Pastor Yasser Castillo and his wife Teresa with HF staff member Dick Samuels

Dear Friends,

I want to tell you about Pastor Yasser Castillo and his wife Teresa. They direct a drug and alcohol rehab ministry in inner-city Havana, Cuba, one of the world’s remaining five communist nations. Along with the current 12 resident men, Yasser and Teresa live in a small, dilapidated storefront that they’ve converted into a chapel and home.

Yasser and Teresa disciple and counsel the recovering addicts, and they try to teach them marketable skills. Teresa also ministers to prostitutes and female addicts.

They previously supported the drug rehab by means of three bicycle taxis that the residents pedaled, but about a year ago the Cuban government confiscated the bicycle taxis, saying that they were being used in an unlicensed, illegal business enterprise. The ministry struggled to survive. Earlier this year, however, the government relaxed its regulations on private business enterprises, and now Yasser and Teresa can operate their bicycle taxi business again as long as they obtain the required permits and pay their taxes—and find more taxis to replace the ones the government confiscated.

That’s where Heaven’s Family was able to help.

Seeing this as an opportunity to help a vital ministry become self-sufficient, we purchased three new bicycle taxis for the ministry through gifts to the Drug Rehab Fund. Yasser estimates that each bicycle taxi can generate at least $100 a month in profit—enough to meet the basic needs of the ministry. We also helped them buy food to sustain them until they can get the taxis into service.

Heaven’s Family was able to purchase three new bicycle taxis similar to this one

I am so overjoyed at what God is doing in Cuba through Pastor Yasser and his wife Teresa. What a blessing it is to help this brother and sister as they fulfill the Great Commission by making disciples of former drug addicts and prostitutes. Your faithful gifts to the Drug Rehab Fund made this possible. Thank you for your heart of obedience to Jesus.

Eternally Grateful,

Bob Collins
Director, Drug Rehabilitation Fund

Just a few of the many flood victims who have been helped recently in Pakistan

Dear Friends,

We’ve continued working in Pakistan this year, much of it through our partner Samuel, helping with unusual flooding that has devastated some areas in the south. I want to share with you a letter we received from Megha, a woman helped through gifts to the Disaster Relief Fund. I was blessed when I read her letter, and I think you will be too.

My Name is Megha. I am residing in a small village of Sanghar district. I had a chance to watch “Jesus” movie in my village. After watching movie I started asking my children and husband that what kind of god is this that does not fight even people are cruel and fight against him. He blesses them instead. When this year rainy season started then Jesus Christ was came into my mind as how he made the sea still.

I asked my family to let us call on Jesus Christ but they refused and went to sleep. At 2:00 a.m. in the night water level increased so high that we have to leave our home and take refuge on a roof top of a government school building. We were watching our destruction with our own eyes. Muslim community was helping their own people but nobody was listening to us. After 10 days when we called upon Jesus Christ he sent his man Brother Samuel who came to us. He comforted us and then took some people with him to Sanghar city and bought us 10 tents and food items and we really thanked the Lord.

After some days the food was finished and the water also started getting low. Our crops were all destroyed on which we have worked for the last six months and the fields are still filled with water and even for the next six months we are unable to cultivate anything. We again got together and prayed and the second day God again sent his man Brother Samuel who arranged for our food.

I along with my family including my sons, daughters and their children (10 families) have accepted Jesus as our personal savior because He is the one in this world who really cares for His people and lift up their burden. He arranged to teach us and He shared His love with us and has not left us unattended.

I on behalf of my family thank the Lord and Heaven’s Family and have faith in Jesus that by the time of our complete rehabilitation you will continue to encourage and help us.

May God bless you all.

Megha

Thanks to faithful friends like you, we’ve sent another $3,000 to help Megha and her village with more food and some blankets to help them through this winter.

May you and yours have a Blessed Christmas and an abundant New Year as you serve Him through the “least to these.”

Jeff Trotter
Director, Disaster Relief Fund

All along the border of China and North Korea, signs like these are posted

Dear Friends,

The lives of 464 North Korean believers were spared this month because of your generosity.

I hope that you read last month’s mini-update about Mrs. Sun (click here if you missed it). She previously smuggled food into famine-stricken North Korea, but her cover was blown, so she had to flee for safety. Because of our help, she recently reached Thailand, a necessary stop on her way to asylum in South Korea.

Mrs. Sun was the key operative for regularly smuggling food to those 464 North Korean Christians whom I mentioned above. Thankfully, however, she trained another brave soul to take her place before she had to flee. Although this caused the regular supply of emergency food to be disrupted for several weeks, we sent her replacement with plenty of food to stave off the malnutrition and starvation that threatened all 464 people that have been depending on our assistance. Praise God for his success.

Thank you so much for your gifts to the North Korean Christians Fund. One day you will meet 464 North Koreans in heaven. They will all thank you from the bottom of their hearts for your compassion.

Elisabeth Servant
Director, North Korean Christians Fund

Three new converts at Yayachu prison being baptized by our indigenous parters using the only water available

Dear Friends and Family,

I’ve just returned from a wonderful visit to the mysterious and beautiful country of Myanmar, also known as Burma. Unfortunately, its people are held captive by a repressive military government and by a Buddhist religion that binds them to worshiping a god they cannot know personally. Thankfully, however, freedom is coming to some of the most unlikely places—the prisons. God has opened the door for our partners to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in Burmese prisons!

Our partners are ministering in the work camps near Kalaymyo, a city located in the remote northwest region of the country. The prisoners receive warm clothing, blankets, food, medicine and a Bible; then they hear the gospel, many for the first time!

During my visit with our partners, I provided them with a camera and a laptop to help with documentation and administration of the prison ministry. And because workers often must rent a car or truck to get to the more remote prisons, Heaven’s Family also purchased a new motorbike for them, all thanks to generous gifts to the Prisoners Fund.

Inmates, many in shackles, responding in prayer

Heaven’s Family is also working to help our partners begin ministering in a 4,000-inmate prison in Taunggyi, a city located near the center of the country. There are some inmates in that prison who have been labeled as “untouchables.” Our partners will be helping to meet their physical needs and telling them about Jesus, the One who is not afraid to touch them.

Please pray with us for this ministry in Myanmar. I thank all of our Heaven’s Family friends from the bottom of my heart for your faithful support and obedience to the command of Jesus to minister to “the least of these” around the world. One day you will hear Jesus say, “When I was in prison, you visited me”!

May God continue to richly bless you!

Bob Collins
Director, Prisoners Fund

Dear Friends,

Because we’ve got so much ministry going on in Myanmar (Burma), I’ve spent 31 of my last 46 days on two trips there. I’m now on my way home from the second trip, during which my youngest daughter, Elisabeth, and I served members of our spiritual family who are refugees, orphans, widows and among the world’s poorest. We kept very busy, and among other things, visited 38 of the orphanages that are regularly assisted through our Orphan’s Tear division.

I wish I could show you the hundreds of photos that we took of saints whom we are helping because of your compassion, but below are just a few. Thanks so much!

Every blessing,

David

When we visit the orphanages, the children always sing for us. Here are two worshippers at New Heritage Children’s Home in Yangon.

Bawi Tha Hnem of New Eden Orphanage.

The happy folks at Life Orphanage in Kalaymyo. They are standing in front of their new dorm, similar to what Heaven’s Family has built for 27 other orphanages in Myanmar over the past 7 years.

Two cuties who live at New Heritage Orphanage in Kalaymyo. The little girl on the right, Sarah, wants to become a teacher when she is older.

Our dear friends at the Handicapped Care Center in Kalaymyo. Most of the children are crippled from polio, but they are absolutely full of joy and thriving under the loving care of a very special Christian family. Their property and building were funded by Heaven’s Family.

Because we’ve funded some water projects in remote villages in Myanmar’s poorest state, we now have a growing list of villages that are asking for our help. For poor villagers, running water can be the first step out of extreme poverty, because once water is more accessible, larger gardens can be grown. The house in this photo is a typical one-room family home in Maul Nuam Village which we visited.

One of the beautiful people of Maul Nuam Village

Two of the precious children of Maul Nuam

A small chicken egg farm, funded by Heaven’s Family, that helps Living Hope Orphanage in Hbawbi generate income every day.

A new electric rice cooker at Life Concern Children’s Home, with the director, Joney Thang Hup. This cooker can cook rice for all 16 of Life Concern’s children. Now that electricity is becoming more reliable in Yangon, a number of the orphanages that we assist there no longer have to cook their meals over wood fires, and all of our Yangon orphanages are requesting such a cooker.

A happy goat keeper, Maung Nge, one of the children at Bethesda Orphanage, in Yangon.

We spent one day visiting Cang Ai village on the edge of Chin State. Since we began serving Cang Ai in 2006 with water, irrigation, and other projects, the village has grown from 7 to 26 families, 80% of which are believers. This year they enjoyed their first-ever harvest of rice, which they now grow on 25 irrigated acres. This photo is of one of Cang Ai’s young mothers and her baby.

A tiny Cang Ai citizen

Before inspecting our irrigation and pharmacy projects at Cang Ai, we passed out donated candy and little stuffed animals to Cang Ai’s children, who excitedly lined up to wait for their turn. Toys and candy are very rare to them.

This little guy received a stuffed dolphin…

Sitting with Cang Ai’s headman and an indigenous partner on the concrete water reservoir that we funded. It is difficult to see in this photo, but water is pouring from the 6-inch blue pipe on the far side of the reservoir. That pipe brings water about two miles from its source, a stream in the mountains.

We spent three days in the city of Myitkyina in Shan State, where 40,000 people have recently been displaced because of fresh outbreaks of fighting between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army. We visited Jan Mai Refugee Camp, operated by Baptist believers, where about 400 women and children are living. This is a photo of Htulum Sumlut and her daughter, Jazin, residents of Jan Mai. Htulum is seizing the opportunity to reach out to the her fellow refugees with the gospel. We’ll have an article with more details in next month’s magazine.

A mother and daughter who are both residents of Jan Mai Refugee Camp. Behind them is the common living/sleeping area that they share with about 200 other women and children. Most husbands have bravely remained in their villages to work their fields.

Lagyawm Pawm Mwaw is also a resident of Jan Mai. She told us how she was conscripted by Burmese soldiers to carry their gear, and how she has learned about God’s love since fleeing to the refugee camp.

Some of the kids at Jan Mai Camp reacting to my trick of “taking off my thumb.”

Standing with the good children and directors of Goshen Orphanage in Kalaymyo. (Their new building behind them, funded by Heaven’s Family, has not been painted yet.)

Ngun Ngen Tial and Bawi Tha Par of El Shaddai Children’s Home

North Korean Border guards taking a break outside their guardhouse on the South Korean border. They are ordered to shoot any who attempt to escape their country.

Dear Friends,

Let me tell you about Mrs. Sun (not her real name), a North Korean woman who is not all that she seems to be.

To the North Korean government and many of her influential friends and family, she is a doctor and a loyal, upstanding citizen.

To hungry and impoverished North Korean Christians, she is a Good Samaritan who helps sustain them by smuggling food, medicine, and Bibles into North Korea from China.

Mrs. Sun’s official life began decades ago, during a time of relative prosperity in North Korea. As a college student, Mrs. Sun had the opportunity to pursue the career of her choice. Due to her strong desire to help others, she chose medicine. Years later, when Mrs. Sun was in her thirties, North Korea endured the worst famine the country had ever experienced. Once again she heeded the call to help those in need by offering food, which she obtained from neighboring China.

Twenty years later, her life as a “double agent” had become routine. By “day” she served her people as a medical professional (under the guise of a loyal national), and by “night” she served as one of our most effective underground food distributors and evangelists. Using her influential status to travel into China, she gathered food, medical supplies, and other aid to bring back to the hundreds of people in her home city.

Last month, however, the unthinkable happened. During her stay with some friends in China, she received an urgent message from a trusted friend. Government spies had discovered the true purpose of her frequent border crossings. The message warned that officials were waiting to arrest her as soon as she stepped foot on North Korean soil.

Mrs. Sun was devastated. She knew that she faced certain death if she tried to return home, but the thought of leaving her husband and pregnant daughter in North Korea was unbearable. Making the hardest decision of her life, Mrs. Sun entrusted herself to God and went into hiding with the help of her friends in China.

But Mrs. Sun could not stay in China—she was now a hunted woman, as China cooperates with North Korea in searching for and returning North Koreans who have escaped. Those who are caught in China and returned to North Korea are sent to concentration camps where they are not likely to survive their sentences.

Using gifts from the North Korean Christians Fund, Heaven’s Family funded Mrs. Sun’s safe passage to Thailand, where she is now living. She will be there for three months and then relocate to South Korea. Please pray this month for her to have a smooth transition to her new life in South Korea as well as for her family left behind in North Korea.

For our suffering family in North Korea,

Elisabeth Servant
Director, North Korean Christians Fund

Dear Friends,

After my last blog post from Myanmar, we found it very difficult to send photos via the internet. Thus the reason for this belated blog (I’m now home).

Our final nine days in Myanmar were split between two cities where Heaven’s Family supports 40 orphanages by means of child sponsorships through our Orphan’s Tear division. While several of our team members hosted two-day conferences on foster care and micro-banking for all our orphanage directors in both cities, the rest of the team spent their days visiting their orphanages and interacting with the children. Those children never tired of playing Hot Potato and Duck, Duck, Goose.

On one special day, we journeyed by jeep and motor scooters to two remote and primitive mountain villages—consisting mostly of believers—where Heaven’s Family has been working. In both villages, the people used to hike for miles to fetch their drinking water. Now they enjoy multiple public water faucets made possible by a lot of hard work by the villagers, plus PVC pipe and concrete provided through our Village Development Fund. During our visit at one of those villages, I had a lot of fun introducing something the villagers had never seen—a frisbee.

Thanks for your prayers while we were away. Below are some photos I thought you’d enjoy. I’m returning to Myanmar for two weeks in December to bring relief to Kachin refugees who have had to flee from fighting in their region, as well as to spend one-on-one time with all our orphanage directors. I’ll appreciate your prayers from December 5-19.

In Christ,

David

One of the sincere worshippers at Hallelujah Children’s Home

Duck, Duck, Goose at Grace Orphanage in Kalaymyo

Team member Sittinan Liankatawa being crushed in an arm wrestling contest at the Handicapped Care Center. Heaven’s Family U.K. director, Philip Barker, in the background, capturing the defeat digitally.

On the way to the villages: A large ditch in the road required a makeshift bridge for our jeep to pass

Asking this couple for a mild public display of affection for their portrait caused quite a stir in Mawl Zaul village

HF Staff Member David Warnock showing some of the Zautal villagers photos of Pennsylvania snow on his laptop

At one of the ten new public water faucets in their village

Sampling a tiny red chile that was being dried in the sun at Zatual village

The children and director of Love Children’s Home inside their bamboo house. The water of Inle Lake is presently just inches below the floor upon which the children are sitting.

Greetings from Myanmar, where Heaven’s Family has been working for nine years. Today our team visited Love Children’s Home, directed by a missionary from India, and supported by Heaven’s Family U.K. The orphanage director originally relocated to Myanmar’s most unreached region to spread the gospel among tribal people, but he found himself also taking care of orphans and unwanted children from the remote villages where he preached.

Their home is built on stilts, and much of the year it sits above eight feet of water on Inle Lake, as do thousands of other homes in the surrounding villages. The children are all good swimmers, and it is a good thing. They must take a boat if they want to go anywhere. Today I saw, for the first time, the sturdy boat that we funded for them last year, and it can fit all the children.

We also visited their one-acre fish pond, dug deep in the lake shallows, that holds 20,000 growing fingerlings. The idea is for Love Children’s Home to become more self-sufficient through fish sales, and we are thankful for our friends at Alpha Relief in Denver who have funded that project.

The children are all doing well, and they enthusiastically sang some beautiful songs for us in English. Our team played games with them before they gave us a rousing send-off with many of the boys jumping into the water near our departing boats.

Below are a few photos from the day. Thanks for your prayers.

David

Many of Inle Lake’s people make a living through small-scale fishing, which requires a good sense of balance, as demonstrated by the man in this photo. Like all the other of Inle’s fishermen, he can also stand at the same spot on his boat, row with an oar held by one leg, and work his net with his two free hands.

One of Inle Lake’s children “girding up his loins”

This is how clothes are washed by everyone who lives on Inle Lake

Christopher Biak Lang, Love Children’s Home’s director, standing in front of the orphanage fish pond

A typical house on stilts on Inle Lake

Philip Barker, director of Heaven’s Family U.K., playing a game with one of the children

A contemplative boy. Please pray for the people who live around Inle Lake, as only a tiny fraction of them know Jesus. But that minority is reaching out, even though they face persecution.

North Korea’s “eternal” leader, Kim Il-sung, is portrayed as a loving man, but thousands in his prison camps suffer unthinkable injustices

Dear Friends,

In August, David Servant appealed to all the friends of Heaven’s Family for a sister in Christ who has been incarcerated in a North Korean prison camp. She was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for telling someone about Jesus. Her sentence was reduced to 8 years, but from what we know of the camp’s hellish conditions it is very unlikely that she could survive that long.

We have been trying to secure her release through some bribes—the only method, aside from prayer, that works in the North Korean system. We are grateful that we received all the funds needed. Unfortunately though, there were some major security leaks in the underground railroad that our contact uses to get people safely into South Korea. Thus her rescue has been pushed back to early spring, after things have quieted down again.

The last time our contacts visited her, however, she was near starvation. So until she is released, we are sending medicine to combat the effects of malnutrition and food to help her survive through the next few months of harsh winter conditions.

Please pray that God will sustain her through the winter months—a season that takes the lives of many weak prisoners. Pray also that He will use her as a witness to the prison guards and to the other inmates.

Finally, I’m so happy to report that Heaven’s Family provided the needed funding for the rescue of another North Korean believer who was on the run from the authorities, and her recent escape was successful! Next month I’ll be sending a mini-update with more details.

In Service to our Lord,

Elisabeth Servant
Director, North Korean Christians Fund

Thousands of Pakistanis, including this woman and her small child (in hammock) were forced to flee their homes due to flooding from unusually heavy monsoon rains

Dear Friends,

You may recall that I visited Pakistan just over a year ago to bring emergency relief on behalf of those who generously contributed to the Disaster Relief Fund.

Although more localized this year, the southern Sindh Province was again hit with record-breaking monsoon rains.

Heaven’s Family received a plea for help from one of our partners in Pakistan who lives in the hardest-hit area (and who I worked with last year when I was there). He told us that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ were forced to abandon their flooded homes and their submerged crops. Government help was limited, of course, especially for followers of Jesus.

We responded by sending $2,000, and we are happy to report that 70 families were helped with emergency supplies that included flour, rice, sugar, vegetable oil, tea, dry milk, and mosquito coils. Some supplies also went to a few Hindu and Muslim families who are open to the gospel. In the next couple of weeks Heaven’s Family hopes to be able to send more relief money to equip our partner to help even more families.

Below are some photos of Pakistani believers very happy to receive our help in the last two weeks!

Because of Him,

Jeff Trotter
Director, Disaster Relief Fund

And I couldn’t resist including a photo of some cute kids!