Hi Everyone Just a quick catchup before we head off on our camp tommorrow. Firstly thanks again to everyone who has been part of getting us to the camp. We are so excited about what this is going to mean for the family. We leave from Los Angeles at 6am tommorrow morning, so its going to be a late night / Early start tonight.... We've had an incredible week down here in Ensenada. Last weekend we built 6 homes for the poor. Check out the video HERE. If you look carefully, you might see Asher & Noah. Also this week we had our quarterly board meetings in San Diego. CHECK OUT MY POST HERE This weekend we have our bi annual staff conference. A chance for al our YWAM San Diego staff to get together for teaching, fun and community. Finally this week, our summer staff training starts as we get ready for our summer Mission Adventures programs. The first teams arrive on the 18th June. So as always life Never Stays still. But we didnt come here to sit back after all.... We'll be in touch after the camp to let you know how things go. All Our Love Tym, Sam & The Gang... A part of my job that I really love is the opportunity to serve on our legal board. This is the group that provides the legal covering and high level decision making for the whole ministry. I see it as a really privaledged position to be part of this group, and also to learn from the wisdom and experience of the other members.
Our board is make up of around 16 people. One third are local senior YWAM staff. One third are senior YWAMers from around the world and one third are non YWAM. Most of them are presidents / CEO's I companies and big supporters of YWAM and Homes of Hope. The board meet 4 times a year. This week we meet in San Diego for 2 days. We want to say a huge thank you to everyone. The response that we have had to Micah's appeal has been amazing. We are overwhelmed and humbled by everyone's generosity. We feel very loved. I've put a running total on the front page of our website, and as I write this, out of the initial $7000 needed we have around $700 left to go to meet out goal, which is amazing. We thank God for his answer to prayer, and each of you for your amazing generosity. We have booked the flights to leave on the 2nd of June. Please continue to pray for us as we get ready to leave and raise the last few dollars that we need. Any extra money we collect, we will use for future therapy for Micah, or to donate to other families in our position. Again thank you so much for all your love and support. We will let you know how things go at the camp. All Our Love Tym & Sam Greetings From Mexico I always believe that our first call as missionaries is to our families and as many of you know over the past 4 years we have been working on the adoption of our 2 children, Micah & Tianna, taking them from a hopeless situation into a loving family. Finally at the end of last year we received their paperwork saying they were officially ours. Both of the children have fitted well into our family, but each with their own special needs. From early in the adoption we were realizing that Micah had some development, behavioral and attachment issues. Being here in Mexico, its very hard to get good assessments of special needs, and even harder to get help. Over the years we have seen a number of neurologists and psycologists, but still no conclusive results. The notes we have about Micah’s history are very minimal, but we do know that he was born to an illiterate 17 yr. old single mother, who had already been through drug rehab at the age of 14. He suffered abuse and neglect in his very early life, and by the time he was taken to the orphanage at 7 months old, he had broken limbs and was malnourished. From looking at his history and from our own investigations, we think we are looking at living with a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder caused by neglect in his early life and maybe also Fetal Alcohol Syndrome caused by alcohol abuse while an unborn child. As you can imagine, it has been a very frustrating journey, living with a child with special needs and not having any support or education on how to help, and to be really honest, its been a very lonely and frustrating 4 years. Now that we have Micah’s passport and visa, we are excited about the possibility of taking him across the border to have a better assessment by a doctor in the states. We believe this is important for his development and for our family to learn how to love him in the best way. One of the ways we are trying to do this is by attending Camp Revolution, family camp in Washington at the beginning of June. This camp is designed specifically for families like ours to learn how to live together and learn how to love our special child. The camps are very small with only 15 families and 30 trained staff including psychologists and neurologists. There will be many assessments available, Brain Mapping, and EEG’s. The Camp is Run by Nancy Thomas, who is regarded around the world as a leading authority in dealing with emotionally disturbed children. When we first heard about the camp, we thought there would be no way we could take part as they are very popular, and there is usually a waiting list to attend. We prayed about it and put it in God’s hands. But just a short while ago, we received a call from the organizers saying that a space had become available and offered it to us. We jumped for joy, as we feel that this could be the start of a new hope to what has been a hopeless situation The cost is going to be $585 per person, plus travel. At the moment it seams like a huge hill to climb, trying to raise the $7000 we need in just 2 weeks, but we know that God is faithful and the ultimate provider of all things. Please pray for us as we try and start this journey of restoration for our family. And we ask that you would consider helping us get to the camp and be part of changing the destiny of this little boy.
If you would like to help, you can give Online by clicking the Donate button on the website or by sending a cheque. You can find our contact info HERE We very much appreciate your prayers and support. All Our Love, Tym & Sam Kemp One thing i love about my job is the chance to meet some amazing people. This week the had the honor of hosting Benny Prasad, a Musician/Missionary from India. Benny travels the world telling his stories and playing his very unique style on music the "Bentar" his unique guitar, made with 2 drums built in and a 14 string harp. Benny has taken his stories of Hope and God's love to every nation of the world, and is in the record books for travelling to every nation in the shortest amount of time. From the picture of his passport, consisting of 8 books, you can see he has travelled ALOT. He just returned from a concert in North Korea, at the request of the government... We were so lucky to have Benny to come down to Ensenada to perform a concert for our staff and the local Community. After the concert i drove Benny across the border and into the States, which was fun with his passport... We had another treat awaiting when we went to the Taylor guitar factory in San Diego. Both me and Jacob own Taylor Guitars, and Benny's first guitar was a Taylor also. So it was a massive treat for us, as through a friend of mine, we managed to meet Bob Taylor, the founder of Taylor guitars Every Day we get visitors coming to our door asking for help. Sometimes its a new house, sometimes its money and sometimes its just a cup of water. Our heart is to help everyone, but unfortunately it is not possible every time. Towards the end of last year we met Rueben. A dear old man, with an crazy life story, but desperate for a new home as his living conditions were terrible. Unfortunately he didn't qualify for our Homes of Hope program, but we decided that we still wanted to help him to get a new home. So with a very generous donation from some friends in Newcastle, and the help of an outreach team from Kona, we managed to build Rueben a new home. To View more photos CLICK HERE
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August 2024
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