Dear Friends,

I'm sorry it's been awhile since we've updated; we have been in Missouri, North Carolina and Michigan in the two weeks since Thanksgiving and have not had access to internet connection for a large part of that time.
We want to thank all of you for praying for us as we travel; we avoided two accidents on the highways in the past month. The last one was on Monday; I'm not sure how we kept from hitting one of several cars that were in our way except for the fact that we know our friends and partners are praying for us. Thank you for your faithfulness!
I want to share a praise report that reminds us all that God is concerned about the small things. Our daughters each had a need over the weekend that amounted to $140 being put on our credit card. On Sunday, we were in a small church in rural North Carolina; there were about 25 people in attendance that morning. The pastor and his wife, a retired couple, are acting as interim pastors until the church can find a permanent pastor. We went out to eat with this dear couple and had a wonderful time of fellowship with them. As we were leaving, the pastor's wife slipped some money into my hand; I tried to return it to her knowing that they were on a fixed income but she insisted that the Lord had told her to give the money to me personally as a gift to spend however I wanted.
As we drove away, I began unrolling the bills in my hand and realized that she had given me $140! The exact amount that we had just placed on our credit card; she had no way of knowing about it. However, the Lord did and He provided for our need.
He says that He shall supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory!
Thanks to all of you for your faithful prayers; please remember the following prayer requests:
*We are still waiting for a place to live here in Michigan; pray that the apartment we have been waiting for since October 1 will be ready soon. We continue to be thankful for the friends and family who allow us to stay with them.
* We are desperately in need of monthly support; we are at about 62% of our needed monthly pledges. Time has become a critical issue; we are believing God for a financial miracle.

We'll keep in touch! Blessings to all of you!
Tim and Joyce

Devil's Night - NOT!!!!

Friends,
I want to share a wonderful thing that happened on Halloween night; often called the Devil's night. We were asked by Christian Life Center in Spring Lake MI to participate in their annual Harvest Festival. They have a fun evening of carnival type games and free food for their community with a presentation of the gospel at the end of the night's activities; over 200 hundred people attended this year's event. Large bags of candy are handed out after the special service so everyone stays for it.
Tim and I did a fun skit with Tim appearing as a nerdy and crazy guy named, Willie, who was trying to figure out how to get to heaven. There was much laughter at Willie's antics as he checked into taking a train or plane to get to heaven.
We presented the salvation message at the end of the skit and shared with everyone that Jesus is the only way to heaven; we had 28 children come forward for salvation from their sins that night.
In addition, there were several families that came to the event for the first time and filled out cards requesting a visit or call from a representative from the church. We must use every opportunity to reach the lost people of our communities; we were glad to be part of this community outreach.

Update - November 6, 2007

Dear Friends,

Thank you for continuing to check our website; I try to update it every week or 10 days.

We are still not in our apartment which means we are still living the gypsy lifestyle. We stay with family and friends around the country while our belongings stay stored in a container in Blissfield MI. We are thankful for the hospitality of family and friends.

We traveled to Missouri on the 3rd of this month; last Saturday. We had services in Springfield, Mo Sunday morning and in Bourbon, Mo Sunday night the 4th. This Wednesday evening we have services in Carthage MO and at Grace A/G in Springfield on Thursday evening. We will travel back to Michigan on Friday; we have a Missions banquet on Saturday evening and services in Marysville on Sunday evening.

As you can see, we stay busy traveling and holding services. We share our burden for missions and our missions calling with congregations in Michigan and Missouri. Later this month we will be in North Carolina for a few weeks. We go wherever to Lord opens a door for us to minister.

Usually, we spend Tuesday through Thursday on the phones contacting churches in various districts. Please remember that if you want to contact us via email, use tim.jarvis@agmd.org

Please pray with us for the following needs:
1. We are in urgent need of monthly support; please pray that churches/individuals will be moved by the Holy Spirit to partner with us to reach the lost souls of Tanzania. We are at a critical time in our itineration process.
2. Pray for us to have traveling mercies as we travel through different states; especially as the winter weather approaches.

We want to thank all of you for your prayers on our behalf; we continue to believe God for a miracle in our finances. We feel an urgency to return to Tanzania as soon as possible.

Blessings,
Tim and Joyce Jarvis

October 27, 2007 - Update

Dear Friends,

We finished the round robin mission convention in the Northern Section of Michigan; we met many new friends and made contact with six different churches. We had a wonderful time and appreciate the gracious hospitality of our friends in the northern section of the Michigan District.

Sarah, our youngest daugther, came to visit us in MI during her Fall break from school and we had a wonderful few days with her and her friend, Vaughndena. We showed them some of the sites of MI and then traveled back to MO with them on the 23rd of this month. We loaded all of Jenn's, our oldest daughters, belongings in a moving truck and traveled to Waterloo IA on Wednesday. She needed all of her things with her in Waterloo to furnish her apartment. It was so good to see Jenn and spend a day with her helping her settle in to her new home. We were able to see her do a live shot from a local store on the 6:00 News on Thursday evening. She has had a hectic first week on her new job with KWWL News in Waterloo; but we are excited for her.

We traveled back to Lansing, MI on Friday (yesterday) and are preparing today to head back across MI for services tomorrow (Sunday).

Prayer Requests:
Please be in prayer about our finances; we urgently need about $2,000 in monthly pledges to come in by the end of November. Thankfully, God knows where the funds are; please pray that the Holy Spirit will direct churches/pastors/mission's boards to partner with us.

Also, please pray the our apartment will be open soon so that we can move in and give up the gypsy life style for awhile.

We also need our home in Springfield, MO to be rented soon.

Praise reports:
God has kept us safe as we have traveled hundreds and even thousands of miles already this month in five different states.
Jennifer has a new job and is settled into her new home.
Sarah is doing well in school and is adjusting well to us living in Michigan.

Blessings to each of you!
Tim and Joyce

October 17, 2007 - Updates

Dear Friends,

We just want to take a couple of minutes to update you on Jenn and Sarah, our two daughters.

Jenn graduated from Missouri State University in Columbia, MO with a degree in journalism in May. She has accepted a job as a reporter with the NBC station in Waterloo, Iowa; she will start her new job on October 22.

Sarah is a junior at Evangel and is living in an apartment in Springfield, MO with a friend whom she also works with. She is doing very well in school and adjusting well to our move to Michigan.

Thanks to all of you who pray for our daughters; please continue to do so as we all adjust to the changes in our lives. God has been so faithful to care for Jenn and Sarah!
Blessings,
Joyce and Tim

Move to Michigan update

Dear Friends,
It has been awhile since we have updated our website; we have been staying different places around Michigan. Unfortunately, when we arrived in MI, our apartment was not ready so we are living the life of gypsies. We have been having some difficulty finding ways and places to connect to the internet to update our website.
The sale of our belongings in Springfield went well and we are now living in MI with all of our stuff stored in a container in Blissfield, MI. We are spending days on the phone calling churches and pastors and evenings preparing mailings and taking care of other business.
Keep us in your prayers, we will be spending this next week in northern Michigan doing a sectional round-robin missions convention. We will be in a different church each night throughout the week.
Thank you for your prayers on our behalf; we appreciate each of you.

Blessings,
Tim and Joyce

Moving Update

Dear Friends,

It's been a couple of weeks since my last entry, so I want to take advantage of this pause in the activity to give some updates.

Tim and I have been working long hours every day to sort all of our possessions and to place them in the appropriate "piles". We have about four of these "piles"; one is for Africa, one is for Michigan to move with us, the third is for items to sale, and the last pile is for storage here in Missouri.

Today we have officially gone through every room, closet, drawer, cabinet, the attic, shed and garage. We are having a huge moving sale on Saturday; we have several family members who will be helping us. It will be a long day but we hope it will be a rewarding day. Please pray that all of our items will sell.

We are weary in body and our emotions are a little stretched as well. This place has been our home for the past 6 years and we have so many wonderful memories here. But, we know the Lord has wonderful things ahead for us.

Please keep us in your prayers as we go through the next week; we will be staying with my Mom until we leave for Michigan early Thursday morning. Pray for our family we leave behind here in Missouri; especially Jenn and Sarah. This is a new road that the four of us will be traveling; the road is getting ready to branch off into three separate directions. Tim and I will be going one way, Jenn another way, and Sarah yet another way.

Blessings,
Joyce

Together Again...

I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED, AND AM CONVINCED THAT HE IS ABLE TO GUARD WHAT I HAVE ENTRUSTED TO HIM FOR THAT DAY. II TIMOTHY 1:12

Greetings to each of you!

We have a lot of news to share with you. Most of you know that we have been living in Missouri and Tim has been traveling the roads alone during this year of itineration. Last Friday was Joyce’s last day working at Gospel Publishing House; we are in the process of getting our house ready to rent and moving to Lansing, MI for the remainder of the time it will take to raise our budget to return to Tanzania. It is time for us to trust Him completely to supply all of our needs! It will also be nice for Joyce to be able to join Tim in his travels.

Please note our new address as of OCTOBER 1:
TIM & JOYCE JARVIS
116 S ROSEMARY
LANSING MI 48917
PHONE: 417-353-0555

We would like to ask each of you to prayerfully consider an idea that we believe God has given us to help raise our support. We have been given until the end of November to raise $2,000 in monthly support. To us, this seems like a huge mountain looming in front of us; but “we know whom we have believed, and are convinced that HE is able to guard what we have entrusted to HIM”. We have placed our lives and our future in God’s hands many times in the past and know that we can do it again with confidence. We ask you to believe together with us that God is going to bring in these finances!

We believe God has given us a plan...we call it the 200x10 Plan. The plan God has given us is to ask 200 churches/individuals to increase their pledge or make a first time monthly pledge of $10 a month; it’s really such a small amount.

We believe God will bless us for stepping out in faith to return to Tanzania; we are giving up all other means of income, renting our home, selling all of our furniture, and believing God to supply all of our needs. Real faith is when you don’t have catch nets below you but you step out on the wire anyway. He will also bless you for making the step of faith too; so step out on the wire with us and make a $10 pledge to our ministry. Together, we can see God glorified and lost souls saved in Tanzania.

Thank you and God bless you for your help. We pray for God’s blessings for each of you who journey with us.

At the End of the Road...literally

I remember our first trip alone as new missionaries in East Africa; we ended up at the end of the road, in total darkness and completely lost.

We had been in Africa for about two months but had never been outside of Nairobi on our own; we had made a trial run with another missionary to Musoma, Tanzania where we would be attending language school. We were given a few rules that were to be strictly adhered to when we made the trip on our own to Musoma. Our missionary mentor, Bob McCulley, looked at us sternly and said: "Never be out on the road at night and never take the lower road through the Rift Valley."


We left Nairobi later in the day than we had planned but it was decided that we had time to get through the Rift Valley and arrive at the other end safely before nightfall. Tim, Sarah, and I had everything packed tightly in the Land Cruiser. So tightly, in fact, that Sarah had to sit in the front seat between us. We headed out on our new adventure, we took the turnoff for the Rift Valley and bounced merrily along. After several hours, a very uncomfortable realization hit us, we were looking "up" at the higher road. This meant, of course, that we had taken the wrong exit and were traveling the forbidden and frightening "lower road."

We had traveled to far to turn back, light was failing fast, and the road deteriorated as we continued. There were huge craters in the road that we literally drove down into and up the other side and we passed a number of large trucks turned over on the side of the road. We tried to stay calm so as not to frighten Sarah and prayed that the Lord would come to our rescue.

Eventually it was completely dark, no street lights or homes lined the side of the road; the only lights we saw were small specks of light in the distance that indicated homes sprinkled around the sides of the Rift Valley. The road continued to get narrower and narrower eventually came to a dead end marked by a road block. I cannot even tell you how the fear felt as it began to wrap itself around us making it seem even darker than it already was. We could not see any sign of civilization and since we were on our way to the language school we probably could not have communicated with anyone had they been nearby.

We sat there and prayed and eventually we saw a huge truck off to our left a good distance away that appeared to be traveling parallel with the route we had been taking. Tim took it as an answer to prayer and we set off across the flat land and began to follow the truck as it meandered across the valley floor. Slowly and in a snaking pattern the truck eventually lead us to the higher road and a small town where we were able to find a small hotel. We spent the night and finished our trip the next day without incident.

We are on a journey once again and at times we feel as if we are once again meandering around lost in the bottom of the valley trying to find our way to the high road. We are still a long way from the monthly support needed for us to reach our budget. Daylight is running out and we need your help to reach our goal; we need to raise about $2,000 in monthly support by the end of November. We would rejoice if some of you, our faithful friends and partners, would be like the truck that came out of the darkness and helped us find our way to the higher road.

You can click here to make a one-time gift or fill out a pledge for monthly support at our web site.

Thanks to all of you who are traveling along with us and helping us find our way back to Tanzania!

Then and Now

I would like to introduce you to one of our dear friends, his name is Seni. Seni and his family live in Mwanza, Tanzania and we were in their home often to eat with them and visit with each other. They also came to our home; we count them among our dearest friends.

Tim and Seni traveled many miles together around the western part of Tanzania. Seni was the regional representative for the Gideons, so whenever he and Tim traveled Seni always took a case of Bibles with him. It is very common in Tanzania to come upon a police roadblock. This often means that you end up paying some type of fine (called “chai”) before you are able to continue your journey. Seni would always take advantage of these opportunities to pass out Gideon Bibles to all of the police officers at the roadblocks.

One of the most memorable characteristics about Seni is that he had a very loud laugh and he laughed a lot! He truly had the joy of the Lord in his heart. I remember the day we flew out of Mwanza to return to the states. Seni didn’t laugh that entire morning as he was at our home helping us prepare to leave. When we arrived at the airport we were all crying but Seni did not cry. Seni didn’t laugh either. He smiled and spoke much about the day that we would return to Mwanza. As we were walking towards the plane I looked back at our friend one more time. Seni had turned away with his back to us and his head was bent over; I think he was crying although he was trying to hide it. He could not watch us leave.

Usually they send us a short email of “Christian greeting” about twice a year. I accidently included their address in an email newsletter that among other things, mentioned our financial need that had to be met before we could return to Tanzania.
A few days later, we received this email from our friend, Seni; I have copied it for you below:

From: Suleiman and Anna Seni
To: Tim and Joyce Jarvis

How joyful we are to hear from you and all about the desire of your coming back to Tanzania!!! We strongly believe that your desire is God’s will. So before you step in the grounds of your destination we say to you WELCOME HOME!!! The Seni’s family will be supporting you with 100 $ for four months from September 2007. But if you need it all at once, we can have it ready for you by the end of October 2007.
You are in our Prayer calendar.
We love you and we say God bless you.
Yours in His Love, Seni's

Most of you have no concept what $400 means to a Tanzanian; most Tanzanians will not make even a $100 a year. And yet, our friend, Seni, believes in us and believes that it is God’s will for us to be in Tanzania. They are making a huge financial commitment to us because they want us to return to Africa and continue the work that we were doing there. Will you search your hearts and see what God is telling you to do?

We're Sorry!

Dear Friends,

We would like to express our sincere apologies for the huge numbers of emails that many of you received. We were trying to let you know about our new website and there was a “glitch” in our server which caused the email to continue being sent. We are deeply sorry for this; we know it caused many of you a lot of grief.

Tim called the tech support people at AGWM and they checked it out for us and discovered it was a “1 in a
million occurrence” and unfortunately we were the recipient of the problem. The problem was with our “agmd” server and we have been assured by the tech staff that the problem has been solved. I have included their comments below for you to read.

Again, accept our apologies; it was nothing we did or could have prevented we are sorry that we were the origin of the multitude of emails many of you received. I suppose some day this will be funny to us but it certainly has caused us much grief now.

We are also sorry it spoiled the big announcement about our big website. We hope you still check it regularly to stay up to date with our progress. We know many of you blocked us temporarily to avoid the massive amount of e-mails. Please remember to unblock us so you can continue to receive updates.



-----Original Message-----
From: Morton, Mark [mailto:MMorton@ag.org]
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 2:22 PM
To: tim.jarvis@hqmail.agmd.org
Subject: Email problem



Hi Tim,

We were able to isolate the problem on our email server and fix it. The problem was not anything you caused. It was one of those fluke things that happen where our server was not receiving any indication that the email was being received by the recipient so it kept sending out the message. Seconds for us can be an eternity for a computer, which is why hundreds of
these messages went out. The last time something like this happened was to one other missionary 2 years ago.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this caused. Feel free to forward this message to the recipients that were experiencing this issue.


Blessings,

Mark Morton
Technical Services Support Coordinator
AGWM Technical Services
Springfield MO 65802

The Gift of Glasses

Tim and I were reminiscing while traveling together last week to and from Michigan; we were remembering about our “eye glass ministry”. We had a couple of doctors who sent us an action packer full of eye glasses of all strengths and designs. We had watched many of our national pastors struggle to read their Bibles and had realized that they needed glasses.
We started carrying the glasses with us wherever we went and when we held seminars and meetings we would set up a little eye glass clinic for those who needed glasses. Since Tim and I had absolutely no training; we established a quick and easy system. We had two tables; at the first table Tim would have a pair each strength of glasses that we had. Tim would have each pastor open his Bible and hold it at the proper distance; they would try on glasses until they found one that worked! I would be at the second table with all the glasses grouped together by strength; Tim would say what strength that person needed and I would then show them which group of glasses to choose from. It was a delight to watch their faces light up when they could see their Bibles with their new glasses. There was a lot of fun and fellowship as the other pastors stood around and watched. They would help each other choose the “perfect” glasses and there would be many smiles and hand-clapping as the process moved along.

My favorite memory of our “eye glass” ministry actually occurred at our home one day when Tim was away. An elderly lady pastor who I was told had nine children showed up at my gate. Although she lived a day’s travel away, she would come occasionally to Mwanza to visit her daughter. She was brought up to the house and I welcomed her inside for a cool drink and snack. As we sat, she reached in her dress pocket and carefully pulled out a pair of broken and dilapidated eye glasses. I looked at the glasses and noticed that one lens was completely gone and the other had a crack across it. One arm of the glasses was gone as well.

She had been told by some of the pastors in her area that she could get a new pair of glasses from us. With great excitement I brought out the box of glasses and I had her start trying them on. After a bit, she found the strength that worked for her and I pulled out all of the glasses in that strength. In a few minutes she had narrowed it down to two pair: one pair was practical and simple and the second pair was blue with rhinestones in the corner. She was torn between having something pretty that she liked or getting something more practical.

I felt the Lord speak to my heart to give her both pair; so I handed them both back to her and explained that they were both for her. She jumped from her chair and began jumping around the office with her hands in the air praising God for his goodness. We hugged and I saw a look of joy on her face; the tired slump was gone from her shoulders and she left with a bounce in her steps. She was reminded by the gift of the glasses that her God loved her and cared about her needs; she would never have had the money for a new pair, but God saw her need and blessed her for her years of faithfulness to a small church and to her family.

Tim and I are encouraged by these memories, the God who feeds the sparrows, dresses the lilies of the field, and gives glasses to the isolated hard working pastors living in the remote areas of Tanzania is still the same God today. He blesses and provides for those who are faithful in extending His love to the lost people of this world.

Blessings to each one of you!

The Four Pillars

Hey everyone!

We finally finished the video for mom and dad to use during itineration.
It's meant to be an introduction for churches and explain what their ministry is all about.

The theme is Four Pillars - reaching, training, planting, and touching.
Watch it and let us know what you think!

LEND US A HAND – GIVE US A PUSH!

We are trying hard to get to our destination: Tanzania, East Africa
However, we seem to be having a few setbacks; can you help us?

Hello, everyone! We are well into our itineration to return to Tanzania, East Africa after spending the past few years assigned to Convoy of Hope International in Springfield, MO.

As you can see from the above picture, we are running into a few difficulties that Satan would like to use to keep us from getting to our destination. However, we know that God has a work for us to do in Tanzania and we are determined to get there despite obstacles that try to slow us down. He has placed it in our heart to go to the isolated regions of western Tanzania where there are still many unreached people who have yet to hear an adequate presentation of the Gospel. Also, this term we feel that God wants us to go to the many islands located in Lake Victoria where there are many people who do not know Jesus and need to hear that He loves them.
What can you do to help?

1. We need people who are willing to partner with us by spending time in prayer for us.

2. We need monthly support as well as cash offerings to help us reach our financial requirements. We cannot return to Tanzania until these financial goals are met.

3. We need partners, like you, who will make a strong commitment to our ministry in Tanzania.

If you would like to partner with us by making a first time pledge or increasing a current pledge, please contact us and we will be happy to send you a pledge form.

Or, you can contact AGWM directly and make a one time cash gift or make a monthly pledge to our account.

Tim and Joyce Jarvis
Account # 221146
Phone: 417 353 0555
3751 N Williams Place
Springfield, MO 65803


Thank you for your support; we can do nothing without the faithful prayers and financial support of people like you! It is a joy to have you on our team!

Keep checking our blog so you can follow us on our journey back to Tanzania.