Change Ahead

Dear Faithful Friends and Family,

Thank you for your prayers and support during these past five months of "home time."  As we've mentioned in previous updates, our time here was for work on marriage and raising some much needed one-time financial support.   God has been faithful to bring healing and strengthening in our marriage and we are thankful to be in such a strong place now.   We also wanted to say thank you to all that we've met with to share about what God is doing through The Haven ministry and to those who have recently joined our financial support team.   Words cannot express our thankfulness for you!

On September the 18th we had a check point meeting in which we found out that our team leaders, Scott and Jenni Robinson, determined that it would be best if we'd not return to the team at the Haven.  This was very unexpected news as we were led to believe we were returning, even meeting with possible supporters just a few days prior.   We've now had a couple of weeks to process this decision made and while our hearts are heavy with sadness over not returning to The Haven ministry and the shock of it all still there, we willingly submit to our leaders' decision, and we can understand the reason they made it.  They simply felt our journey of growth and healing is not over yet.
Our organization has a grace period of three months for those transitioning off the field to continue receiving financial support and we would be blessed if you would stick with us during this time while we get back on our feet.  The grace period would end on January 4th.

What now?
Well, we plan on slowly integrating ourselves back into life here in Waco, Tx.  Much will have to be done to get us fully settled here including finding a full-time job for Luke (most likely a teaching position).   We plan on returning to Portugal and packing up our belongings sometime in the next couple of weeks, bringing back with us what we can and selling the rest.  In the mean time, our current missionary house reservation is good through the end of December as well as the missionary car that we are using.

We'd appreciate your prayers
As you can imagine, this has been quite difficult for us to wrap our heads around.  Please pray for us!  We need prayers for:
Healing: that God would heal and work forgiveness in our hearts.

Provision: since we sold everything before we went to Portugal and do not have the funds nor the desire to bring the furniture we had in Portugal back,we will be starting from scratch in every way.  Also, pray that God would open up a teaching position for Luke.

Direction: our hearts are still for the nations and for missionary care, that God would lead us to the right avenues for continuing to work out that calling in us here in Waco or wherever he might lead.

The Haven ministry: the Haven Association was recently included in a lawsuit filed by the bank against the builders of the homes on their street, Alpivillas, for 1.8 million Euros. After consulting several lawyers they now understand that they have to defend themselves or the courts will find the Haven Association guilty.  Pray for God to grant The Haven ministry favor and protection during this time.

It is hard to share such a situation over an email so we would love to share with you in person, by phone or answer questions over email if you'd like.

Thank you for standing by us during this time.  We are overwhelmed with gratitude for all of you who have prayed for us, given to us, and believed with us on this journey. We know that God is good and works for the good of those who love him and we lean on that.

Grateful for you,

Luke, Janice, Elijah, Judah and Isabella

P.S. We plan on sending one last update in a few months with our permanent address change and job update.  We will be at this address through the end of the year: 2025 Fort Ave. Waco, Tx 76707 

Clarification Note

Hi everyone,

We wanted to say thank you so much for your encouraging and supportive emails and calls in response to our latest update.  We feel so loved by you.  Thank you!

Having received some great feedback on our update, we want to clarify a few things thatseemed to communicate a message that we did not intend.  First of all, we want you to know that despite the difficulty of our situation, we bless the Robinsons. We arecertainly grateful for their loving investment in our lives as we served together. Theyhave been supportive friends to us and are well gifted in serving the missionaries that come to The Haven.  

Also, we want to be clear about the current lawsuit against The Haven.  Our intentions in mentioning it was solely to solicit your prayers towards it because our hearts are with and for this ministry (whether we are serving there or not) and we want to see it flourish.   Below is the full details of the situation, please pray with us for God's favor and protection.

Again, we can not say thank you enough, we are blessed by you.

So grateful,
Luke and Janice