Hello!! I just wanted to give an update how we are doing this week. We are
in the Great Lenten Fast and are blessed to be able to attend evening services
at our church. It is a time of prayer and diligence. We welcome the time of
reflection.
We received our monthly statement from World Medical Mission of financial
supporters. We are so thankful to our friends and family that have been able to
give. We appreciate your gift and kindness. It is encouraging to us to know
that we are continuing on the path that we believe Christ has set us on.
Please keep us in your prayers. We have many, many, many decisions to make.
Below is a copy of the letter that was mailed out to all of those that we had
the address for. I know there are more of you that did not receive this letter.
Thank you for your time, words of encouragement and support. I pray you have a
blessed day.
Ashley, Chris and Family
"The Will of God will not take you where the Grace of God cannot protect you."
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Greetings
Friends
and Family!
It
is with great joy that we enter 2016 as we have many exciting things to share
with you about what the Lord has been doing in our lives. I will be taking my
family medicine board exams and finishing my residency program in June. As this
chapter comes to a close we will be transitioning to a new adventure!
As
many of you know Ashley and I felt called by God back in 2004 to begin
preparing for medical missionary service. So over the last 12 years we have
been training and working in the medical field preparing to fulfill this calling
to serve God as medical missionaries. Ashley has completed her training as a
licensed practical nurse and served in a variety of settings including
pediatric, kidney and infectious disease clinics and I am now a family
physician (soon will be board certified) with a broad-scope of training in
obstetrics, pediatrics, emergency care, and general medicine with several
international experiences that have provided us the valuable skills we will
need to serve God through medicine.
We
have been accepted by World Medical Mission (WMM), the medical division of
Samaritan’s Purse (SP), to participate in the Post-Residency Program (PRP), a
program for doctors who are just completing their residency training program
and have been called to full time overseas medical mission work. WMM/SP have
seen how effective mission hospitals around the world have been in reaching
people for Christ. These hospitals are centered on doctors who have dedicated
their lives to full time Christian medical mission service. Over the last several
years they noticed a problem developing in the mission hospitals, there are
fewer and fewer doctors committing to full time service and hospitals around
the world have had to close their doors. They found that many young doctors had
intentions of going overseas to serve in a mission hospital but have to stay to
work and pay off loans before they go and many circumstances prevent them from
ever committing to full-time service. So the goal of the PRP is to bridge the
gap between residency training and full-time missionary service. WMM will send
us to work with an experienced missionary physician at one of several mission
hospitals in need that they have partnered with for a two-year term.
We
have officially been accepted to come to Mbingo Hospital near Bamenda, Cameroon
in Africa. We will be working with Dennis Palmer and his wife Nancy who have
spent nearly 35 years there building an academic medical mission training
center. It is a 330-bed hospital with a full laboratory, an ICU, a full time
pathologist, and high quality internal medicine and surgery residency programs.
This is a rare mission hospital. Their hope for us is to consider starting a
family medicine training program to take over the obstetrics and ambulatory
care services of the hospital. We plan to leave in during the month of
November, 2016.
As
part of our preparations we have to build a team of partners. We are asking you
to become our partner by committing to pray for us regularly. Right now we need
prayer support to raise up a team of lifelong supporters, to make good and wise
decisions about our belongings (house, cars, and literally everything we own),
about what curriculum to use as we learn about home-schooling our children,
whether we need to learn French, that our objectives for the next 2 years will
become clear and focused, and that God will open doors for us to share the work
he is doing through our ministry.
We
also ask you to prayerfully consider becoming a financial supporter. WMM will
provide us with a modest stipend and financial support for housing, food, and
my airfare. However, this will leave a shortfall of nearly $5800/month to pay
for our VISA’s, passports, travel expenses, and vaccinations for Ashley and the
kids, home schooling curriculum, insurance (health, life, emergency evacuation,
and malpractice), maintenance of all our certifications and licenses, and some
sort of transportation when we get there. Apparently it costs between $90,
000-100,000 to keep missionary families on the field. We believe we can do it
for less. We are asking you to commit to giving $25, $50, $100 or more monthly
or giving gifts annually of $100, $250, $1000 or more.The donations are tax
deductible and 100% of the funds you donate will be held in an escrow account
by WMM/SP for our exclusive use. They do not keep any administration fee. The
remaining money not used during the PRP will be transferred to the mission
agency we transition to at the end of the two years. Our prayer and hope along
with that of WMM is that we will be able to continue full time medical mission
work when the two years is complete. In order for this to happen we are asking
you to join with us now in service to the Lord. Please let us know how you
would like to partner with us. There are two ways to give tax-deductible gifts.
Fill out the enclosed form and mail it in to the address on it with a credit
card or check made payable to Samaritan’s Purse with Chris and Ashley Gifford
in the memo or you can go to
www.samaritanspurse.org,
select World Medical Mission under the WHAT WE DO tab, then select Support a
Missionary, then type in Chris or Ashley Gifford and pay online through their
secure website. We are really grateful for this opportunity in our career and
are excited to see how God uses us all to further His Kingdom through this
ministry!
We
have a blog at careinthevalley.blogspot.org where you can follow our journey
and/or an email
emergent2016@gmail.com where
you can contact us about how you want to be involved. Please write and give us
your email or mailing address to receive our quarterly newsletters. We are
developing a schedule to be able to come and talk to churches about our work
and would like to meet with you to discuss this opportunity for you to serve
with us in Cameroon. Let us know if your church would like for us to come and
share!
May
God Continue to Bless You and Keep You,
The Gifford’s
Chris, Ashley, Micah, & Micaja
