July 2012

Years ago, a friend of mine with the DEA, when asked how well they
were doing made the statement,
"Let me put it this way, I have job security." We could echo the same
words here in SPO. J

But first, the indescribable incomprehensible blessings from His mighty hand:

- We are seeing much fruit in discipleship and Biblical counseling training.
- Our airplane's "substitute," the speedboat, though twice as
expensive for travel, is running well even after 25 + years without
overhaul. (next project . . .)
- We did receive (via 7 changes of hands) the one part to get us
airborne again.
- We are working with a new group of 5 young men to groom for the
future leadership.
- We have a strong youth group yet.
- We have two tribal villages where we do monthly Bible classes.
- We have two to graduate from IBAS and a new group of 7 students started.
- We have Biblical Counseling training here, in SAI, and in Fortaleza.
- CESP - a huge success!

* Sending men out to get an education has not shown fruit. Bringing
them in has not lasted. The "home grown" has still been the most
fruitful: Pr Cristiano, pastor of the BC church (with multiple leaders
and a missionary), a product of our youth group; Pr Jacó, pastor of
the Santo Antonio church (with multiple leaders and missionaries, at
the hospital site) from the BC youth group

Our major challenge: the SPO church

12 years - no pastor, and a disappearing leadership (even after the
two large exoduses, we remain "perplexed, but not in despair").
The proposed future pastor (repercussions from events 20 years ago
when he was unsaved have caused documentation woes that prevent him
from pastoring for the next 4-5 years) has now chosen to back off from
the IBAS training; therefore, will not be graduating. (He does still
help in the preaching.)
The older deacon at church was offered a job preaching upriver in a
little village - may be leaving soon.
The younger deacon, also in "on the job training as youth pastor"
(overworked at his job), is dropping out of IBAS and now talking of
returning to his tribe to help them with their youth,(a noble
aspiration!).

* I sometimes wonder why the churches with so much leadership seek
helpers from the church that is so needy, and not vice versa. We are
passively pensive about what God may have in mind for SPO and its
autonomy.
Please especially pray about this request – leadership – with us! Thanks.

And to the more humorous side of challenges: Banks whose ATM machines
(our way to get money from the USA) withdraw money from our account in
the States but don't do the final step of giving it to us here;
magical post offices that make letters disappear; books ordered 12
months ago that never make it to us; our computer/internet system
compromised for the second time, even with good virus protection (so
sorry to those that got the bogus email letters from us) . . . but
then, we DO live in the jungle J, not
Atlanta.

A list of PRAYER REQUESTS?

1. 12 years and our goal for turnover will be delayed . . . Down to
only 2 to graduate from IBAS, including no male leadership at this
time for our church. Pray as we seek wisdom to know how best to use
IBAS at this point.
2. This church needs a pastor. Pray that we may know which way to go to get one.
3. Aviation: annual inspections that take months, parts bought in
February that still have not made it to us, fuel ordered months ago
that hasn't even been purchased yet . . . No help for the aging and
weary ( J that would be yours truly).
4. The Ticuna Bible Institutes: The main Ticuna church (Bible
Institute) "kicking us out" as they are now "Korean" (past invasion of
proselytes) and "not Baptist," yet many individuals still begging for
training. Pray with us for the airplane, energy, and wisdom as we
attack this problem by working in two new centers, one of which we
have 30 students.
5. MEN? Faithful men in the church? Pray as I need to drop some things
and start anew to do a better job in this area.
6. Our kids, Mike and Renee (about to head out to the field, just
waiting for VISA clearance) and Brandon and Regina (still on
deputation).

Your servants, HIS bond slaves
Allen and Kimberly

January 2011

Our Schedule:   Jan. 21 and beyond…

 

Today, Jonathan left home in Atlanta Georgia, airline, for Dunbar Wi. where he is entering Northland Baptist College where he will either get a degree or turn into an ice cube… it was 50 here when he left and will be -12 tonight there.

 

Mike and Renee visited us passing through for a meeting down south.

They leave for Miami today and back through here on Monday on their way back home to Lafayette, Indiana.

 

We are moving out of our home Jan. 31…

 

Feb 3 in Oxford Michigan

Feb 6-13 in Lafayette In for another round of Biblical Counseling courses.

 

February 16, the big day- we head out to Brazil to start another term, (and thaw out)

 

Feb. 18-27-  Get DNY flying again, get home, set up (and repair) home, meetings with the leadership of the church to see how everything went and is going, and set up goals for this year (Lord willing including the  graduation of the first students from IBAS, the ordination of the first pastor, the turning over of the church formally.

 

March 2-9 The BIG camp of the year- carnival time camp.

 

The paperwork that finally arrived for the airplane is no good. We will start that project over again.

 

The Indian institute continued on the entire time we were gone.

The church did their own youth camp

The church just finished doing a large VBS and the comments were it was exhausting and a large blessing.

 

It will be very good to get back to ministry- we have loved getting together with all of you! But we deeply missed the ministry and are very excited about teaching/preaching/counseling/serving, and being able to send you reports of what God is doing to establish HIS church in the Amazon, Brazil.

 

Thanks to all of you for your love, prayers, and support.

 

Your servants HIS bondslaves

al and Kimberly

Christmas Special

This Christmas:

Dear Friend,                                                                                                  December 2010

Much is happening on the Amazon regarding the aviation program. It has been (and still will be) an uphill battle, but without it, we could not cover the 14 Indian villages we are covering with Bible Institute training for their leaders (that being the main reason for its existence, there would be no MEDIVAC flights, there would be no supply flights…).

The paperwork problem is almost at its end! Our thanks to Sharon Payne who has done a tremendous lot to help us get that detail done!

We no longer have had our shop. The last shop we worked with has cost us thousands of dollars in missing equipment, time down, and we are being asked not to use them anymore. The new shop, mentioned in our last prayer letter (with the roof blown off) is really struggling to get going, though at this time, humanly speaking, it is our only hope for maintenance. We thank God for Tim and his great sacrifice to help our missionary aviation stay alive.

We have done the calculations and it will cost far more to rebuild CJG than it is worth. We are down to (practically speaking) one airplane and it is still heavily regulated by a system that has not caught up to modern aviation (i.e. months waiting line for checkrides, float plane regulations that conflict with each other, etc.)

We have now found another major solution. Please read this carefully… The plane pictured above is a four place amphibious airplane that is under a category that does not need to be taken to a licensed shop to do maintenance (but does still require a Brazilian-approved mechanic, which I am). It has proven over time to be very reliable, will fly the speeds of our big-bird Cessna 185s, and will run at almost half the cost in AVGAS per hour, though it does carry less load. We can use it in the water and we can use it on land. We can do our own maintenance at our floating house/hangar under my Brazilian mechanic's license and save thousands of dollars per year.

We are now planning to keep DNY alive, but make some more changes to be able to comply with ANAC regulations. We are putting what is left of CJG up for sale.

We believe getting this airplane will move us into a new phase of ABWE-Air missionary aviation that will be workable at a fraction of the cost. The beauty of it is, we already have about half the money we need to make the purchase!

Now, this is going to sound like a sales pitch and it is not! It is just an excited aviation church planter that has found a solution to 10 long years of trying to solve a difficult situation. This is Christmas, a time when we spend megabucks on gifts for each other. May I have the liberty of making a comparison? If 50 people were to not get that plasma large screen TV and send that money to God's work, with the money we already have, it would be ours. If all of the members of all of our supporting churches were to give 10 dollars each, the plane would be flying for Jesus on the Amazon. Or, if all of our supporting churches were to give 1000 dollars, the airplane would be ours to set our program up for a long, long time.

We are not begging for money! If God wants us to have this, He will provide. I just wanted to show how little sacrifice it would take to make a major impact in ABWE Amazon aviation church planting, let alone freeing me up to do much more ministry flying than beaurocratic paperwork.

Please pray with us concerning this - a Christmas gift for the One who's birthday it really is! And please pray that God would send MORE pilots from either the USA or Brazil to train up to keep this work going, long after I can't fly anymore, if the Lord does not come back sooner.

Thanks so very much,

For HIS glory, for HIS work in His name.

Your servant, HIS bond slave,

Allen and Kimberly Yoder

ABWE

PO box 8585

Harrisburg, PA  17105-8585

Yoder Aviation account  0111983 sub account 007 aviation

ANY QUESTIONS?

allenyoder@aol.com

PLEASE check out our website: http://theyoderministry.com/

Special Project List

Special Project's list

Aviation:

                                                                                               

1-     The Brazilian Mission paperwork- (aviation) it has taken a long step forward last week. We hope to get the airplane's paperwork all in order as we start this next term.

 

2-     The new shop- Tim Lankford's shop seems to be our only option open to us. Pray still for the funding we need to replace his roof that was destroyed in that storm.

 

 

3-     New pilots-  Things are looking much better for the continuation of the aviation ministry, but we as yet do not have replacements on hand to take over the flying of our little band of Cessna's… Please pray that if it is God's will to continue on, that He would soon supply some new pilots, either American or Brazilian to join the team.

 

4-     Annual Inspection-  We will be headed back to Brazil early next year, the first project being doing an annual inspection on DNY then flying it back down to SPO to start a new term

 

 

5-     Teams- we are still hoping to have workers/teams in several areas. Tim is looking for mechanics that would give a short term to his maintenance hangar, with A&P and experience in doing annuals, on airplanes and/or helicopters

 

6-     On land hangar- We are anticipating the possible construction of a hangar on land. More details after we get back and do some preliminary work.

 

 

Non-Aviation

1-    MAP- missionary apprentice-  Any older high school or college age that are interested in the MAP program for next summer or any other summer, please contact us at allenyoder@aol.com

 

2-    GYM FLOOR-  We will be having to re-cover (cement work) the gym floor behind our church (part of our property). Any teams of cement workers interested, please contact us as above…

 

 

3-    Long range projects this term- we are anticipating the moving of the floating house downriver to another point in the latter part of this term. 

getting our attention

Pray for the Aviation Church Planting work in São Paulo de Olivença

Is God is getting our attention?- we need prayer

Two weeks before we go home on furlough, we are robbed by our own guard

of two stainless steel drums of AVGAS- forcing us to move out all AVGAS

and leave the airplane in a hangar 150 miles upriver from “home”.

Military control turns to Civil Control in Aviation- result- Hangar license revoked.

The airplanes are taken to another shop for annuals. We are grounded for 3 years.

One airplane (above left corner) is now airworthy. The other airplane:

came up needing a lot of work…

To solve our woes, God supplied a new friend, Tim Lankford, BMM MK

now Continental pilot USA/Europe

who purchased a shop in Manaus

And a few weeks ago, along came a storm

and blew the hangar roof off.

Few weeks ago, our home town, with water at a record low and heavy rains, had a

landslide- leaving people without jobs, 200 without homes, and a fledgling church with a

lot to do.

For more pictures, check out our face book albums

IF you want the pictoral letters, please let us know via allenyoder@aol.com and we will add you to the list

Thanks for your prayers

Allen and Kimberly

August

Dear Friend,

It is somewhat hard to write letters to you at this time, for we feel so "un-plugged" from our real life. Being at home visiting our churches is not only a great joy, but also has precedence (Acts 14:27- … gathered the church… rehearsed all that God had done with them…) But it is so hard to leave our beloved children and all the work, hard to slow down from a heavy teaching preaching schedule to a "devotional and slide show"… though for sure, we have enjoyed the delightful weather (!) and seeing the beauty of God's creation as we travel the many miles…

We just finished a week of ME (missionary enrichment) classes and a second week as a "facilitator" for the candidates headed to the field in a class to teach them strategies and methods of church planting. We now are headed up for a meeting in NY Sunday followed by a wedding in Oxford Michigan. The wedding is on a Saturday, then we have an overnight drive to Atlanta to catch our plane back to Brazil.

August is busy, with a weeklong meeting in Sao Paulo (down south) with the Brazilian Association of Biblical Counselors. The next week we will be in Manaus a whole week working on renewing my mechanic's license (which is vital to our aircraft maint. needs - we really need prayer on that one- Aug 16-20), The following week, we will be joining Randy Richner, Fernando (VP for the association mentioned above) and another Brazilian for a combined track 1 and 2 of Biblical Counseling training we are giving at a seminary in Fortaleza, Brazil.

GOOD NEWS from the field- Our church is going rather well, far better than we expected, praise the Lord! We had a half hour call last night and got all caught up. We won't go into details here, but to ask for continued prayer for our toddler whom it seems is walking on it's own! This will allow us (upon return) to work more on outworks as we help the church continue to develop its autonomy. They also continue to support the young Ticuna Indian missionary from our church that is covering all the Indian works in our absence. This is very exciting news in the life of a church plant.

OTHER GOOD NEWS:

Pictured on the next page- we are finding solutions to our aviation dilemma- we are forming a partnership in networking with other pilots from other missions in the area of maintenance. Tim Lankford is a BMM MK, now a Continental Airlines pilot, that has purchased a shop (see pics) in Manaus. We hope (with successfully renewing my mech. license) that this will allow us to do all inspections at our own place, give us two bases in our area, and greatly help the security situation. Please pray that all this works out, greatly enhancing our current work and securing a future for this (still) very needy work! We are also working (with special help now) at getting the plane documents changed over to our area in Manaus. Some documents are needed from the 1960s that we have not been able to find yet- so pray with us that we can find them or resolve the problem through a hired on attorney.

August 1, 2010

The new shop in Manaus is at the Airclub. It's success can keep the airplanes up and flying, and therefore keep the Indian works growing- and starting to reproduce.

GOOD NEWS- we received a letter from the two Indians that work on staff with us, one a missionary from our SPO church. They want teaching in how to organize a mission and start sending our missionaries from their own association- this is also quite exciting! We are prepping classes even now on the subject.

As weather changes, so does the interpretation of the law by those in power over us. It is becoming apparent that if we tie in with the NEW shop, we will not have to buy a rebuilt engine! But with the paperwork push and inspections at hand, and a lawyer now to pay, we still need to pray for and ask for funds to help. Thanks for joining us in prayer for that one!

As I write while putting through the Pocono mountains and the breathtaking beauty and majesty- I am reminded how big our God is, and how small our problems really are in comparison.

Thanks to all of you once again for your love, prayers, and support. God give you a blessed summer's end.

Always

Your servant and HIS bond slaves

Allen and Kimberly