LHF - The Word at Work; Vol. 30 No. 6

LHFmissions.org

More ways to spread Joy to the World It is only by the Holy Spirit working through your gifts that the LHF mission can continue to translate and publish the good books of our Lutheran faith for churches around the world. This Christmas season, we ask that you prayerfully consider how you might be able to help LHF send books like A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories and Luther’s Small Catechism to new believers in places like Haiti, South Sudan, Cambodia and more.

There are several ways you can give:

• Send your personal mission offering to LHF using the enclosed reply envelope or go online to www.LHFmissions.org.

Every $5 prints another Lutheran book!

• Contact your investments advisor about setting up a donor advised fund (DAF). With a DAF, you can make gifts to the charities of your choice (such as LHF) during your lifetime, and when you pass away, your children can carry on your legacy of sharing the Good News in the languages of the world!

• Encourage your congregation to adopt an LHF mission project.

• If you’re 70½ years or older, you can receive tax benefits by giving up to $100,000 from your qualified IRA directly to

the LHF mission. Please consult with your plan IRA administrator/custodian along with your tax and/or legal advisors to determine how you can best achieve your current and future charitable goals.

• Direct your Thrivent Choice Dollars to LHF. • If you’re planning a stock gift to the LHF mission before the end of the year, LHF recommends that you do so by Dec. 15 to allow sufficient time for processing. Call (800)554-0723 with any questions you may have.

LUTHERAN HERITAGE FOUNDATION 51474 Romeo Plank Rd., Macomb, MI 48042 www.LHFmissions.org • (800)554-0723

LIVING a

God instructed Joseph to take care of his little family returning to Nazareth. Even today, the tasks God gives us For 15 years, Rev. Josué Dieudonne (whose last name means “God gives” in French) served as a faithful pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Haiti (ELCH, an LCMS partner church), never wanting or expecting to do anything different. But God had other plans for him.

“In December 2021, my oldest son, Sebastien, had to have open heart surgery in New York. That surgery brought a lot of complications, needing at least 4 procedures to fix problems,” Rev. Dieudonne recalled. After traveling back and forth to Haiti for several months, torn between his family and his parishioners, Rev. Dieudonne had to make a decision.

Rev. Dieudonne with his wife, Elise, and their children Sebastien, Sara and Arthur

NEW DOORS OPEN “I saw that with my family and our situation, especially my son, my presence was necessary,” he said. “I may not have wanted to be here, and instead to stay in Haiti serving our church. The people miss me. The church, at the national level, they need me. But I know God always works for us, and His plan is always the best.”

While his son has been receiving care at Children’s Hospital in Omaha, God opened doors for Rev. Dieudonne to study at Concordia University Nebraska (getting his master’s degree in education) and to do translation work for the Lutheran Heritage Foundation.

“For many years, a combination of difficult political circumstances there and a lack of connections to good translators have hampered LHF’s work in Haiti,” explained Rev. Dr. Matthew Heise, LHF executive

Your Giving Tree can

Every day, LHF receives far more requests for the books of our Lutheran faith, translated into the languages of the people, than we can answer.

This Christmas season, there are a variety of projects still awaiting fundin to print.

Pass Along the Gift of the Gospel

In the true spirit of Christmas, bring your family or church family together in adopting an LHF mission project that will tell new believers about the Savior. Every $5 you, your church, or your family gathers provides a fami in another part of the world with a book about our Lutheran faith, written in languages they can read and understand.

To print out LHF paper ornaments for your Giving Tree

and

SERVING in EXILE

y, but the path God set for him was unexpected. It led first to Bethlehem, then to Egypt before finally sometimes take us down unexpected roads, as LHF’s Haitian translator, Rev. Josue Dieudonne, has found. director. “Now, God has led us to Josué - a very skilled translator and Lutheran pastor. Though his location has changed, Rev. Dieudonne is still serving his people in a very meaningful, long-lasting way.”

NATURAL DISASTERS AND GANG VIOLENCE God’s Word - written in languages the people can read and understand - has never been more needed in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Throughout its recorded history, Haiti has been bombarded with one natural disaster after another. Tropical storms, hurricanes and violent earthquakes – such as the 7.2 quake that struck Haiti in August 2021 – have decimated the island and its people over and over again.

But in recent years, lawless gangs exerting violence against the people for their own gain have plagued Haiti, including Rev. Dieudonne’s own congregation, Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Leogane.

“People cannot travel because they don’t know when gangs will come and take control of a community,” Rev. Dieudonne explained. “The gangs choose a chief commander somewhere, and they go to that community and gain control with their guns. They burn, they kill.

“In the middle of all of that, the Church is there, and church members are there.”

“Three weeks ago in Leogane, in the middle of the night, we had 20 people who came to our village because they were attacked by gangs in their community. When they came in with great difficulties, our church received them and helped them to find a way to take care of themselves,” Rev. Dieudonne shared. “The first thing we did was talk about what happened. Then we had to find a way to feed them for a few weeks. They had lost everything. They had to flee from the

gangs and couldn’t take anything! Some of them had their houses burned. We shared with them and showed God’s Word. We spent time sharing hope.”

Thanks to the generous gifts of LHF supporters and Rev. Dieudonne’s work, families in Haiti will soon have a new book that shares this hope of Christ with them: A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories, written in the Haitian-Creole language.

It’s a much-needed resource for the ELCH’s 84 congregations and 30 schools.

“As I was translating A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories, I found all the stories very, very relevant!” Rev. Dieudonne said.

“Of course, our families will have them for home devotions.

It’s also a book that our churches can use to teach Sunday school and [to teach religion] in our schools, where we have weekly devotions every Friday with all the students. All our schools are spreading Christian education, even if the students aren’t all Lutheran.”

IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, GOD IS THERE “Based on my experience, in the middle of these situations and difficult times, God is still there. He is still taking care of his people,” Rev. Dieudonne concluded. “That’s one of the reasons I am always eternally grateful for what’s happening in my life and the life of my family. That is the same message for all the families, all the children.

“We may have to face some difficulties in our lives, but we know that our God is alive! He will take care of us. We might be in a situation where we can’t stay in our community; we have to get to a safe place. But being connected to our God, you will never be disappointed. Never!”

To help proclaim this message to the people of Haiti and throughout the world, support LHF’s work at www.LHFmissions.org/donate.

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Giving Trees and Christmas Stockings

• Include LHF paper ornaments on your church’s Giving Tree, which you can print out from www.LHFmissions.org/ChristmasOrnaments (sample at right). Print the ornaments, hang on your Giving Tree for parishioners to pick up, and provide a collection site for donations.

• Organize a collection within your immediate or extended family, and include an LHF ornament on your family Christmas tree for every book you donate.

• For immediate family, include an LHF ornament or two in the children’s stockings, and on Christmas morning explain how they’re helping to tell other children about Jesus’ birth!

e or stockings, go to www.LHFmissions.org/ChristmasOrnaments

GUATEMALA

Let EARTH receive her

KING!

Your gifts make it possible for LHF to introduce new believers around the world to their Lord Jesus. Meet just a few of your brothers and sisters in Christ:

SOUTH SUDAN: My name is Otto Peter, and I’m a second-year seminarian at Concordia Lutheran Institute for Holy Ministry in Yambio. I was raised in the South Sudanese Acholi community. About three years ago, when I was living in a refugee camp, I was given my first Luther’s Small Catechism, which was translated into my mother tongue of Acholi.

That’s when I started to know Christ. I quickly organized a small group to study the Bible with other Sudanese refugees using the catechism. It didn’t remain a small group as more and more people showed an interest, so I asked the group if we might meet for Bible study and prayer the following week. Much to everyone’s delight, a sizable crowd assembled on Sunday under a mango tree.

During that period, I was called “abuna,” which translates to “father” or “priest,” because I was the only one leading services and giving sermons on Sundays in the absence of an ordained pastor. At some point, this made me wonder if God wanted me to be their pastor among the people He called together. The idea was confirmed two years later when three other young men from our area and I were offered the chance to receive pastoral education at the seminary in Yambio.

As my people are currently being repatriated to South Sudan from a refugee camp in northern Uganda, it is my hope and prayer that, upon my graduation in 2025, I will be able to serve as the congregation’s first pastor.

UKRAINE: “The war continues to rage,” writes Bishop Slavik Horpynchuk. “Russians launch missiles and kamikaze drones attack us daily, while our soldiers fight bravely to stop brutal Russian hordes that want to take away our freedom, land and lives.

“We continue to preach the Gospel and reach out to many people with the Bread of Life, the Gospel and also with humanitarian supplies, providing also good spiritual food in our books. This is a woman from Kharkiv Region. She is reading “Jesus Never Fails” in Ukrainian. The booklet gives her joy and peace. She knows that Jesus never fails. She has been under Russian occupation and survived. Now in a town liberated from the Russian invaders, she can enjoy her religious freedom and read God’s Word and hear it preached. The LHF books and all the materials are extremely helpful and necessary in all the areas of Ukraine. They are in a big demand also among soldiers.”

CAMBODIA: Sambith Chanary is 15 years old and in grade nine. She was born into a Buddhist family. Her father is a construction worker, and her mother is working as a garment factory worker. Although her parents are Buddhist, they don’t mind if their children are Christians. Blessedly, three of the four siblings have become believers in Jesus Christ (one of Sambith’s brothers usually goes with their father to earn money from construction labor). Sambith became a Christian about nine months ago.

“My eldest sister, who is already a Christian, frequently took me to the church and studied God’s Word through Khmer Luther’s Small Catechism with our young pastor almost every Saturday,” Sambith said. “Through this process, I felt convicted and told our pastor about my faith in Jesus Christ. Thank God that three of our siblings now are Christians, and thank you to LHF for this good book.”