Dear one …
    

IRAQ/Kurdistan now … Erbil, Kalar, and Sulaymaniah … 

Each person and family has a story.  Severe loss and trauma escapes none of their personal histories or lives.  You and I are on journey with these precious ones.   

Sometimes it all seems like a drop in the bucket … $6K spent on food here … $2.2K spent on heating fuel there … $1.2K spent on a flood prevention drainage pipe over there … $150 given for a severe case of asthma in another place … $150 given for X-rays for a fallen damaged elbow of an 8 year old girl … $200 given for location permanence costs … it can never end.  

Yet none of this life we live is really about funds.  

Relationships, yes.  

Some relationships are ever so brief, only a half-hour interview, at times leaving one with a type of vacuum of heart … what just happened back there?(.)  Another has been built over several years now, ever deepening in each of our times together.  Most are somewhere in-between.  

We are working with such great teams over here.  They know how to love … a lot longer and deeper and better than we do in these contexts.  We are so grateful they are here, living close, able to relate and give much more in relationship, as we are here for such a brief time as this.     

A lot more is happening outside these camps, in other relationships and venues we savor. 

More to come in our next update … cannot thank you enough for your being here with us and them in prayer and financial backing !!!

“(He) is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” 

Daniel

48 hours & off to Iraq/Kurdistan & Lebanon …

Friend …
      

Struggling on this update, as to how to best communicate.  I don’t want “drama”.  Yet do want to communicate in trueness, difficult realities.

Mike and I leave in about 48 hours(Thursday) for Lebanon and Iraq/Kurdistan.

Let’s start with some very good news !
$ 20,000   has already come in for Iraq/Kurdistan refugees, relief, training, development, TCD!  So very grateful !
$ 5,000   has already come in to cover all my trip expenses and some overages for development!  So very grateful !
$ 4,000 has already come in to cover my colleague, Mike Park’s travel expenses and relief needs!  So very grateful … and he is also !  🙂
$ 1,250 … of the $ 2,000 – $ 5,000 needed/desired for the refugees in Lebanon, has come in.  So very grateful !

If your heart so moves you to help with this, please let me know, and I can help you best to channel those funds, quickly.  So grateful (sensing some repetition here) for your urgent considerations in this !

Now for some difficult communications.
Refugees from Syria are pouring into Turkey, and there remains a flow into Iraq.
It’s been an awful cold winter in this region of Iraq and Lebanon.  Refugees are in need of basic sustenance food items and heating fuel.  One of the above photos shows our staff there, in the Karakosh/Ninivah region of Iraq, getting fuel for refugees there.  Another photo showing is from a news source, where people/families, have literally frozen to death.  I drew the line at not showing those more explicit photos.

Our agenda remains the same as in our last update.  Already, we’re having to adjust the schedule to accommodate additional needs and added collaborative times with others in the area.

In brief, we are planning to:

• Relief Distribution to refugees in the Bardarach(Barda rash)

• Meet diplomats working to protect minorities

• TCD follow-up training – Yazidi refugees and Kurdish leaders

• Relief Distribution to Yazidi refugees around Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan

• ELD – Entrepreneur Leadership Development vision casting

• Meet with many leaders currently embracing our TCD/Development Model

• Plan our next trips there in 2020

• Key players who seek to initiate new potential K-12 school

Hoping you’ll receive another of these updates, fresh from the field, soon

Thanking you much for your kindness in reading this and your listening heart !

Daniel and Nora

Daniel & Nora
… Jonathan, Bryan & Eliana

Friend …

1/12^th of 2020 is about to be finished, and we’ve come out of the 2020 gate with a keen focus to make it a grand year of serving people and helping them out of all their forms of poverty!  We are so grateful in these doors opening for our work, and development (on multiple levels) !
  

2^nd/12^th of 2020 is aimed at equally keenly in and with your desired participation!  As indicated in all the ending updates of 2019, we are expanding on several foci, into the Middle East, with launches already having taken place into Kurdistan/IRAQ.  Plans now, are to leave for Sulaimaniyah (Kurdistan), around the 20^th of February.  There, we plan to:

• Distribute essentials to Kurd/Syrian/Assyrian refugees in the Bardarach(Barda rash)

• Meet with key government diplomats in Erbil, at the Ministry of Religious Affairs to discuss our mutual vestments in protecting religious minorities in the region

• Training continued further in TCD among Yazidi refugees and Kurdish leaders

• Distribute essentials to Yazidi refugees around Sulaimaniyah

• Plan with current key entrepreneurs and leaders to introduce ELD-Entrepreneur Leadership Development the middle of this year

• Strategically plan our next trips there for 2020

• Visits in as yet undisclosed areas and contacts for TCD expansion

• Meet with key players who are in initial stages of starting a new  K-12 school

• Lots of other venues and relationships always happen, simply because we “show up”

$ 20,000 has already been raised and committed for refugee relief and development, via several donors who are committed to the region and our specific foci of work there.  Grateful we are !

$ 3,500 is what it costs me to get over there, make a side trip to Lebanon, and have small funding for unforeseen people in need.  Will you please consider this need?  Thanks!

Funding link is listed below.  If you give, please drop me a note, for tracking and acknowledging your kindness.

Thanking you hugely already for your kindness in reading this and your listening heart!

Daniel

Thank you immensely !!!

Daniel & Nora
… Jonathan, Bryan & Eliana