Thankful

Dear family and friends,

Once again I am long overdue (it has been almost a year) in sharing the goings on in our lives and my work with Food for the Hungry. So much has happened in the last year and I honestly am disappointed in myself for not having shared more sooner. While I may not have been faithful in keeping you up to date, God has been faithful to continue His work in and through us, and so many of you have been faithful to keep us in your prayers and provide support for my ministry with Food for the Hungry. Thank you for your faithfulness!
Here are some highlights from our year so far:

FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY

This year has been a year for travel for me supporting the work of FH in different countries, conducting assessments, training staff, leading workshops, and even learning new things myself.

In January I traveled to Niger with a team of folks from FH to do an assessment of communities and the needs of people for a proposal to possibly begin work there. Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, and as we talked with women and men from different communities we could see there were many ways for FH to walk come alongside these communities  and families to help them develop their capacities and resources and hopefully make space for God to begin a work of transformation. Unfortunately the doors to being work in Niger haven't opened yet. Please continue to pray for Niger, for the people there, and for FH as we continue to discern the possibility of working there.

Lauren and other FH Staff with women from focus group in Niger

In January I traveled to Niger with a team of folks from FH to do an assessment of communities and the needs of people for a proposal to possibly begin work there. Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, and as we talked with women and men from different communities we could see there were many ways for FH to walk come alongside these communities  and families to help them develop their capacities and resources and hopefully make space for God to begin a work of transformation. Unfortunately the doors to being work in Niger haven't opened yet. Please continue to pray for Niger, for the people there, and for FH as we continue to discern the possibility of working there.

In February I traveled to Ethiopia to do a training with our staff there on how to facilitate with communities a process for communities to assess their disaster risks and develop plans to mitigate and prepare for those risks. I love teaching and building up our amazing staff around the world, so this trip was a blessing for me.

Lauren and Elya

In May I was able to travel to Mexico City for a conference about understanding disaster risk. The conference was a huge learning experience for me, but the trip also had an additional blessing of being able to meet with a fellow missionary from Maple Valley Church, my friend Elya who is serving a one-year term working in a coffee shop ministry in the city. Our time together was short, but we had some fun exploring together the area of the city where she is living and working and encouraging each other in our lives and the place God has called each of us to for this season.

In July, a colleague and I traveled to Kenya to conduct our first RISC workshop. RISC stands for Risk and Resilience Strategy Creation. For almost two years we have been designing this workshop to help each of Food for the Hungry's country teams to analyze how the impact of recurring disasters and shocks keeps communities from graduating from poverty. Then based on that analysis along with an analysis of the context, capacities and resources available to communities determine what needs to happen and what FH can do to support communities and families in becoming more resilient to those disasters and shocks. With this first pilot workshop we learned so much and we are now getting ready to lead the workshop with the Food for the Hungry team in Peru in December.

FH Kenya RISC workshop 

FAMILY
Cristian and I continue to be involved in our small group at church, but we are praying now the possibility of trying to engage in ministry at church more and trying to decide where that might be and what that might look like. Please pray with us as we continue to discern where God is leading us in worship and service. 

Caleb and Liana continue to be a joy in our lives as they grow, learn and make us laugh so much. Here are just a few highlights of our joys with them.

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 
1 Thessalonians 5:18

As we take time this month to give thanks, and I share with you a little bit of all that has happened this year I remember how much we have to be thankful for: health, physical provision, a loving family, fruitful work and ministry opportunities, and good friends. We would love to hear what you are thankful for. 

Prayvine

While I haven't been so good about keeping up this blog/ newsletter, I have sent out some updates/ prayer requests during the year via another platform called Prayvine. Prayvine is a platform created specifically for sharing ministry updates and prayer concerns. If you want to sign up to receive Prayvine emails/ updates from me please let me know.

Support Info
It's that time of the year...If you are interested in supporting Lauren's work with Food for the Hungry we are praying for some extra year-end gifts to end 2018 well. 

Prayer support: Sign up to receive Prayvine email prayer requests - reply to this email and say you want to be added to the list

Give by check/ mail: Send checks to: Food for the Hungry, 1224 E. Washington Street

Phoenix, AZ 85034-1102 (write code 68308 on the memo)

Online: click here

Phone: call (866) 307-3259 and request to make a donation to Hunger Corps account 68308