So many people are concerned about COVID-19 (aka the coronavirus), and so Mandi and I thought it would be good to update our missionary blog with what has been taking place in the area that we serve.
First and foremost as of the time of this blog post writing (March 26, 2020), our family is healthy and the many staff we serve across the North Caribbean & Bermuda are healthy. There are thankfully no known cases among the CEF staff in the North Caribbean & Bermuda area at this time.
In most all of the nations we serve, the staff are under lockdown alongside the rest of the population of each of the countries. Most all of the airline and ship borders are closed to the outside world. Due to many countries in the Caribbean being largely economically dependent on North American and European tourism, it is a very dangerous predicament for these relatively small nations to be in. Thankfully, peak season for Caribbean tourism is naturally largely in the wintertime, so this lockdown is coming at the end of the November-March tourism season. But I ask you to pray for God to sustain these nations through this.
The upcoming May international conference for CEF has been postponed to May 2021, and so therefore the April 2021 regional conference that Mandi and I were working behind the scenes on has been postponed until at least 2022.
All Good News Clubs have temporarily ceased as each of the school systems have temporarily ceased. However, some of the various nations are each utilizing technology in different ways (based on their technological ability and context) to engage with the children. They are helping the local church partners continue to reach out to the children they were ministering too.
Additionally in ministry it is often easy for important but not urgent things to lapse. So I am encouraging each of the workers we serve in the North Caribbean to use this time (like I am!) to catch up on planning, emails, projects and behind the scenes tasks that are important to get done but due to not being urgent haven’t been done. Often in ministry where there are only one or two staff members in an area or even an entire nation the staff feel overwhelmed. This is a chance to breathe, get caught up, and create a new normal for when things open back up.
I also created a guide to working from home that was recently sent out region-wide, and as always I am working daily with each of the staff of the area through this.
This is a great opportunity for each of the nations we serve to relaunch through this afterward and use the time as a springboard for dynamic growth in ministry to children after all this is over! Pray with us as we help these national workers in each of the countries we serve. Pray for the health of the CEF family and pray for God to do mighty things through this!
“The LORD replied, “Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.” -Habakkuk 1:5
And remember, CEF was ultimately started because our founder, Jesse Irvin Overholtzer, was in quarantine! God used the time at his house for “Mr. O” to discover grace and later read Charles Spurgeon. That was when he read the famous quote: “A child of five, if properly instructed, can, as truly believe, and be regenerated, as an adult.”
We are praying for you too! Thank you for ‘holding the rope’ and being on our team as missionaries with and alongside the North Caribbean & Bermuda area.
