Hello Friends,
I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving and are gearing up for a great Christmas season! It’s my favorite time of year and we have so much going on at CHN to be thankful for so I’ll just jump right in with the updates.
First and foremost, we would like to extend a BIG THANK YOU to Joe Mason, CHN board member, friend, and key element to CHN’s success over the last 20 years. Joe has been acting as treasurer of the board for years and has recently decided to take a step back from his board responsibilities. Joe still plans to be involved with CHN, the GETAWAYS and will ALWAYS be a part of our team. We love you, Joe, and thank you for everything you do and will continue to do for CHN.
Next, we have to extend another BIG thank you to all of YOU! In record time, we have reached our goal of $25,000 for the matching gift campaign. Your faithfulness and support humbles us and we here at CHN are so grateful for each and everyone of you.
Not only have we been able to reach our goal for the matching gift campaign, we have also raised $65,000 specifically for our new CHN Endowment Fund. We are building this fund to ensure CHN’s ability to serve missionaries for years to come!
NOW, the news we’ve all been waiting for…
Plans for the 2022 GETAWAY and GETAWAY GALA are in the works! Unfortunately, unless there are some major changes with COVID and travel advisories in Vietnam we won’t be able to have our GETAWAY in Hoi An as previously planned. However, we are going to trust the Lord and move forward with a GETAWAY in 2022. We will get to Vietnam when the time is right but for now we will be sending an updated GETAWAY location and date at the beginning of the year.
We have already begun planning our 2022 GETAWAY Gala held at the Crowne Plaza in Knoxville, TN. We are so looking forward to being with everyone in person again. More details below on how you can be a part of this special event.
Here’s how you can help!
- Sponsor a table for $500
- Donate Silent Auction Items
- Not sure what to donate? Anything you would bid on! Gift Cards, Art, themed baskets, experiences, etc.
- Bring your friends!
We have been reaching out to some of the sending agencies we work with to figure out exactly what life is looking like for our missionary friends.
We spoke with one organization in particular that has approximately 4000 Missionaries in 65 countries, so we thought this was a good assessment for what is happening with a lot of missionaries around the world.
Here is what they had to say: “the majority of our missionaries returned to their home countries last year due to the upheaval of COVID and have recently returned overseas. Since they had to spend an extended time in the USA, they are now extremely keen to immerse fully into ministry again.”
They also mentioned that those who have not yet returned overseas are primarily delayed due to visa issues related to COVID (ie. government offices overseas not yet fully functioning). Those who have been able to return to their mission haven’t been traveling outside of their area due to COVID rules & restrictions, expenses and also the desire to be fully immersed in their ministries again.
We are taking all this information into consideration while we plan our 2022 GETAWAY.
If you are a missionary or work for a sending agency and have more information on border crossings and traveling, please send us an email. Everything helps!
I had to listen intently to be able to hear the sweet sound of the songbirds. They seemed to be aware that their voices had been drowned out by the unpleasant sound of the pesky crows, but they persisted. That caused me to think about the voices I allow to drown out the sense of the presence of God. By the same token, there are very loud voices in the world trying to overwhelm our liberties and take over our ability to make decisions as we choose.
We need to be aware 100% of the time, and not permit our discernment to be clouded or our testimonies silenced. The songbirds were not deterred. They continued their rejoicing and eventually the crows moved along. The sweet melody was once again loud and clear because the bold little songbirds were not discouraged, and never stopped sharing their music. Come before His presence with singing Psalm 100:2b