OCTOBER 2023 NEWSLETTER

October, 2023

Dear partners and friends,

As I write this, we are preparing for our fall Mission Trip to the Appalachians. We will be based out of Gary, West Virginia. Gary is in the Southernmost County in WV, which is also one of the poorest counties in the US. It was a major producer of coal for the steel mills in Western Pennsylvania but when the mills went down in the 80’s, 40% of Southern West Virginians lost their jobs. The average family income in McDowell County where we are going is approximately a thousand dollars below poverty level in the US.

Donald is one of the gentlemen we will be working with, he was in the air force during the Vietnam era. Donald has been without heat for over a number of years and last year the pipes of the bathroom that we had previously built for him froze.  This time, we are going to install a wall heater that was donated for him as well as put on a new porch roof.  We will also be working at a church purchased by the outreach center that we will be working with. They are getting water in the basement so we are going to attempt to fix that as well as paint the church.  Please pray for a successful trip as we endeavor to do outreaches in the evening and construction during the days to bless some of these people.

Our contacts in Iceland are replacing the motor on the bus they use for outreaches. We would like to help them in this cause, so donations would be very much appreciated.

Our neighbors to the South saw 6185 souls saved in August. Hallelujah! The situation has gotten worse financially speaking and there are even more shortages of basic products like food, medicines and toiletries, thus higher prices in the informal market there. The gospel is still reaching many people as they have no other option than to seek God for help. Also, we are looking to possibly move our office to another region within this country.  For this to take place, we would need to purchase a building that will house an office which will be $3,000, as well as take laptops (at least 1) and a printer that can be used there.  If you would like to donate to that, it would be greatly appreciated.

Finally, we have set our Thailand trip for March 4th-14th (give or take a day). Village crusades will be conducted in the evenings as well as other forms of outreach.  The total cost is $3250. If you are interested in that trip, the cut off dates are: November 1st when the first half installment ($1625) is due and December 15th when the second half installment ($1625) is due.

Thanks and God bless you!

Will Bridges