The Yoder Family

Loren Yoder Family Newsletter To our dear family and friends,   It's been said that home is where the heart is - Is it possible to have your heart in more than one place?  The month of June found us "home".  We enjoyed a three week vacation visiting family in PA and VA and our church family in NC.   Some of the highlights were:  meeting two of our nieces boyfriends, (one who will be officially joining the family this August), spending some time at the cabin, watching a nephew play little league and a niece compete in a horse show, going thrift store shopping!!! , playing as a family in a wiffle ball tournament (and seeing lots of old friends) and getting into some of the homes of our church family (which gave the children a little time to catch up on friendships).  The last week in June found us packing up to go "home"  to Mexico again.  We arrived here a day later than planned, due to missing our plane, but we did arrive home safely and Loren got a good sermon illustration. :-)   We arrived to friends and heat but no Millers.  The Lenn Miller family left for their three month furlough three days before we got home.  Rod and Christa Schwartz have moved out to oversee the children's home for the month of July (there are plans for a family to come and fill in until Lenns' planned return toward the end of September.)  The single staff have been doing well considering  the heat, the culture adjustment, and they only had a 6 week crash course with Lenn's here.  Stacey Nolt come down with us and will be a real asset as well.  These four single staff are an answer to prayer.  If you wish to know more about them you may visit the web site at mxbma.orfanatochoix.com.  There are also more children at the children' s home which you can meet on the web site as well. ( to make a total of nine)   We're getting back into the routine of Sunday school (on Saturday), Bible studies, and church services.  Lenn's had been in charge of "Sunday school" but with us all pitching in it seem to be going well.  (The attendance has been down the last month or so but that happens)  Yesterday I re-started a girls Bible Study (we are studying young ladies of the Bible) and tonight Loren had an interesting men's prayer meeting that kept getting interrupted by new arrivals. (Not sure that they were coming to prayer meeting but Rod or Loren invited them in and and, sure enough, they came in.)   (We ladies were praying out back and our only interruptions were rain drops and a baby)   This past week Loren bought a bigger air conditioner for our big room (where we have church)  This past Sunday it was definitely cooler, whether it was just because of the bigger air conditioner or also because there were not at many people as sometimes, I don't know.  But we will see on a full Sunday if we can keep it cooler than the outside.     One of the highlights since we returned was the first rain.  Sunday, a week and a half ago, it began blowing hard after church.  There was dust everywhere, trash was flying and mangos were falling.  Thankfully it didn't just blow but the rain came as well.  A good hard rain that settled the dust, washed the trees and left us without light (and fans) until well into the night.  We moved outside to sleep (to escape the heat) and put up with the light rain until the lights came on and the mosquitoes became pest.  We've been having rain at least every other day.  The days still feel warm and a little steamy but after an afternoon /evening rain it feels good.  What a blessing the rain is.  People are now planting their fields and hoping for a good harvest.  A neighbor man is helping the boys at the children's home to plant as well.  From what I heard, they seem to be enjoying it.   Just one more story.  This past Sunday we had an interesting experience in San Pedro.  We have a church service each Sunday on the porch at Julian's house (a Christian brother).  While Rod was leading singing, Caleb saw a reddish snake, 4  !/2 -5 ft long, crawling along the edge of the  flower garden.  I told him to tell Julian, which he did, but the snake slithered off and Julian put down the broom and the service continued.  It wasn't until almost the end of Loren's sermon when some other boys saw him again and sounded the alarm.  Julian sliced him with the shovel and of course almost half of the church had to go look at it.  The snake was thrown up the dirt hill a bit and Loren resumed preaching. (Too bad he wasn't preaching about Satan)  This is not a regular occurrence but I thought it was too good of a "missionary" story to skip. :-)   Well, it's softly raining right now which should make for a good nights sleep.  There is a frog croaking rather loudly outside our window and tomorrow we'll see how big our back yard puddle is.   May God richly bless each one of you as you bless others.  We have been blessed to know you. Donna for the Yoders   P.S. I almost forgot - our boys have a little business going - they are doing some trapping.  The furs aren't worth much but their mom and dad are willing to pay them a bit for each animal they catch. (which is either buried or put in the trash) Yup, you guessed it, mice and rats.  They have been disturbingly successful.  Since starting less than two weeks ago they have caught two mice in the house and six rats outside, not counting the one that got away. (Literally - one morning the one trap was missing, gone, not to be found and this was not a little mouse trap, but a rat trap - 3  1/2 in.  by 7 in.  Yesterday they bought a new one and it was made in Litiz, PA)  Shouldn't that look good on their future resumes?

The Miller Family

Miller’s Tribe-UNE July 2008 Wild fire! By: Ian Miller      The orphanage has about 70 acres of property. This year, we decided that we were going to put the property to use. The boys of the home were going to plant crops on some of the acreage. Of course, that was going to be a lot of work because all 70 acres were full of thorn bushes. The first priority was to cut down the brush and burn it. So, the boys went to work, cutting away with their machetes (a neighbor ended up cutting down a lot of brush for us too). After clearing out quite a bit, and letting the thorn bushes that were cut down, dry out, we decided it was time to burn up the piles before the rains arrived. I had seen other nearby fields being cleared out, and then people burning up the piles. I didn’t see them doing anything special; I just thought they started the piles on fire and that was all there was to it. So I went out there and did just that. It seemed to be going well until we started to notice that the fire was kind of getting out of hand. I started getting a little nervous. I thought though that the fire would just eventually die down. But, since the property had a lot of dry grass on it, the fire was well fueled. It continued spreading in the direction of the adjacent property, and that’s when Johan and I started to go to the effort of putting it out. My dad was a bit nervous and helped out as well. The fire continued spreading fast with the help of the wind.      The orphanage was renting the property to a friend of ours so he could plant too. He happened to be preparing it for planting at the same time that I was burning our piles. He must have seen a lot of smoke, and decided to see what was going on. I told him that I was afraid it was going to spread to the neighboring property, but he didn’t seem too concerned. He said it would stop spreading. But as time went on, he apparently got concerned as well, and said he was going to get a tool from his truck to help put out the fire. He soon came back with a garden rake, and started raking a path in front of the fire. He said the fire would get to that cleared out path, and stop. So we both started working, he with the rake, and I with a shovel. The fire was getting closer and closer. I was praying and praying while we worked away. Finally, we had to stop and get out of the way and just see what happened. The fire reached the barrier and looked like it was stopping. I started to get hopeful. Yes, it had stopped! Thank you God! I hung around making sure it didn’t flare up again, and our friend left. I thanked him and he told me that the next time I burned the piles, I should make the barrier first. That is, if I ever do that again. General News By: Lenn Miller Greetings in the Name of Jesus. The last quarter has brought with it a lot of change. I’ll mention briefly a few of them. Three new workers, Sam, Johan, and Rachel, came to work with us on May 15th. After they arrived, within a few weeks, we went from five children to twelve in the home. Talk about change! Three of them were later placed with their real dad, whom they hadn’t seen for 9 years. He was the grandfather of the little baby. The first part of May brought the DNA Board down for their yearly deputation visit. We had an enjoyable and beneficial time together. Part of May and much of June was focused on getting Sam, Johan, and Rachel worked into the system and ready for furlough departure. To leave a lot of details out, we managed to get ready and left the orphanage on June 23rd. Rod’s moved in to the orphanage the same day. On our way to the border, we stopped at a U.S. Consulate office to take care of the paper work to obtain Jeffrey’s U.S. citizenship. We also applied for his passport. We were very thankful to get that all behind us. After that, we made our way to my parents house in New Mexico arriving on the 25th. Soon after, we traveled to their cabin in a beautiful setting where we stayed until the 22nd of July. We were blessed there. Please pray that we would be filled with The Holy Spirit and prepared for future service that will honor and glorify Him. We look forward to seeing many of you as we are doing a lot of traveling.