August 2007 Greetings in the name of the Lord, Lynnette and I would like to thank everyone for their prayer and financial support. This is the most updated report on our situation concerning 2nd Chance Christian Newsletter, health, education and our mission trip to Malawi, Africa. I will have to split this letter into different categories. Though long to some this letter should answer any questions one might have. 1)I was told before I started deputation by those that know that I would have to call around 2,000 pastors to get 200 meetings to raise our support. This has been a fairly accurate outline. I have found that I have made around 4,000 – 6,000 phone calls including follow up phone calls. We started our first meeting in July of 2005. We have had around 180- 190 meetings (without going back and actually counting). My pastor and I originally thought that we could go to the field with $2,000 a month support. We soon raised this to $2,500 based on the dollar’s decline and advice from seasoned missionaries.  Finally, with the possibility of going off on our own we raised it again to $3,000. Even though you have heard of us no longer being involved with Brother Gentry, I have been trying to get things worked out with his ministry for most of 2007. It came down to this. I could either quietly do things his way or be on my own. After conferring with our pastor and deacons we chose the latter. I mention this because we have lost the support of one church because we are no longer with Victory World Outreach, and another church has put us on hold. If you supported us because we were with Brother Gentry it was for the wrong reasons. We are looking for churches that will support us and the work God is doing in our lives. We pray for both Brother Gentry and his ministry daily. When Paul and John Mark went separate ways in the Bible God still used them both and neither one was taken out of the ministry. Out of the $3,000 a month we sought about 3 or 4 months ago we had $2,600-$2,800 a month regularly coming in. I had no problem taking my family over to Malawi on this amount. This has changed some over the course of the summer. 2)We had only two churches supporting us after the first nine months on deputation. The following year the Lord blessed us with another 32 supporting churches. Several missionaries have told us that that was a lot of support in such a short time. Counting one other church that has taken us on in recent months this should bring our support level to 35 churches except we have lost some. Out of those churches: one closed its doors and one dropped us because of Brother Gentry. Four of these churches can’t support us regularly. They may send support one month but only partial or no support for a few months. We may lose support due to another church that is considering closing its doors or they may become a home church and continue to support us. We still have a total of nine (not part of the 35 churches that are supporting us or have supported us at one time) churches that have promised us support but have not been able to start. Out of those nine I have been in touch with four of those pastors, and they have asked me for prayer. There has been everything from church splits to church discipline that has caused problems. The four that I have talked to stress that they still have a desire to support us but under the present conditions they can’t. One pastor last year mentioned that they sent their first checks out to missionaries in August. They are struggling to keep their lights on. I don’t say this to bring sympathy to us nor to embarrass anyone. I am not naming any churches merely reporting the present condition of our ministry. When you pray for us please pray for our supporting churches and potential supporting churches. As it stands right now we need to bring in another $650-$800 a month to bring us up to an acceptable level. As a result I have started booking more meetings to help cover the recent losses. Since I thought I was at our necessary support level I had stopped booking new meetings. I was relying on the meetings scheduled in Canada for the remainder of our support, which for those of you that don’t know were cancelled because of my past criminal record. I have gotten the information from the FBI necessary to submit a request for temporary admittance into their country which should be turned in within the next few weeks. If at all possible I would still like to re-book those meetings next year. Next, I would like to talk about my health situation. Some of you have received prayer requests for my headaches and back pain via e-mail. Please don’t read into this. They are prayer requests not some prelude to us quitting the ministry. Most of you don’t know what I am about to tell you because the majority of the time the only bad health sign you see would be inability to turn my head from side to side. It would just look like a stiff neck to one who does not know. I have had scoliosis since birth. I was barely able to get into the Marine Corp. I have had back and neck problems for many years. About four years ago I was diagnosed with reverse curvature in my neck. What that means is one of my discs has deteriorated to the point that bone rests on bone. It has pinched nerves and has caused numbness in my hands.  This year it has caused migraine headaches. My hands have fallen asleep when I try to use them including when I drive or use a computer. I also have what they call a slightly bulged disc in my lower back, which pinches nerves below. I have not had feeling in my lower back on the right side for a few years and my right thigh has been totally numb for more than four years. Recently this has caused my right foot to fall asleep when I drive for long distances. The numb spots have also begun to enlarge. I tried to put off doing anything medical because I wanted to finish deputation first.  Also my doctors at the VA told me that any operation should be the last resort. The VA will not be doing the operation. I have decided to seek out someone in the private practice and use my own insurance. This has taken longer. I have had three doctors appointments postponed because the doctor was called in for emergency surgery. This should be resolved soon and since I am home in preparation for the birth of our next son I will be able to make time around the doctor’s schedule. I have talked to two people recently about this, one who had the operation and one who’s daughter had it. They are both doing well and were back to work in less than one month. I am looking at disc replacement. I ask you to pray because only disc replacement for the lower back has been approved. The disc for the neck replacement is still going through trial seeking approval by the FDA. It is time that I have this taken care of. Regardless of all of these issues, my wife and I have full intentions of going to Malawi. 3)I would now like to cover a matter that only my church and a small group know about. While on deputation the Lord put me in touch with a man that has a printing ministry. His name is Brother Villanti and he owns Inkhorn Publications, a Christian printing company. He has offered to put my testimony in print for a witnessing tool with jail & prison ministries. I already had the testimony written, but I revised it. I expounded on how the Lord had worked in my life to end up with a booklet around 28,000 words and about 66 pages long. They are currently adding some old pictures I scrounged up including a mug shot from one of my arrest. I would ask for prayer concerning this project because it has had several set backs already including the death of Brother Villanti’s brother. This was unexpected and has been a great tragedy in this man’s life. This has also put an excessive amount of pressure on the man that is mostly working on the project. His name is Brother Tyler. I would also like to ask that you pray for this situation. I have just recently finished my Master’s degree with Foundation Ministries. I would also like you to pray that my  Thesis might be something that would be of interest for the publishing company as well. I have turned it over to them for review. I will be starting my Doctorate this October as well. Lynnette is finishing up her second year and plans on continuing even with the baby coming so I would like prayer for her also. For those of you that might think that my education is not necessary I would like to explain. Pastor Lagoe and I talked about my ministry education long before I became a missionary. I plan on getting my first Doctorate with Dr. Tabb and then a second doctorate through another school that offers specialty courses centered on missions. I have been given permission by Dr. Tabb to use any of Foundation Ministry’s material that I have completed in part or in whole for translation purposes on the field. I plan on starting a church in Malawi as well as eventually a college level Bible institute and printing our own material. My education is important for the ministry God has given me. I am also telling you this so you don’t think that I sit around waiting for the next meeting while you support us. We work with or without meetings. I just wrote another newsletter for 2nd Chance Christian Newsletter. This will be mailed out to inmates within the next month. Some of whom are children of supporting churches’ family members. In fact I am off to visit one of our supporter’s sons in prison this morning. We may not be in Malawi, but we are still fighting in the Lord’s army. You may not agree with me on everything doctrinally but you can’t argue with my testimony concerning how the Lord worked in my life. 4)We have looked at getting further training from a medical training facility in Colorado. I have searched out sections in the Northern part of Malawi and have determined that it will be necessary for me to know how to do everything from deliver babies, give stitches and diagnose illnesses much better than I can right now. I have found a place that will qualify me to a level of first responder and beyond. They have trained over 200 missionaries and are qualified to exceed most ranger qualifications including a training center in Europe for High Altitude search and rescue training for guides. I won’t need all the high altitude training but I will be interested in their wilderness medical classes including their Expedition Medic training which uses cadavers in their final course for hands on training so please pray for that. I have been checking on a location in Malawi that is around 7 hours from the nearest major city and the road is said to be an experience even in the dry season. Neither my wife nor I know what to do for a simple spider bite. 5)The final topic for discussion will be our shipping container and our departure to the field. I recently wrote that I was considering going in with a couple of other missionaries with a shipping container. Since I don’t have the support level necessary for the field this is not probable. If I can’t raise the support very soon we won’t be able to ship our stuff over there. If we can’t raise the support for the shipping container after we get our support we will have to go anyway and buy what we need on the field when we can. I believe we can get to the field next spring if God opens the doors for support, but we won’t be able to take everything on a container without the funds necessary. We will have to sell the truck we bought for Malawi and buy another when we get there. It will also mean that I won’t be able to take any ministry-related material like printers, etc. Neither will I be able to take any supplies for my wife and children except what we can pack. Nothing has come in for the shipping container even though some churches had promised support and special offerings for the project. I am not complaining folks but we need the money ahead of time. People expect to get paid ahead of time. I can’t order a container without the funds to pay for it. I don’t want to offend any one but we could be on the field already if everyone followed through with what they promised. Just to give you an example. We have lost money several times this year because the love offerings don’t cover the gas to get to the next meeting. We have driven to several churches where we left without enough to fill up the tank once. Do you want to know why missionaries quit? Just think about it. We have been blessed on our deputation trail but several of our colleagues have had to come off the road because the husband had to go back to work a secular job to feed his family. We need the support to continue to do the Lord’s work. When a church doesn’t pay it’s support on time, they drop missionaries which puts an unfair burden on the churches that have been faithful. I have calculated it out to approximately $2,000-$3,000 a month on deputation if nothing goes wrong like the vehicle breaking down or someone has to go to the hospital. I will be taking our truck in for the third time this year for brakes. I just had a rim and tire replaced this month. I will also have an alignment done because it pulls to the right and is wearing the right front tires. We had seven meetings scheduled for the month of August. Two were cancelled because of scheduling problems at no fault of our own. Of the five meetings we made the vehicle repairs will put us in the hole about $600.00 beyond the love offerings. This does not take into consideration our monthly support just the love offerings from those five churches. Last December we went $1,000 in the hole including our monthly support at that time. It was a rare but bad month financially. I had to borrow money twice from our church last year. Once to get to our next church and once to get back home. Our worst month was when we went across AZ, NV, TX, and then over to FL. We turned in receipts to our church in excess of $4,000. It paid off in the long run because I believe we picked up support from 9 churches which all followed through. If any of you remember we had days where we put on 1,000 miles or more to get to our next meeting. My point is this. We have not quit. Look, when a church tells us they will support us we believe them. We also make plans based on that promise. I look at it this way, we haven’t quit on you and we don’t expect our supporting churches to quit on us. I thought we were all serving the Lord anyway and quitting meant we were quitting on Him. We need your support, both financial and prayer. I understand things happen that are out of your control but that understanding should work both ways. If you have a problem please contact us. Let us know what is going on. If you have concerns let us know that as well. Just remember we are the same missionaries that the Lord laid on some of your hearts to support. We have not changed. Lynnette is due September 17th and has already experienced some labor pains. By the time you get this letter we may have our newest member of the family, Joshua Jesse Beha. Please keep us in prayer. Thank you. Yours in Christ, Mark & Lynnette Beha