Harbour Light of the Windwards
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Pat & Janice Murphy Praise the Lord, the Murphys arrived in Carriacou during the summer of 2009 Recent Prayer letters... September 30, 2009 Dear praying friends and supporters, Greetings in the name of our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The Lord is good ALL the time. We had a wonderful weekend for our commissioning. My oldest daughter surprised me by bringing my youngest daughter to be with us for the service. What a great surprise! We were blessed to have four of our children, Dr. Yearick from the ARMS board, friends from work as well as our dear church family in attendance. There were around 100 present, it was like a homecoming for us. The Lord blessed the day, both the morning and evening services were powerful and spoke to our hearts. We were so very blessed, as my daughter said, we were eulogized. Pat arrive in Carriacou on July 31 and began the task of putting in sinks and faucets in both the kitchen and bathroom and had the ceiling fans, stove and refrigerator installed by the time I arrived. Our 13th grandchild, Corbin Matthew Shelton was born on August 17, 2009 weighing in at 6 lbs. 6 oz and was 19 inches long. It thrilled my heart to be there for his birth and to spend a few days spoiling him before I left for Carriacou. He was part of the crowd who came to see me off. I arrived on the island on Monday, August 24th to find things pretty much as I had left them a year ago. Pat had, however done a great deal of cleaning before I arrived. Boxes were still stacked to the ceiling waiting to be unpacked. I unpacked and washed all the linens over the course of the first couple of weeks. Just in time for our 2nd container to arrive. We enjoyed a very nice “Welcome to Carriacou” luncheon provided by the staff at the station. Thank you for all you have done to help us settle in. It's great to be working with such wonderful folks. Container #2 was scheduled to arrive on August 23rd. However, the Lord always knows best, it arrived in Grenada on September 7th. We had the "privilege" of riding a freighter to Grenada as the Osprey was down for repairs. We arrived in Grenada about 2:30 pm on the 10th only to find over half of our belongings sitting on the dock where customs had already started their process to clear our container. There were complications: the concessions letter had not been received by the broker, the list wasn't printed in the order they would have liked and who knows, maybe they didn't have enough caffeine that morning. At any rate they were not happy and we found no favor with the custom officials. The belongings that were on the dock had to be placed on trucks, covered with tarps and secured at the port for the night. By this time we had learned they had assessed the motorcycles for approximately $20,000EC about $7,500US (we had paid less than $2,000US for them) with duty to run around $10,000EC about $3,745US. Well, our hearts sank for the evening, as we were only able to transfer $13,000EC after paying the shipping to Grenada. The next day being 9/11, Randy went for a copy of the concessions letter only the find they could not locate it to make him a copy. By this time the truckers were screaming for their trucks and the broker was beside himself. He gave us the option of paying duty on everything which was in excess of $28,000EC. OUCH!!!!! He gave Randy some paperwork to take to the ministry of finance to get a new letter for concessions on at least some of the items. We were able to get the trucks moving around noon and by the time we were finished moving everything we had only a few minutes to spare to catch the boat to come home on Friday evening. Once again we walked away leaving the Lord in charge as all of the container contents were just piled up on the freighter for the move to Carriacou. (Loose for the world to see) Saturday the 12th was another moving day as we hauled everything from the Amelia to the house or the station. We hired three trucks and they each made two trips as well as the Steels' moving their items and John and Randy making a couple of trips with their vehicles along with the trailer. In total each item had to be moved about ten times by the time it made it here. As far as we know only one glass was broken and we aren't missing anything. See, I told you, God is Good. Pat's red bike has given him fits for the last week or so. A coating he had put in the gas tank to prevent rust had a bad reaction to the gas in the tank and the heat from being in the container for a month. After many trying and tiring hours he has gotten it to run with a missionary fix as we call it here. The blue scooter fared well and has been a real blessing for him to have to use during this time. The Steel's left for the states on September 14, to be with Sharon's mother for her final days. She went to be with the Lord on Friday September 18. They will be returning October 12 after taking care of some business and visiting family in the Greenville area. With the Steel's being gone, I have spent a few days in the office getting my feet wet at the finance desk. I'm still working on getting our home in order. Pat and Richard just finished a retaining wall down by the container this morning. Once they get some dirt moved in he will be ready to move everything out of the container, and as par for Pat, take a cutting torch to it. He will be putting in a big garage door, walk-in door, a window and some vents. The temperature in it now is well over 100 degrees. He guesses more like 120 – 140. It's brutal! Mama ”C” is in the states on furlough so we have had her van to use while she is gone. I started driving to the station a week or so ago and drove down the mountain to town for the first time last Saturday. This probably doesn't sound like a big deal to you, but for me, it was. Think about your stearing wheel being on the passenger side, driving on the wrong side of the road and everything else being backwards. I keep turning on the wipers for the turn signals and the turn signals for the wipers. I'm thankful it's an automatic or else I maybe going in reverse more often than forward. We have great neighbors upstairs. Pat enjoys more time up on their balcony than I get to, (he doesn't stick around to help with the dishes in the evenings). The kids are great and very helpful, they've carried a good number of empty boxes up for me and if they're around will help carry down the groceries. We enjoy our times of fellowship with them. We are praising the Lord in advance for the funds he will supply not only for our personal needs but also the needs of the station as we seek to do the Lords' will in “Spreading the Gospel”. We would like to thank those of you who have already given to our outfit and passage fund. Our need is as follows: Estimated Actual
Total $19,287.07 To date we have received $15,190 leaving a need of $4,097 to cover the expenses of our move thus far. Once again we would like to say “Thank You” to all who have contributed to this fund.Please pray for:
In Christ,
Mar 4, 2009 Dear praying friends and supporters, Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We are now in Oklahoma where we have one more meeting scheduled before heading back to Kansas and then into Colorado. We spent some very cold time in Kansas this winter before going on down into Texas. We received a lot of education in motor home living in cold weather with frozen water lines and a few chilly drafty days in our home. The meetings were excellent and we enjoyed seeing our children and grandchildren again for awhile. We left Kansas in the cold weather and headed south to find some very nice weather only to have the cold catch back up with us the next day. It soon warmed back up though and it felt like spring had arrived. We spent quite a bit of time in Joaquin (Walkeen) Texas near Shreveport, LA and left our motor home there to go to other meetings. We traveled from there to a conference just south of Houston and then back again for more meetings in that area. Then we headed towards the western side of Texas for another meeting and made a number of contacts along the way before going way on south to Laredo. Then we went back up some to San Antonio for a conference. Making more contacts lead to another conference and more meetings in the San Antonio area. We also got to see the Alamo for the first time and also the space center in Houston while in Texas. We are thrilled to report that our support has increased to 89% now and we are already discussing and planning how we will get the remainder of our things to Carriacou. If you recall, we have motorcycles and a few miscellaneous items from our motor home that we will need down on the mission field when we arrive, or soon after. We will be working our way back to our home church before long in order to take advantage of our health insurance before our COBRA runs out and have to switch to another health insurance policy. I am still working on getting on the VA health care system but the progress is very slow. Janice will also try taking a motor scooter class while there to get her motorcycle endorsement to take to Carriacou. We have also created another DVD that updates our progress while we have been on deputation. We will be sending it out to our supporting churches and other churches where we have had meetings. We are very anxious to finish our deputation and get on the field soon. Thank you for your continued prayers and support.
In Christ, November 6, 2008 Dear praying friends and supporters, Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This letter comes to you from Hutchinson, Kansas where the wind is howling, it’s cold, and the motor home is rocking back and forth. A dead tree limb has broken off and fell from a tree and landed on our roof, fortunately with no damage. It’s just typical Kansas weather. Our last letter came to you when we were still in Carriacou. Soon after that, Mark Gardner (cabinet maker) and Pastor Powell (Calvary Baptist Church pastor) arrived on schedule, eager to get started on assembling and installing the kitchen cabinets in our apartment. They were both a very welcome sight with all of the work left to do during our stay in Carriacou. Our container had arrived, been unloaded and moved to the radio station property, and set off onto the ground. The footings for the container had been poured and some of the cement blocks had been laid for the foundation. We found it easy to keep both of them very busy with the work left to do. The cabinets went together well and installed pretty much as planned. Our apartment may be small but it will be very nice. Most of our household goods remain boxed and stacked up along the walls but we were able to find most of the things we needed to get as far along as we did. There is still some plumbing to do, ceiling fans to hang, and a few other odds and ends to finish up but all in all it is very close to being finished and we are very happy with the results. It has taken many hours and a number of work teams to complete this project and we are very appreciative of all the work that has gone into it. A big thank you goes to John McPherson, Tyrone Polson, Richard Little and others who live in Carriacou and have spent countless hours working on this also. Our second biggest project was to get the container foundation finished and get the container set onto it and bolted down before we left to come back to the US. We extended our tickets several days to get some of those loose ends finished up and got to see Randy and his family in the interim when they returned from furlough. Because of the help from a lot of people, the container is on the foundation now and has been hurricane proofed. Not all of the work is done to make it completely useable but it is on its final resting spot and will not have to be moved any more. The trip was a complete success. We arrived back into Atlanta from our trip to Grenada and traveled on to Greenville to pick up our “home on wheels” where we had left it for Randy to use. We spent several days there moving back into the motor home and getting a few small repairs made to it. From there we went back to Loganville to our home church and set up housekeeping in their parking lot. Gas soon inflated to $4.00 per gallon or more and became very hard to locate at all some times, and in some cases was being rationed to $30.00 per customer. This was all due to the hurricane that struck the east coast of Texas. We used that time in Loganville to make phone calls and mail packets to get more meetings while we waited for things to settle down. I have applied to the VA for their medical program and we are researching avenues for medical insurance for Janice. Our cobra insurance will run out in a few months and proper wisdom in choosing alternate health care coverage could make a significant difference in the amount of support we will need. We will need some type of coverage effective in the US in the event Grenada is incapable of handling a situation. Gas prices are now down to what seems to be very realistic while our retirement accounts are falling into the basement at the same time. It’s good that our real fortune is in heaven and protected by the Lord himself. He is providing well for us as we seek to get the rest of our support. We have taken a closer look at our financial situation and have also taken a second look at using the early retirement offered by social security for myself. We have concluded that this will be a very workable solution, after all, to getting to the mission field in a more realistic amount of time. We have determined there would be no penalties on the social security imposed by maximum earned income restrictions. There are several other things to consider in this equation such as the purchase of an automobile, final shipping costs of the motor cycles and the duty on them, purchase of appliances, etc. We feel strongly that we can be on the field by January of 2010 at such time when I will become eligible for social security, if not sooner. We are still short of support and will not know an exact figure until we hear from the health insurance situations, but we are very close if we use the Social Security. We have a small motor scooter for Janice to use as transportation in Grenada when the weather cooperates. While we were in Loganville we had it out for her to practice riding and she had a mishap and skinned herself up pretty badly. Therefore, some of our time in Loganville was spent recovering from that. Soon afterward as she was well on her way to recovering, she stepped on a pecan on the pavement while taking trash out to the trash can at the curb and twisted her ankle very badly and is still recovering from that. We decided it was time to leave Georgia before something worse happened. We had a meeting yesterday in Halstead, Kansas and have several more this month in Kansas. Our plans are to go into Texas as the weather gets colder. Motor homes are not really designed for subzero temperatures. Thank you for your continued prayers and support. In Christ, Pat & Janice Murphy 3869 Pointer Road SW Loganville, Georgia 30052 (770) 483-6873 home (770) 377-3578 cell Rom 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. Pictures: 1. Unloading the container. It took 19 people 6 ½ hours to complete this job. A good deal of it went into the car port across the street and then had to be move a pickup load at a time on out to the station. 2. Pouring the foundation for the container. 3. Mark Gardner (left background) and pastor Powell working on the kitchen cabinets. 4. The container (work shop) resting on the foundation. Later, a cement slab will be poured between the existing building and the container, and a roof built to cover it from the rain and provide some shade from the sun so projects can take a little less effort.
Dear praying friends and supporters, Phi 4:19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. FINALLY FULL-TIME DEPUTATION The Lord has seen fit to answer many of the prayer requests from our December prayer letter. He has truly supplied our needs. Only the Lord could have sold our home under the circumstances of the depressed housing market along with the time frame we were facing. We thank you for your prayers regarding the sale. We have a contract on it and closing will be in a few more days providing nothing goes wrong. We have entrusted the details of closing to our pastor. The Lord’s timing as always is perfect. We have now moved into our motor home and will spend the rest of our deputation traveling and living in it until we raise the balance of the financial support needed for us to depart for Carriacou. Our prayer letter comes to you from Hutchinson, Kansas this time. Our motor home is parked in the drive at one of our daughters and grandma is having a good time with the grandchildren. We left Georgia three weeks ago and have faced snow flurries, rain, cold temperatures and extremely high winds. We are becoming veteran motor homers with books for overnight accommodations at all the Wal-Marts and others for dump stations and truck stops across the US. Our GPS attachment to our lap top is a great help also. We’ve spent some of our time this week getting organized and unpacked. It’s just like moving into a regular home. A special thank you goes out to all those who helped to load our shipping container in preparation to leave for our field of service which we pray will be soon. We had spent many weeks anticipating items we will need and have filled a 40 ft. container completely full from front to back and floor to ceiling with household goods, tools, items to complete our apartment and supplies. My shoulder surgery went well and the recovery is progressing nicely. We are very pleased with the results. Having to pack and help with loading our container may have helped with the therapy. I had no choice but to use it. We had a very successful meeting in Newton, KS a couple of Sundays ago and traveled to Marysville, KS for all day meetings last Sunday. We are working on scheduling a meeting with some of our friends in western Kansas before leaving for Maine. We have six weeks of meetings scheduled there beginning April 13th. Please pray for:
We want to remind you once more of the Harbour Light’s web address, www.harbourlightradio.org, and the new address of ARMS, www.everlastingarms.org which is relatively new. Don’t forget also that you may listen to the Harbour Light over the internet at any time. We pray the Lord will richly bless each of you as you have blessed us.
In Christ, December 22, 2007 Dear praying friends and supporters, “And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Matt 1:21 Our prayer is the Lord will bless each of you with a glorious Christmas Season as we reflect on our Savior’s love for us. Our home church recently preformed the cantata “From Christmas to Calvary”. It was a tremendous blessing to all those present. It touched our hearts and has made our longing to be in Carriacou even greater. We know the Lords desire is for us to serve along with the staff at the Harbour Light. Much has happened since our last letter. Our hopes to sell our home in an “as is” condition fell through in late September. As we worked on it alone it didn’t take long to see that progress was just moving too slowly. We hired a contractor to complete the brick work on the front of the house and around the garage. On November 9, 2007, Janice gave up her job to be at home full-time to help with the work on the house and to assist with deputation. On the 14th we purchased our shipping container. We needed it to store the garage contents while we completed the sheetrock work. After that we will be able to load our belongings for storage as we move forward with deputation and our eventual move to Carriacou. The 15th of November brought us special joy as our 12th grandchild was born. Little Miss Grace Ann Shelton weighed in at 5lbs.8oz. and 18 inches long. We had a meeting scheduled in Kansas for November 25th; we left on the 19th in order to see all of our girls and grandchildren. It was a thrill to see all of them even if only briefly. A work team from the Taylors/Greenville area along with a member from our home church came out to help with the home project. They helped get the sheetrock hung in the garage and gave us a good start on putting the handrail around our deck. With the help of a couple of men from our church most of that project is complete. We still have two set of steps to install and paint. We had planned to paint the exterior of the garage last weekend but the weather conditions didn’t allow. We have been working on the inside of the garage finishing the sheetrock when we can’t work outside on the painting. We’ve had a rather rough week filled with illnesses ranging from upper respiratory issues to stomach viruses. Pat had an impacted wisdom tooth removed on Thursday and woke up Friday with a virus which we pray will subside soon. Pat is scheduled to have shoulder surgery on January 10, 2008. They plan to do the least invasive procedure possible and have advised him he will need at least a two week recovery period. The doctor stated his shoulder will let him know when he is doing too much. Our prayer is to have the work on the house complete prior to this surgery. Please pray for it to sell quickly. We need a miracle. We know too, if it is the Lord’s will it will happen. We have some meetings scheduled in Kansas in early March and several weeks of meeting in Maine beginning mid-April. Our prayer is that we will see much fruit from our meetings of this past year as well as the ones in early spring. The Lord has clearly called us and we are anxious to go. Our support level is currently 45%. A team from Men for Missions will be going to Carriacou in January to complete the lower level of the Missions home which will be our residence once we arrive. Our special prayer requests are:
We want to remind you once more of the Harbour Light’s web address, www.harbourlightradio.org, and the address of ARMS (our Mission Board), www.everlastingarms.org which is relatively new. Don’t forget also that you may listen to the Harbour Light over the internet at any time. Just go to the Harbour Light's web address to connect. We pray the Lord will richly bless each of you as you have blessed us. May the blessings of Christmas be with you throughout the coming year.
In
Christ Precious Love, August 24, 2007 Dear praying friends and supporters, We praise the Lord for the many blessing he has bestowed upon us these last months. He has so graciously met our every need. Our support has increased slightly to about 45%. We have had several exceptional meetings in South Carolina, Georgia and Maine. The love gifts from these meetings were ample to pay all the expenses of our two week trip to Maine the end of April and early May. We are so grateful for this wonderful provision. The Lord has been so faithful to us. We only have minor scars from the many grueling hours of work spent preparing and painting our motor home. What a monumental task. We now have the lettering in place which concludes the restoration phase of our “Home on Wheels”. We are grateful to all those who have had a part in this project. Most of the paint was provided by the owner of a paint company. The lettering was provided by the Sunday school classes at our local church, and some of the labor, much direction and advice were provided by one of our local members. One of our daughters provided a very sophisticated water purifier. I have never painted anything quite like this and found myself painting two motor homes; my first and my last. It has been a rather overwhelming task. A few other pictures can be found at the bottom of this letter as well. We are at a very critical point in our deputation process. We have set a goal of 50% before setting out on full time deputation. We are pleased to see our support level getting so close. Please pray that the Lord will continue to show himself strong and steadfast in our journey to the mission field which he has called us. We are in need of much wisdom to know just when to sell our home, Janice to quite her job and when to ship our belongings to Carriacou. There are many details to attend to. Please pray we will do it just the way the Lord will have us to.
We have added another family member since our last letter. Our daughter, Barbara Ann was married so we now have a new son-in-law, Jerred. Our daughter, Nola is expecting our twelfth grandchild in late November. We recently attended two family reunions two weekends in a row. We were exhausted. We have purchased two additional motorcycles to take down as we ship our belongings. I believe they will be well received. One has a home. While we are not sure about the other, it will make a great spare for the other three when mechanical failures occur. We want to remind you once more of the Harbour Light’s web address, www.harbourlightradio.org, and the new address of ARMS, www.everlastingarms.org which is relatively new. Don’t forget also that you may listen to the Harbour Light over the internet at any time.
In
Christ’s Love, March 14, 2007 Dear praying friends and supporters, We are excited to inform you that our support has increased to 43% and we are looking forward to being able to devote full time to our deputation, we hope soon. We are slowly moving in the right direction.
Tyrron Polson is a national in Carriacou who has been very active in the ministry of the Harbourlight and Open Door Baptist Church. Recently he was struck by an automobile while riding his bicycle and has had surgery on a broken leg because of it. Please pray for a speedy recovery for Tyrron. Pray also that our full support will come soon.
In
Christ’s Love, May 3, 2006 Dear praying friends and supporters, This will be a quick note to bring you up to date. We are excited to be able to tell you our support has reached 20% in the past few days. Thank you especially to the folks in Udall Kansas for taking us on. We have a meeting locally this coming Sunday and then will be headed for Maine for some meetings. This will also give us the opportunity to see Janice’s sister midway both going up and coming back. Please pray for safety as we travel. Please pray for the continued support of the Harbour Light and that we will schedule more meetings and raise our support quickly. For those who have not yet made decisions concerning our ministry we would ask that you please continue to prayerfully consider us. We are desperately needed.
In Christ’s
Love, Act 1:11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. February 9, 2006 Dear praying friends and supporters, February has found its way here sooner than expected and so did our 11th grandchild. Jessica Marie Shelton was born February 6th, weighed 4 lbs. 3 ozs, and was 16 ¼ in. long. We have a trip scheduled to Kansas in March for a meeting and also to see the new baby. We hoped to be there when Jessica was born. She just didn’t wait long enough. Randy Cornelius (station manager) was here in the States for a few weeks so we got to meet with him this past Sunday when he came down from Greenville to speak to the people in our church. We also went to Greenville the previous week and saw him for a short visit. John (station engineer) and Karen will be coming back for their daughter’s graduation this spring and will be staying for a number of months on furlough. Arlene Cornelius will be coming back on furlough for a number of months also at the same time. She continues to be involved at the station and does a great deal with the children’s programming. Keith and Becky Ekberg are still state-side with medical problems. John hopes to have one of the two generators overhauled and back running before he must leave. The other engine now seems to have a deteriorating radiator that has sprung a leak. Please pray that everything will hold together since Randy will be the only one at the helm until the others get back from furlough. Please continue to pray that we will schedule more meetings and raise our support quickly. For those who have not yet made decisions concerning our ministry we would ask that you please continue to prayerfully consider us. We are desperately needed ASAP.
In Christ’s Love,
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We
are beginning to look further away from home for meetings. We
are praying the Lord will open the doors for us to make another
trip to Maine. We will do some more work on our home soon and
place it on the market. Please pray that it will sell at the
right time to work together with the scheduled meetings. When
our home is sold we will pack our belongings in preparation for
shipping them to Grenada. We will live in the motor home until
we can move permanently to our mission field.
The
work team to Carriacou did not fully complete their goal but the
basement of the missions home is much closer to completion and we
look forward also to being able to move in to this soon. We will
travel to Greenville this coming weekend so Janice can attend a
class on Microsoft Access with Arlene Cornelius. The Harourlight is
now using this. We plan to take our newly remodeled motor home so
we can work out any bugs in it before it will head for Maine in a
few short weeks. I am also in the middle of setting up a lap top
computer we will be taking with us as we travel in the future. We
continue to visit churches on the Sundays we don’t have meetings and
find it productive in getting more meetings.
