"I can do all things through God who strengthens me"

Rick Hoyt
Rick was born in 1962 as a spastic quadriplegic, cerebral palsy, non-speaking person. The ability of his mind and person have always been strong, and his family have been hearty supporters of his quest for independence and inclusion in community activities, sports, school and the workplace. Rick is a graduate of Boston University.

Dick Hoyt
Dick has recently retired as a lieutenant colonel in the air nation guard. He has served his country for over thirty-five years. Dick is a friend of the "Presidents Council on Fitness".




"I can do all things through God who strengthens me."

Phillipians 4:13

Do we really believe what the Bible says?

My Thank You Letter to Supporters

I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
John 15:16 ESV


July, 2008






I hope you are doing well. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your support and prayers and thoughts for me, and my teammates and the people of Nigeria who we served in April. I believe the time and energy that you gave from your heart to us was exactly what God wanted for work in Nigeria—thank you from the bottom of my heart! The trip could not have been more successful and fulfilling! I believe God answered prayers in many powerful and clear ways, which I included later. I also wanted to write about the trip, some of the living experiences, the people, and how we relied on God. I know God could just snap His fingers and make all the problems of the world go away instantly, but He does not work that way, He wants to work through you and me to serve the world's needs.




So first of all the trip was amazing to me. It truly culture shocked me to be outside of the American comforts. The food was hard to eat, and I could not eat much during the beginning of the trip, and lost a lot of weight. We ate a lot of fish head spaghetti and the toughest chicken ever. I mostly ate fruit and a ton of water and juice so I would not dehydrate from the heat! We did not know what the food was some of the time. Thank fully, Becky, was a great server to us, she made us egg sandwiches, corn beef sandwiches, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which tasted like we were home again. Toward the end of the trip I figured out where I could buy the old fashioned glass bottled Coke and Pringles Potato Chips, so I ended up putting my weight back on again in the last few days before returning home!

I slept okay, but it was very hot at night and the power was not reliable, so my fan would not always be cooling me. I slept in a mosquito net at night, but I would still wake up with mosquito and bed-bug bites. Later on in the trip, I found that sleeping with Bug Repellent sprayed on me worked very well. So after a long day and a cold shower I would spray myself down with Off Mosquito Repellent for bed time. I also sprayed the bed, bed net, and the underneath of the doors. All the bugs and spiders in Africa were like nothing I've ever seen in the US!

Everybody in Nigeria seemed to be very pleased to see white people. We went to a non-tourist place in Nigeria, a city called Owerri, which is considered eastern Nigeria and is in the Ibo speaking states. When we walked through the streets and marketplaces, the locals would greet us and seemed very happy to see us. They would call to us from far away, “Onocha,” which is Ibo for “white man,” and they seemed so grateful when we would give them attention or wave to them. In fact some of the times in the marketplaces, there were so many crowds of people yelling “onocha” that I was getting a little uncomfortable of having so much attention.

People were very easy to talk to. If people asked me why I was in Owerri, I would tell them that I was a missionary, and they would instantly be interested, and then it would be very easy to talk about God. The people there were so open about God, it was a very Christian area, so I believe that people were blessed, as much as I was, to have conversations and interactions with them. I'm not the type of hardcore evangelist that convicts people of their sins, asks them to make a decision on the spot to convert to Christianity, and then have them pray the “prayer of salvation.” I believe God does the work in the heart and I don't do anything. Maybe I need to work on that, but, I try and live like God is real, and that a relationship with God is pure joy, and my joy in God is an overflow into the people I interact with. So, I brought your love and prayers and support to the people of Nigeria, and I pray that the connections I made will have eternal benefits, and I thank you again for your prayers and support!

The whole time was not all pleasurable. There were a few times when I was fearful of how outcomes would turn out. For example when a military personal fired off his AK-47 automatic weapon in a traffic jam to get cars moving; or when we were kicked out of a Muslim market during prayer to Mecca; or when oncoming motorcycles would swerve out of our way at top speeds on the highways. Another uncomfortable time was when Kerry was exchanging money at a Bank, Rylan and me waited outside to watch his camera. It was too hot to sit in the car so we got out and sat on the bumper of the car. It was typical for all the banks to have security guards with AK-47's in Owerri. And after a few moments of enjoying the African sun a nicely dressed banker and the security guard approached us and explained to us that it is not good for their business for us to be in the open. We were escorted inside the front door of the bank to wait. Kerry finally finished up and was surprised to see that we abandoned his camera at the car. I explained that the nice man with an AK-47 relieved us of our duties!

I learned a lot about God on this trip. I seen God answer prayers in mighty ways, powerfully and clearly. I have a new respect for prayer and how important it is. First and foremost the more we pray the more we develop a relationship with God—How important and joyful it is to know God! And because you stepped out in faith and supported me and my team, my faith has been built up and you have encouraged me. I truly have no doubts that God is extremely sovereign and answers prayers. I thank you deeply for supporting my small service to Owerri, God and you has blessed me deeply.

Sincerely,

Don Tjader




Answered Prayer List


When we first flew into Lagos Airport, and it was the first hour we were in Nigeria, Ivy gave a few of us some words of wisdom. She explained that mission work is a battlefield and that we have to be praying and seeking God's power at all times, otherwise Satan is going to tear us up. Those words of wisdom hit me so very powerfully, and I knew from that moment on that I was going to have to get more serious in my faith from here on out! I will share a few of those times and I pray that they will bless you, as you have blessed me by praying for me.


The Largest Traffic Jam I Ever Saw

So it was the first night we arrived in Nigeria, and we drove from Port Harcourt Airport to Owerri city, which is the city we worked and stayed in the most. Our team was split into two and we were chauffeured in two vans. The people in my van were: Ivy, Martha, Delores, Desi, Kerry, Perry's son Ryan, and Ivy's friend, three Nigerian's in the front seat, and myself. The rest of our team was in another van, whom also had an accident, but here is the story of the accident I was in.

We finally got to Owerri after about 20 hours of travel, and there was the largest traffic jam I ever saw, bumper to bumper. We were so close to home, and yet so far just inching along in traffic. There was a policeman in the streets trying to move traffic with an AK-47. He was only a lane away from our van, our windows were open, and he popped off a shot into the sky with his assault rifle to get traffic moving. The sound was so loud we all jumped out of our socks! Minutes later, somebody tried to switch lanes by trying to cut in front of us. Our driver was faster, and our cars collided, he had hit our front right fender. I saw the driver, who hit us, roll down his window and pound the side of our van in anger as hard as he could with the palm of his hand. Some of us ducked down not knowing where or what the pounding was coming from. He proceeded to get out of his vehicle and come around to the front of the vehicles. Our driver got out of the van and left us there, and the two drivers proceeded to yell at each other over the accident. Other locals came out of the woodwork, which was probably good because I saw them holding the two driver's back from possibly fighting each other. Our group in the car became scared and instantly started praying over the situation for safety. I was scared over the lack of control over the situation, considering traffic was not moving at all, now that we have stopped, and also that I am in another continent very far away from home, and also that we had become the spotlight of all the locals on the sidewalks. But, I realized that all my family, friends and even coworkers at home were bathing me with prayers. I also realized that God is sovereign over life and death and that I have nothing to fear in this world. Instantly, peace came over me and my faith increased greatly! Thank you for praying for me, it has impacted me tremendously. Finally the driver's ran out of steam yelling at each other over the accident, our driver came back and we were on our way again, and finally arrived at the retreat center where we slept. Our van had a nice ding in the fender too.



1,000's of Books

One of the longest on going prayers that Rylan, my roommate, and me, for about 4 months had prayed everyday for, and many many others prayed for, is the release of the library books from port. I even put it in my initial support letter to everybody to pray for the release of the books, preceding our trip. I was a little discouraged the first day of work, thinking that we would be arriving at an empty library with no library books. But to my surprise, there were already thousands of books waiting! They were from other donors: local and the U.S., and also included Fyne's personal books. I was amazed and saw it as God answering prayer in a mysterious way. I also knew from my aunt Sue, whom has library experience, before hand that even if the books were there, there would be no way for us to database 12,000+ books in a week. So the couple thousand already there were perfect for us to test the system and make sure the new system was left in capable hands. I was amazed and filled with joy over the matter. Just recently, in May 08, were the books finally released and arrived at the library, which was after we came home from Africa.



The Luck of St. Augustine or God's Divine Providence?

So, our leader, Perry, gives us a goal to bar code 30 library books early on in the trip. There were many hurdles to overcome of system crash here, hardware fried there, power outages, etc, etc, etc. A couple of days go by, and there is seemingly nothing library-ish getting done. We are not able to even get a computer running in the library, nor our fancy laptops running successfully with the library software . It was the Weds into the first week, the week is half over, and that's all we were planning to be at the library was a week, so I felt we were losing time before moving on to the orphanage the second week. I felt that we are still at square one still. I felt like precious time was being lost and our mission was failing, because we can't even setup the library software.

I broke away and found some alone time in a room that is planned to be the future internet cafe. I cried out to God in prayer for what his plans are for us, asking what He has us there for and to give answers. After about an hour or two I felt exhausted from prayer and hoped God would speak to me through Scripture. I realized that the Seminary (St. Augustine's Advanced Institute of Christian Studies) was named after the African church father from the 4th century AD, whom I recently read his book called, The Confessions. One of the stories Augustine tells is that he was having an issue that he needed answered by God, and by providence his Bible fell open to the perfect verse that had his answer to prayer. So, I thought to myself, what do I have to lose? I might as well have a go at flinging the Bible open to the “miracle” verse. And I never do this by the way—actually, maybe I have when I was a kid, but it did not work in the past! Rylan's Bible happened to be in the room with me, so I flung open his Bible, and quickly threw my index finger on a verse in the middle of the page, and I landed on Nehemiah 7:5, which states:

“Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles and the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogy.”

The verse isn't perfect, but it spoke volumes to me! The verse struck me that we were going about it all wrong, or at least I was. Instead of trying to build the library ourself, we needed to be serving the people, to be able to empower the people to build this library themselves. Of course the verse is not exactly perfect in saying that, but my whole frame of mind shifted and I had a “duh” moment. And this was told to me in the past by my Aunt Sue, whom was a librarian, so sometimes it takes me awhile! The last day I saw Duane building the how-to manual for Nelly the librarian, on how to scan books and barcode them, and I realized that my Augustinian moment had been fulfilled! And I marveled at the glory of God!





Nelly the Librarian

It took us the first week to setup stable electricity in the room, with lights, fans, a library computer and printer. We also had a 40 yard network cable to pipe the college's network and Internet from the third floor server room, down to the first floor library. I had my Augustinian moment, somewhere in the mix of that. Finally we got to the point where we were ready to start scanning the books into the computer. None of us were librarians so I thought it would be really cool to categorize the books into the Library of Congress system. I considered that the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world--maybe they have it all figured out? Well, God sent the school's librarian, Nelly, I had no idea she was coming! Nelly struck down my “cool” idea of the library being categorized under the Library of Congress. She said no way, the Library of Congress system is for larger libraries, and she explained that the Dewey Decimal System is the best category system for the books. I was amazed at God's perfect timing of Nelly's arrival and my faith was increased again!



God is the God of the Floodgates of Heaven

So last year, back around September 2007, our church did a 10,000 book drive, and we ended up acquiring about 12,000+ books. They were shipped out across the Atlantic but, were stuck in Port Harcourt, Nigeria for about 5 months! Also what was packed with the books were the book shelves. Pretty much we arrived in Nigeria to build a library, but the library books and shelves were not available to us the whole trip. Our fearless leader, Perry, kept going down to Port Harcourt to try and get the library books released almost every single day during our trip. One of the many requirements the Port Authority needed to do before they could release the books was do an inspection of the crate. It was raining that day and they refused to do an inspection and turned Perry and Duane away.. The only thing Duane and Perry knew to do was to bow their heads in prayer in the public. Duane had the faith to throw his rain coat away from himself and said, “I will not be needing this.” And moments later the rain stopped! So they went back to the Crate Inspector and told him the rain had stopped. This inspector at the port happened to be Muslim, and he was surprised at the changed weather and responded, “you must be men of God!” And they commenced to do the inspection of the crate. This story has been cherished, and shared many times, and is sweet to us among our whole group and has blessed us tremendously. Every time we gather together again as a group for post-mission trip gatherings we seem to always marvel at God stopping the rain that day. I wonder how much people recognized that God revealed Himself and were changed. As you can see in the picture below, answered prayer in action, as the sky is becoming clear and God closes the floodgates of heaven.





These are just a few of the answered prayers that I've seen and heard from the others. There were many more prayers answered corporately and individually. The turn of events that came to pass in Nigeria just seems way to providential then to be waved away as coincidence. That's how I love to live my life! God's will for us--what a wild adventure--He takes us on a wild journey when we rely on God's will for our lives! Thank you for your prayers and thoughts for me, I will never forget it!


For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:11 ESV