all the travelling and health. Some of them will be able to go into an unreached area--an exciting opportunity! Pray for that time (essentially pray throughout June).

Enjoy the video! It is part of Roger's part of the presentation.

Sunday, May 18th

Let's pray for Roger as he will be giving a short presentation at Evangelical Free Church in Marshalltown. If you live in the area, feel free to come. Service starts at 10:15. Some of the JCC kids might sing. We're still ironing out details. If you are not able to come, please pray for Roger to have the right words and know what to focus on since it will be a shorter amount of time than he has for other presentations. There are several individual supporters of JCC that attend E-Free.

Happy Mother's Day!

Nothing big at JCC (that I've heard) lately. Mark & Ashtyn are back from Africa and they were able to get some important files documented at the Embassy in Dakar for John's adoption. Praise God for that! The field investigation will soon commence. Pray for everything to go smoothly as there were some possible issues. While they were at JCC, Ashtyn was very sick but was better before they left. Praise God!

Many of the kids wrote letters back to their supporters and friends here in America. I worked really hard last fall and wrote all the kids and several staff letters for a trip some friends were making in November. I had been working on replies for the first few months of this year until Solomon passed away, which stopped the momentum in its tracks. I was able to get a few written for Mark & Ashtyn to bring, and just received the replies today. How incredible these kids are! Many of my letters to several of these kids whom I had become very close with and others who had helped me with Solomon while I was there. He was a special little bond that helped me get to know several of the women staff and older girls especially so much better than I probably would have otherwise. And many of the letters from those kids and Aunty Fatmata (his mama after I left) had incredible words of encouragement. We could all learn a lot from the kids and staff about faith! Wow! Perhaps on one hand they're just more accustomed to losing loved ones than I or really they have an incredible faith in our wonderful, loving God! I really believe it is the latter after spending 6 months worshipping God with them. Do you know that sometimes some of the older kids will decide to hold a prayer meeting and recruit other kids to join them?! How joyful the sound of children praising their Heavenly Father!

Pray for the trips coming up:

• Kayla "Boi", Rachel & Dylan will be leaving in about another week to spend five weeks at JCC.
• Two weeks into their trip (or thereabouts), there is a larger group leaving to join them. Roger (int'l director) will be joining them but is glad that he won't be leading this team. Many of the team members on both these teams have been there before. But pray for those who are going for the first time--it can be overwhelming!
• Pray for Christie who is just in her first month of six! She has had a smooth transition thus far and took care of Ashtyn while she was sick. I was able to call her last week and we were able to talk about her first few weeks. There is a lot to get used to--especially being a house mother. I know she is glad that there will be other Americans there for several weeks soon. Some family members will be visiting her soon, too. And then she will have several months "alone" or at least the only American. From experience, it could be challenging during those times, but it was also a time to get to know my African brothers and sisters better--and of course that sweet little baby. :-)

COMING SOON:

• I have a Picasa web album nearly set up--wanted to get the blog up and running before making the web albums public. If you have any pictures to share, please send those to JHM.Salone@gmail.com. I am hoping to have pictures from past teams--looking for former members of those teams to help "create" the album. :-)
• The offer still stands for anyone to share a story! Feel free to email a short story or testimony to the email address in the last bullet.

That's all for now....have a great week!

Update: John's Adoption

From Karen on 4/29:

This morning the first duck was placed in the row when John's adoption was approved. Unbelievably the second duck was close behind. Our I-600A approval came in the mail this morning! (The internet said they were working on January's application and ours was filed in March.) God is good and SURPRISING! This means that Mark will be able to stop in Dakar on the way home from Sierra Leone next week and file our I-600. This is the form that initiates a field investigation. Praise the Lord! We got two steps closer to bringing John home just this morning!

Also, pray for Ashtyn as she is sick with flu-like symptoms. "Mama Christie" is taking good care of her.

Mary Ina is HOME!

Praise God that the Gourleys have gone and come back from Africa with a "new" member--Mary Ina. They arrived in Des Moines Saturday night (April 26th). They've been waiting for this for nearly three years!! She has since been reunited with other JCC adoptees.

Pray for their adjustment with this special little girl in their lives and home now and also for her adjustment to life in America! And even though this is incredibly joyful, pray that being separated from the woman who has raised her since she was born--Auntie Mary--will be quenched by God's love and peace.

Mary Ina, Christie....and other news...

I apologize for not keeping this current the last week or so. Big exciting news!

• Mary Ina's adoption was approved last week!!!! Her parents left today to fly to Dakar to meet her and finish up the last bit of all the technical stuff. Pray that there will be no further hitches. PRAISE GOD for the approval!
• Christie left for Jonathan House a few days ago and should be there by now, though I haven't heard. Pray for her as she adjusts to her role and getting to know many of the kids she met two years ago and some of the new ones that have come since then. This is an exciting time for her. I remember the beginning of my 6 months--it was a bit overwhelming, I must admit, but I have the utmost confidence she'll do an amazing job.
• Mark & Ashtyn are leaving tomorrow for Sierra Leone for the court date of another child that they are in the process of adopting. They'll get to spend some time at Jonathan House, too. Pray for their time there and their time with John. Ashtyn will be assisting in the nursery class (like kindergarten here) during their time.
• Pray for the students as they are approaching the end of their school year (June).
• Some people involved with JH found an aerial photo of Jonathan House on Google Earth. G.E. hasn't had high resolution of that area previously. Those pictures will be up here soon.

Pray for Mary Ina (& some other requests)

April 3rd: Prayer & Praise (per Karen)

Pray for Mary Ina's and her family as they wait for a man with the US Embassy in Dakar to approve her visa so that she can finally come home!!! Mary Ina is in the bottom picture--how sweet is she?!

Pray for Rachel (in the top photo holding Solomon, Jan. '07) as she will have surgery to remove one of her kidneys on Sun. (April 6th). Pray for peace for her as she waits and for her twin sister Leah. Pray for the surgeon's skill and a sterile environment to prevent infection, a successful procedure and a quick recovery. Pray that she'll be able to make up any school work she might miss. She is in Grade 8 at the high school. She and Leah just turned 14 in March.

Pray for the people getting ready to go to Jonathan House:

* Christie--She'll be leaving in another week or so and will spend 6 months at JH serving as a house mother at the children's home. Pray for her health and good travel and quick adjustment to a new lifestyle at the home.

* Mark & Ashtyn--They'll be heading over end of April for a court date in the family's process to adopt one of the boys at the home--John Tarawallie. (What a great kid!)

* Roger, Kayla and several others who will make up two teams in May/June--some for 3 weeks and some for 5 weeks.

Pray for the staff as they deal with changes in the government and among staff. A new president and essentially a new government was put into office last fall which is a huge blessing. The election was peaceful which in itself is a huge praise! The new president is a Temne man and is a Christian! While it can be hard to keep up with some of the changes and requirements, hopefully these changes will create a better Sierra Leone in the future (hopefully sooner than later).

Praise God for a buyer for the old vehicle. A new vehicle was provided just a short time ago. (Praise!)

Pray for the fundraising campaign to build a new school on the grounds at Jonathan House. This is one of those new requirements of the new government. We are asking that people would donate $10 for a "brick" (or more!). And we are even going to encourage you to personalize that brick (or bricks) and they will form a collage at the home in the shape of the new building! More will be posted on this soon enough. Email JHM.Salone@gmail.com for any questions or how you can participate.

Praise God for the newest church plant in the village of Gbomboma! They just celebrated the finishing of their building with an official event. There were between 100 and 150 people in attendance at the Gbomboma church Easter Sunday. The church plant only started a year or so ago. Praise God for a successful outreach at the church in November with a medical clinic and handouts of food that were donated and sent over on the container. Pray for the pastor and leadership in the church that they will continue to trust God and be strong witnesses for others in Gbomboma and surrounding villages. The pastor--Randolph--also serves as the Class 4 teacher at the Jonathan House primary school. Another teacher and house father at Jonathan House is also the pastor at Torwama church--another JH church plant. Pray for these men and their families.