This month's newsletter was entitled Trusting in God and was about all of the challenges that we have faced in the last month. This newsletter got mailed out to all of those that we have addresses for. We have tried to get it uploaded on our blog but keeping with the tune of this months letter we have faced another challenge and that is trying to get it uploaded on the blog. So, if you have not received a copy of this month's newsletter and would like to have a copy please email me at cindy@pishonriver.com and we will be happy to email you out a copy. Again we am sorry that we were unable to get it uploaded here. We are working on a new website that will allow us to post these things more easily. Thank you for all of you love, prayers and financial support because with you none of the would be possible. Love and Blessings, CIndy and John

REACHING FOR YOUR DREAMS

Sometimes you may never know who you are going to meet and this month we were blessed to meet a writer, Jennifer Miskov, who wrote an amazing book called "Silver to Gold" and we highly recommend it. This book is about not settling for less and reaching for your dreams no matter what. Even if you lose people or things along the way you should keep pressing for those God given dreams. So, after reading the book we got to thinking about our lives in the past year and all that God had done in it.

As all of you know our dream of becoming full time missionaries began a long time ago but it really started last year when we decided to sell our 105 year old historic home.  Some people were thinking that we were crazy to sell our  dream house, yes we had a dream to restore a historic home, but our dream of being full time missionaries was calling us.  So we decided to put our house on the market, even though the housing market was terrible, and trust God. Well in one day our house was sold!

Next stop was Pemba, Mozambique where we attend the Harvest Mission School and said we were going to test the waters for full time missionary work. Three months of classes, going into the bush and living in a small closet sized bedroom, eating beans and rice and getting to know each other in a whole new way and we still survived.

After school we did an extended outreach where we spent 10 days in the bush, which we led, and then we went around Asia for a month. While in Asia we got to go to Hong Kong, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand and then back to Hong Kong. We got to work with NightLight, an organization that helps get girls out of prostitution, work in a YWAM base with HIV children, and go with some amazing people from Jackie Pullinger's ministry to pray over a nation that was full of drugs and oppression.

After traveling around Asia we then went back home to Georgia and prepared for the next leg of our journey in full time missions, which is where we have spent the last 6 months, Pemba, Mozambique.  This month has brought us to Cape Town, South Africa where we came to renew our visas and have a much needed break.

We now see that another dream has been met. We have wanted to travel the world and though we won't say that we have traveled the world yet, we will say that we are having a very good start at it. We have been in 10 countries so far and 7 of them were in the last year. SO, yeah we think another dream has been met though we do think that there could be more countries for us in our future.

We say all of this to get you encouraged to reach for your dreams. We will tell you that the journey has not always been easy, but we can say that we are so glad that we didn't stop reaching. Sometimes dreams take you to faraway places and sometimes they take you closer to home but the point is to keep reaching for those dreams. Don't every stop dreaming and keep reaching for the gold.

What about your dreams? We would love to know what they are and how we can pray for you to reach those dreams. We would love to encourage you on your journey of dreams. Remember that God is not a small God so keep dreaming and dream BIG! Step out and make your dreams real.

We love each and everyone of you,

John and Cindy

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS


Reader beware as this months newsletter is going to be very different than anything that we have every written before. God has been speaking to us on what kind of culture is being raised up here and around the world and so we are going to share with you what we have been asking ourselves for the past few months. The hopes of this letter is to get people to do some serious thinking about giving. We are going to ask some questions and give you our views and we pray that this will spark a fire inside of you and that it will get you talking among your friends and families about how giving in a wrong way can affect a generation and generations to come.  So here goes:

As we have watched the many visitors coming here we have noticed some things that have brought us into a place of asking questions and wondering why. We are seeing outspoken people receiving many many material gifts such as mp3 players, jewelry,  and money. That the people are learning that if I can speak English, hug visitors, even if they don't want to, and hang out with them then they will receive gifts. That it is necessary to do these things so that they can receive. Now don't get me wrong we all like to receive gifts but what is it saying to a person if they are always asking for things and are never said no to because they can tell sad stories which manipulates visitors into giving them things. In fact the stories being told may not even be true.

Another thing that most visitors will never see is that the people do not keep the gifts that are given to them. Of course they keep them while the person is here that gave them the item but once they are gone the item is usually gone too. The item is probably stolen or sold which says to us that they don't really care about that item in the first place and that more visitors are coming in so they will just get more stuff.

What about people that are not as outspoken as others and may not get as many things as other people? When other people are bragging about what they received and the meek person has received nothing what does this do to their self esteem? How would you feel if you saw other people always  receiving gifts but you were not receiving anything yourself?

One question that we keeping asking is why are we giving? Are we giving to help the people or are we giving to make ourselves feel better? Is the gift that we are giving to them actually going to help them or is it hurting them by creating more of a beggar spirit?

Now don't get me wrong we are not saying to not give to them but give to them in the proper way. Give to them in a way that will help them and not hurt them. You maybe asking how does that look like and so here are some examples. What about taking food to the family so the entire family can eat, fixing up their house (such as repairing their roof, a big need here) , just hanging out with them, loving them and getting to know them and their families real needs. As you build up relationships what about encouraging their children to stay in school. So the children can be raised up as leaders instead of takers. This way we change a generation of orphan spirits into a generation of Kingdom mindset.

We love each and everyone of you and we are so thankful that you are on this journey with us. We pray that this letter does ignite something in you and that we have not offended anyone in anyway. We feel like God has taken us out of our comfort zone and that we are to share with you some of the struggle that we see.

We are coming back to the states either the end of November or the beginning of December until sometime in February. So if you would like for us to speak at your church, home group, youth group etc please email us at cindy@pishonriver.com so we can set up a date. We would love to see as many of you s possible when we are home. Also we would love to hear your thoughts about this latest newsletter so you can email them or just post a comment on the blog.

May God continue to stretch each and everyone of us.

Lots of love,
John and Cindy

PRAYER REQUESTS

• For God to continue to reveal new things in all of us
• Continued healing for John's mom as she is recovering from shoulder surgery
• For our son Jeremiah as he is getting settled back in TX and is learning his new job as a train master! (Way to go Jeremiah we are so proud of you)
• Divine health for us and all of our friends and family
• We are traveling to Cape Town July 27 to renew our visas so for our protection and that we will find favor with the embassy in Cape Town and receive a longer visa then 30 days
• Pray for our local workers as they are going to have to run the department while we are gone and we will be gone for 2 weeks. 
• That we will have the strength and peace to continue with the journey that God has called us on.
• Our financial support. Thanks to Wellspring Fellowship  you can now donate online via the following link:  http://www.iwellspring.org/#!Donations/cpk3 
• We would love to prayer for you so if you have any prayer requests please email them to us at cindy@pishonriver.com

A MONTH TO BE THANKFUL FOR


It seems that the months here in Pemba are just flying by and so hard to believe that we have been here for over 4 months now. We are still getting adjusted to life here but we are definitely getting more and more use to life here now.

During this last month we have had a lot to be thankful for. After 2 months of work we finally got to see the completion of some building projects that had been going on in hospitality. This may not seem like a big deal but trying to deal with visitors and construction workers was a challenge. The work was supposed to be finished in about 3 weeks and before our busy season started. Well of course they didn't met the 3 week deadline but at least they were finished before our first big rush of visitors.

The end of May started our busy season here in Pemba and it started off with 65 visitors to be picked up within 2 days. In fact, we picked up 50 people in 1 day. That is a lot of rooms and beds to get ready! But, not only that once a visitor is picked up at the airport we must then give them an orientation. This orientation lasts about 1 1/2 hours and then we take them on a tour of base. So thankful that they all arrived and more importantly that all of their luggage arrived and that we did have a bed made for all of them. Not bad for our first big rush of people! Of course we had some help from our local workers and we are thankful for their efforts.

Another day to be thankful for was June 1 our Children's day. This is a day that we feed chicken, rice and cabbage and sodas to all of our Iris children and then we give them presents. But, this day is not just about our Iris children we also feed all of the village children and this year was the most ever because we feed over 4000 children. This is a huge feat for our kitchen crew because they work for an entire day to get everything ready and then they feed everyone. John and I left base after 5pm and there was still children in line waiting for their meal. Another thing to be thankful for was that we did not have any riots this year. The village children tend to get pushy and want their food fast but this year everything seemed to run smoothly.

We are continually grateful for the care packages that come from home. A new rule has come in to affect where we will now be charged for all of our packages that we receive. At first we told everyone to stop shipping packages from home but God has told us to trust in Him and that He will take care of it. It really lifts up our day when we receive a package from home so please keep sending them. We have no idea of what the charge will be for the boxes but we will Trust Him and He will take care of it.

We had some DVD's taken from us but we are happy to report that we have received them back. God is good all of the time!!

Another thing that happened to John and I was that we got our house painted. A team from Scotland came and painted our living room, kitchen and dining room. We no longer have blue peeling walls and we must say that they did a fantastic job. Not only did they paint but when we came home we found money hidden throughout our house. So they blessed us by painting and then they blessed us with money that covered most of the cost of the paint and supplies. Yah Jesus!!!

Lastly we would like to introduce you to our new staff member, Angelica! Angelica has come to work with us part time and is helping our cleaning ladies. She is such a sweet and lovely young lady. She has such an amazing story of forgiveness that I will have to share with you one day. She is such a beautiful young lady and we are so grateful to have her with us. Look for her picture to come in the near future.

We are so thankful for everything that God is doing in us and we want each and everyone of you to know that we could not being doing this if it was not for the love, prayers and support of each one of you. You are sowing seeds with us and you will all also reap the rewards.

With much love and blessings,
Cindy & John

P.S. Due to problems with our internet I was not able to upload any pictures this time.  I will keep trying so hopefully soon.

Greetings from Pemba!!!

Greetings to all of our family and friends!

 We would first like to say a great big thank you for the people that have sent or are sending care packages from home. These care packages really make our day and they always seem to arrive at the time when we need them the most. Every time we receive a package we feel like we are getting a little piece of home and we can feel the love from these packages. We are so grateful for each and every package that is shipped. We know that it is not cheap to send something here so we do appreciate the sacrifice that you make when sending a package our way. We are including a list of items at the bottom of this letter for anyone that would like to send us items.

IRIS FARM

This month John and I were able to take a day and visit the Iris Farm. The farm is a new adventure that was started in December 2011 by the Reed Family. Jeff & Heidi and their 2 amazing children, Justice & Eva, are the brains and muscles behind this farm. They have long term goals for the farm to make enough food to feed our Iris base here in Pemba, about 1000 people a day, and also to help feed the people in the villages. The Reeds are facing many challenges with this new adventure and could use your prayers. One thing that they desperately need is a well that will be able to be used for drinking and cooking purposes. The well that they currently have is so salty that the locals will not even drink from it. God did show Jeff  where  the  next  well should be dug, so please be in agreement that the water will be sweet water.

  This month has also continued to meet us with new challenges. We constantly have to learn how to lead in a different culture. The ways here are so different then we are used to. For example we had something that we needed to deal with but were not sure how the best way was to handle the situation, so we talked to our base directors about the situation and they told us what we needed to do. However because the base directors were involved our local workers did not like it. We cannot seem to get them to understand that our base directors are our bosses and if we have questions or concerns we must take them to them. However, our local workers feel like we are betraying them and they have gotten  very upset with us. We can really use some prayer in this area.

SEA AT PEMBA

One thing that God has continually spoken to us during this time is that we must keep our focus on Him. The enemy is out to distract all of us from what God has called us to do and we must keep our focus on Him. Remember after Jesus had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights the first thing that the enemy wanted to tempt Him with was food. The enemy knew that Jesus was hungry and he felt like if he could get Jesus distracted with His hunger then He could get Him away from God. But what did Jesus do? He kept His focus on God and so Satan ended up fleeing in the end. (Matthew 4) This is what God wants all of us to do. To remember who we are in Him and that no matter what Satan may throw in our path if we keep our focus on Him we will win the battle. We are praying for each and every one of you to keep your focus on God!

We would also like to thank all of you for your continue love, prayers and financial support. We are so honored that you have chosen to partner with us. As far as financial support goes we are getting closer to our goal but we are still shy by about $900. God is providing for us in some incredible ways. A visitor that was here just a few months ago just recently got in touch with John and said that he would like to support us on a monthly basis. How cool is that! We know that God is our provider and this just shows us one of the many ways that He will continue to provide support for us.

 If we can pray for you in any way please email us at john@pishonriver.com we would love and be honored to pray for your needs.

 With much love,
John and Cindy

 Prayer Requests: Tara Okon, close friend of ours who has ovarian cancer
Unity in our team

THIS IS ONE OF OUR
MANY HOUSE GUESTS

Creative ways to lead
Mary Jo Harrington, John’s mom, recovering from shoulder surgery
Divine health and protection for our families
Joe Courson-healing

 Things to send: Coloring books Crayons/markers Crafts for young children Flavored tea bags Coffee Beef jerky Cans of chicken, beef Velvetta cheese Spices Muffin/ pancake mixes (just add water) Peanut m&ms Another that God lays on your heart! If He is showing it to you than we can use it!

Address Correction

Our address that we posted previously should have look like this:

Ministerio Arco Iris

In care of

John & Cindy Thalheimer

CP #275
Praia de Wimbi
Pemba, Cabo Delgado
Mozambique, Africa
Sorry for the mix up

Our first month in Pemba

Wow! We can not believe that we have been in Pemba for 1 month already!

This month has met us with many challenges! The first one being that we were named hospitality directors!  You must understand that when we decided to come to Pemba we knew that we were going to be in hospitality but we thought that we were going to be working under someone not the leaders.  So now we are in charge of a group of locals and a missionary couple. Ok we know that God knows what He is doing and we do want Him to use us as needed but this was a bit of a shock. 

The next challenge is learning how to communicate with the team. We are learning very fast that they way we communicate in the states does not work here. We may say something and mean nothing by it but the locals get upset with us and then they may something to us and we get upset with them. So a new form of communication is definitely the key.  Communication is also very difficult because we do not speak the language and even though the locals that we work with do speak English there are things that they just don't understand.

Another challenge is shopping here. It takes so long to shop for even just a few things. There is no Target or WalMart here so you have to go to many places to get a few items. Not only that but we had to go 6 hours away to Nampula to buy stuff for hospitality.  You may ask why so far and the answer is because things are a lot cheaper there and because we needed so much stuff Heidi wanted us to go there and buy it. 

This shopping trip was a big challenge! We got stopped a few times by the police and one stop took us over 3 hours. We found out that we had the wrong documents so we had to wait for someone to bring us the right documents. Getting there was an adventure but shopping was even a bigger adventure. We managed to get somethings before the stores closed and then we had to find a place to sleep for the night. One of the guys that was with us knew of a Brazilian family and we went and stayed with them. It was a great blessing and we even got to sleep in a room that had A/C. The next morning we were off to do a lot more shopping before the stores closed. The stores close from 12-2 daily for lunch and we really needed to be on the road after lunch anyway so we would not arrive back in Pemba too late. 

Of course the biggest challenge for us is not speaking the language. We are trying hard to learn Portuguese but it is very hard when we work in a department that has to speak a lot of English. Both John and I are determined to learn the language so we will but we really need your prayers on this one.  The other day John went to the kitchen, Cozina, to get our bread for breakfast and he decided that he would practice his Portuguese. He told the guy that he would like dues Paos, two bread, and the guy went to the back to get his bread. Now the food is already at the front so John is wondering why the guy went to the back. Well today our bread was supposed to have egg ,ovo, with it but since John only asked for bread the guy went to the back to get him what he wanted. Normally our bread in the morning is just that but on Fridays it has egg on it. John has now learned this the hard way. I must admit that I was so proud of him for trying to speak Portuguese but yet a little upset that I didn't get my egg. However, John being the sweet guy that he is he made me one himself that morning. 

On the positive side of things we have started to have some breakthrough with our team. John and I are learning to listen to God first and then say what He says. He is giving us keys that are helping us in the communication area we just have to remember to listen. 

February ended up with a YWAM team blessing us with a bunch of chocolate and some coffee from Hawaii. Another visitor took us to dinner and we were blessed with bicycles. We then gave the bicycles to two of the local youth that work with us. They live pretty far away and this will allow them to get to work and school easier. 

We are so thankful for all of your love, prayers and financial support. Please remember that everything we do you also do. We love all of you very much! Please continue to pray for us and for the prayer needs that we have listed at the bottom of this post. We also want to hear from you so please email us with comments, questions and/or prayer needs.

I hope to post pictures of our team in the next fews day so look for them.

Much Blessings and love,

John and Cindy

cindy@pishonriver.com

john@pishonriver.com

You can also send us a card, letter of encouragement etc to the address below and they will include them with the next box that they send us. Financial support can also be sent to this address:

Wellspring Fellowship

PO Box 71733

Albany GA 31708

Prayer Needs:

Financial Support: We are still in need of people to support us on a monthly basis. We only have about 1/2 of the $2500 that we need per month. Please pray about supporting us on a monthly basis!

Communication-  for us to learn Portuguese and for better communication and unity in our team

Allan Boyett: for healing of seizures and confusion from the meds that they have him on.

For all of our family back home as they get used to us being so far away

John has an infected sweat gland in his arm pit so healing for him