Full Time Missionary Reports
FCPA is blessed to have a number of PAs who are serving the Lord overseas in a full-time capacity. We want to begin to tell you about them and offer a way to contact them if you want to communicate and/or support them in some way.
Julie Malacusky, PA-C
Julie, who is the 2009 AAPA Humanitarian PA of the Year, serves the Lord in Mozambique. She is part of The Dream Project: (http://www.thedream-project.org
Following is a report from Julie:
Hello from Mozambique! I was so encouraged to meet so many beautiful people with hearts to help the poor and hungry at this year's AAPA conference. I am eagerly anticipating what will happen as we come together. The potential is tremendous. We have the amazing privilege and opportunity to be vessels of hope and love to many in tremendous need! Please enjoy the story below I wrote today about one of our children:
Pedro . . . The Face of Hope
Pedro doesn't know how old he is or when his birthday is. Although Pedro appears to be about 10 years old, he has already experienced a world most adults never will. When I am walking around town with Pedro, he courageously points in the face of this man and that man and tells me who is honest and who is a thief. He appoints himself as my own personal guard telling me to hold onto my purse or he takes my bag to carry it for me.
Pedro never completed the first grade. When I met Pedro's mother, who was seldom in town or at home, she said she was unable to control Pedro and had given up on him. Pedro's father is dead. At the age of 10, Pedro was finding his own way in life. In my eyes, Pedro is just a child in need of hope and a chance for life. He will do anything to help me.
After a year with Pedro, we have fought his addiction to street life, the addiction to a life free of discipline. We have fought for him to stay in the classroom and not leave school and wander about all day. We have fought for him to sit in our tutoring lessons at our home. We continue to teach him that he does not need to cry and scream about everything in order to get the attention he so desperately needs and has been without for so many years. We are seeing so many beautiful qualities in his life and are honored we have the privilege of developing them.
When we took all the kids swimming at the beach yesterday, Pedro ran ahead of us in his underwear, squealing. He was so excited to use his new plastic swim ring! Today, when we told our children we would be taking them camping and we had to decide where we would camp, Pedro was the first to smile and let out a huge squeal of delight! Pedro has never been camping and had known little more than the streets before he came to live with us.
Thank you for your interest and prayers. The love of many make it possible to invest in Pedro and the lives of so many other children in need of hope and a chance for life. Our desire is to raise our children to be leaders to bring hope to a country suffering from hunger, disease, and hopelessness. Please pray for this with us. May we each count it unspeakable joy to be vessels of hope and love to beautiful little lives.
Much love,
Julie
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NOTE: We are currently in need of individuals who have the desire to be liaisons for The Dream Project with their state PA organizations. Please contact Janet Ditto, PA-C (jditto@triad.rr.com) or Kim Opowell, PA-C (kimopowell@gmail.com) if you would like to help with this.
To view the video shown at the AAPA conference highlighting the PA Humanitarian of the Year Award, as well as to see pictures of the children of Mozambique, go to this link:
http://www.thedream-project.org/homepage.php
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Sarah Mayer, PA-C
Sarah Mayer, PA-C is working full-time in the Baja region of Mexico and can be reached by email: sarah@themayers.com
First of all, it was so wonderful meeting you and the other FCPA members. It's such a blessing to meet other Christian PAs, receive their prayer and support and know that the fellowship is actively trying to make the Christian voice heard in AAPA politics. Thank you also for the chance to share with the fellowship what we are doing here in Baja at our clinic.
Please keep our clinic in prayer. We had a tough week as one of my new patients (who I had only seen once right before coming to San Diego) died of AIDS complications and sadly, his wife just tested positive for HIV. We were able to pray with him the day before he died and learned he had accepted Christ 3 weeks earlier! His wife is now left sick, and with two children to care for. It was a very emotional week.
God bless you! Please keep in touch!
Sarah Mayer PA-C
Cathy Hoelzer, PA-C
Serving Christ in Sudan
Brett and Cathy Hoelzer are working in Dajo, which is located in the Upper Nile State in Southern Sudan. Southern Sudan has suffered from one of the longest running civil wars in African history. However, this war came to an end in January 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Although there is still much political instability in this land, many people are working hard to rebuild this war-torn nation.
There is a great need for the Gospel to penetrate this region. Many of the Buldits and Komas who are Christians first heard about Christ during the war while in the refugee camps in Ethiopia. The Hoelzers regularly meet people in their surrounding villages who have never even heard of Jesus. Many of the people worship a god called “Bikene”. He is known as the “Son of Adam.” But the Hoelzers want to tell these people that there is One who is greater than their god, He is Jesus, “the son of Adam, the Son of God” (Luke 3:38). This region lacks missionaries. Please pray the Lord of the Harvest will thrust forth his laborers into this field. There is a great need for Bible teachers, youth workers, and evangelists.
October 2009: We have a new child, Nyanhial, in our clinic brought in with kwashiorkor. She's four years old and weights only 17 pounds. Please pray for her.
12/23/09: Go to the website above to view a very nice video recently posted
Tyler and Kim Anderson
Tyler Anderson is a PA. In 2006, the Andersons felt a call to leave their home in the US and serve the people of Uganda. They moved their family there and have served the Lord under the auspices of the Rafiki Foundation.
http://www.rafiki-foundation.org
Since 1985, Rafiki, a Swahili word for friend, have been serving the people of Africa, with a priority for orphan care and Christian education. So many children in Africa are orphaned through famine, war and, especially, the scourge of HIV/AIDS. The work of many organizations, including Rafiki, offer them a better future.
The website for Tyler and Kim is included below so you can access and read the newsletters they’ve generated since moving to Uganda.
http://www.rafiki-foundation.org/ros/anderson_tk/andersont.html
Peter and Kathleen White
Peter White is a PA serving in Macau which is a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, similar to Hong Kong's status, which allows freedom to evangelize. His wife, who is Chinese, along with their four children, have been there for about three years and plan to stay as long as the Lord allows.
They serve under the their home church, Calvary Chapel in North Carolina but hope to soon come under the umbrella of GO ministries which is a broader ministry of Calvary Chapel Norco(NC).
Peter is currently a full-time youth pastor and part-time PA. He is applying for a Macau medical license to practice under the umbrella of a southern baptist clinic in Macau.
February 7, 2010: Peter requests prayer for the next 2 months as he will teaching Apolgetics to the Sunday School class. They have over 50 children to share the truth of the Scriptures and give real answers. Pray that they will be encouraged and their faith strengthened. Most of all, pray that God's love will be shown to them.
October 2009 report: The Phillipines is a very interesting place. There are many homeless, with whole families living in the parks. The first couple of days we were there, we did a lot of cleaning up and throwing away of flood destroyed stuff. It was a gross and very dirty job. The church, Calvary Chapel Manila, where we stayed had been flooded. We moved a lot of rocks to rebuild the foundation of a different church.
The last couple days we were in that area, we did a lot of outreach to the homeless, with Bible studies, washing their clothes and feeding them. Danny, a member of the team, was deeply moved. He was homeless himself for a while and said "a guy like me it is ok to be homeless...but these children have done nothing".
Pastor Lito and his family were wonderful hosts. Thank you for praying for my trip. I may be going back in the early spring. Pastor Lito is organizing a medical outreach to the mountain areas and I will hopefully be able to go and use my medical training.
1/24/2010: To read their newest newsletter click on below:
For more information you can read about them on the web at:
http://web.mac.com/whitesinmacau
Or contact Peter at: whitesinmacau@mac.com
Ron and Debbie Grosser
Ron Grosser is a PA serving the Lord with his wife in Thailand. Ron worked as a PA in the US for many years and felt called to medical missions for many years and finally went on a short-term mission trip to Thailand and Burma in 2004. After returning to America, he and his wife shed their possessions and "retired" to Thailand in July 2005. Ron also has a Masters of Divinity degree and has served as a pastor as well before returning to medicine.
As "freelancing" volunteers, they are currently serving with World Vision Foundation of Thailand. Debbie is called to be a mentoring and nurturing teacher for teachers in Southeast Asia and Ron volunteers his medical services whenever possible along with evangelistic opportunities. They are working especially with the Lahu Hilltribe people in Thailand. They have been given 30 children in Thailand and Myanmar as their expanding, extended family in Christ's care.
In Ron's words: "the Grosser's mission can be summed up in the words of Ezekial 34. They are called to prepare the people of Southeast Asia for that hour, day, month and year spoken of by Jesus in Revelation 9. Their lives are a testimony to the grace, love, forgiveness, transformation and power in the good news of Jesus Christ, to whom is all the glory, honor and praise forevermore".
The Grossers have no sending agency. They use their savings and retirement to obey His call.
13 March 2010: An additional story from the Grossers is a young lady named Susanna, whom Ron and Debbie met and cared for while in the field in Thailand/Burma. She is a worship leader and Sunday School teacher.
Susanna is a UN political refugee and is undergoing interviews with the UN and the US Homeland Security Dept to be able to go to the US to live and study. They request prayer for her to successfully meet those requirements.
A Malaysian brother has opened a bank account to assist her with her expenses.
Contact Ron Grosser for more details.
31 March 2010: The Grossers daughter Susanna was singing in their refugee church and wanted to share the song with the accompanying words and pictures:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ePwMcrkgPs
The Grossers can be reached by email at: rongrosser@gmail.com
