How God Has Answered Our Prayers  

Answered Prayer - July  2010

Past Weeks  

• Praise the Lord that we have had twenty one people who went on GET Gobal short term trips this summer.  One trip to Papua New Guinea just left the USA.   
• Praise the Lord that our son got engaged to Suzanne Morton, a fellow missionary teacher.  They plan to be married July 17. 
• Praise the Lord that we are were able to help host the orientation program for our first 5 Global Service Program members.
• Praise the Lord for my mother's good health.   She is 89 years old and still able to live on her own.
•  Praise the Lord of 139 people who became missionaries with Wycliffe in so far in fiscal year 2010.
• Praise the Lord for continued open doors for building partnerships with military Christian agencies which we believe will help hundreds of military people join Wycliffe.

Answered Prayer - August 2009

 Past Weeks  

• Praise that this 'Answered Prayer' web page that hasn't worked for some time is FINALLY up and running again! 
• Praise for safety on our trip to PNG.   Although there were safety concerns, the Lord gave us safety in the air and on the ground.  
• Praise for good National Recruitment Ministries meetings in California the middle of August.   We reviewed Wycliffe's doctrinal statement that teaches Biblical inerracy and discussed Dr. James Boice's book, "Does Inerracy Matter?" with our team.   It was good to look at this important doctrine and see its importance in our lives and the lives of people we want to recruit to our work.  
• We praise the Lord for sending us several furloughing Wycliffe members who are helping us with recruitment this year.   
• We praise the Lord for an opportunity this fall to speak in one of our supporting churches (Grace Christian Reformed Church, Kalamazoo, MI).        

Answered Prayer - July 2007

Past Weeks

Praise the Lord that our Get Global trips to Burkina Faso and Peru went well with no problems.   Praise the Lord for a large number of youth that went on each trip.   Praise the Lord that several participants have expressed an interest in doing Bible translaiton work.

We praise the Lord that this spring we had over 700 people attend our Explore Wycliffe programs around the country.  

Praise the Lord that our partnership development trip to Michigan and Iowa went well.   We were able to attend the wedding of our nephew, visit Chuck's mother and both our families.   We praise the Lord that a new church (Grace Refomed Church in Omaha, NE) has decided to support us!  (http://www.gracereformed.net/)

We praise the Lord for good visits with Chuck's recruitment teams in Pennsylvania and California.   We praise the Lord for safe travel and for the visit we had with Marc Fey at Focus On The Family in Colorado Springs, CA about The Truth Project.  

We praise the Lord that the first of what we hope of many young people from Puerto Rico joined Wycliffe.   Maria is now at Wycliffe's Training Camp in Orlando, FL and will soon be working for Wycliffe in our Wycliffe America's office in Costa Rica.   We praise the Lord for a good grand opening of the new Puerto Rico office.   There were many pastors and community leaders at the opening.   We praise the Lord that the Puerto Rico team continues to grow with now 17 volunteer workers.  We praise the Lord for safe travel there and back.     

We praise the Lord that God has supplied our recruitment team with new workers.   We praise the Lord that Alan & Holly Wymore are beginning recruitment work in Portland, Oregon, Alec Millen is beginning recruitment work in Virginia, Lee & Karen wood are beginning recruitment work in San Antonio, TX, Trevor & Samanatha Deck are beginning recruitment work in San Diego, CA and for other administrative staff have also come on board.

We praise the Lord that so far this year we have had 144 new members join Wycliffe.   That is up from 126 new members at this same time last year.   The percentage of those who start the application and move to membership has grown from 62% in 2004 to 85% this year!  The speed which people join Wycliffe has been cut in half in the past three years from four months to two months.

We praise the Lord that 429 people have taken the first step of moving toward memebrship with Wycliffe so far this year.   Of these 429 people, 43 have already become members and another 42 are in the application stage! 

Praie the Lord that new Bible translations teams are entering a new language every three days!!!   

Answered Prayer - December 2006

Past Weeks

Praise the Lord for 811 people who began investigating service with Wycliffe this past year!  We praise the Lord for the 188 who actually became members of Wycliffe as well.  

Praise the Lord for two women from Puerto Rico that recently applied to Wycliffe.   This is the beginning of what we hope are many more.  

Chuck had good meetings in Richmond, Virginia in late November with the EFMA mission agency.   This conference was for recruitment directors and personnel staff.  Chuck made some good contacts with other mission agencies and denominations which will likely result in greater partnership with the Church in North America.

Thank you for continued prayer for our health.   Chuck has lost over 20 lbs and he has had no reoccurances of his chest pain.   

Answered Prayer - June 2006

Past Weeks

Thank you for praying for Chuck.  Recently he was having chest pains and that took us to the hospital.  For two days he had all kinds of tests.  All the test indicated that his heart was fine and the pains were likely related to a muscular issue.  We praise the Lord for that it wasn't heart related.  Please pray for funds to cover the hospital costs! 

Thank you for praying for the work on the Church Task Force.  Great unity was experienced and a solid recommendation was achieved and presented to the president of Wycliffe.  

Thanks for praying for Barb while she planned the Get Global trip to Honduras.  The trip went well and several college students from Hope College who attended the trip expressed interst in joining Wycliffe.  

The meetings Chuck & Barb attended in Dallas to discuss how over 90 mission agencies can cooperate together to recruit 25 - 45 year old people through the Mission Next web site went well.  Various sub teams were created to work on various aspects of the web site development.  We hope the site will be up and running later this fall or in early spring 2007.      

Answered Prayer - January 2006

This Past Week

Thank you for praying for our trip to Peru.  The SIL conference went well and Bible translation work continues to make remarkable progress.  Most Bible translation work looks to be completed in the next 5 - 10 years.  There was a great sense of unity and purpose and a strong faith in God at what He is and will do.  Chuck's presentation was well received.   

We praise the Lord for a return to health.  Chuck got sick with a bacterial infection that took him to the ER room the night before we returned to the USA.   

Previous Praises

We praise the Lord for a good Thanksgiving and Christmas with our family.  Our entire family was together at Thanksgiving time along with my mother, sister Sue and her husband Bruce.  Isaac again came at Christmas time with frequent flyer miles Chuck had earned. 

We praise the Lord for good visits Chuck had with the Mobilization staff at the Wycliffe Northeast office in Lancaster, PA.  Chuck also had a good visit with a First Nation (American Indian) group in Oklahoma.  This group wants to promote missions among First Nations people. 

We praise the Lord for safety in travels this fall.  Chuck & Barb visited Mobilization staff at our Wycliffe Southwest office in California.  Chuck spoke and led several sessions at their quarterly staff retreat. 

Chuck is also praising the Lord for new staff joining Mobilization.  Several new recruiters have been added in Ohio, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.  More new recruiters are soon to start work in Atlanta, GA, Tampa, FL, New York City and at John Brown University.         

Answered Prayer - October  2005

Dear Family & Friends,

Our big answer to prayer is that our financial support continues to be good.  We are not at 100% support, but we haven't lost financial support either.  We praise the Lord for that because we know several Wycliffe members who have had to leave their assignments due to low support.  

We praise the Lord for progress in setting up a recruitment training for Wycliffe.  This has been a long term felt need for staff and recently a Wycliffe couple stepped forward to help us get the training started.  This training will help all Wycliffe recruiters become better able to assist people who are expressing interest in serving with Wycliffe.  

We praise the Lord that Jenny is doing well at Reformed Theological Seminary.  She hopes to teach women likely in some missionary setting and so this training is important for her to do that. 

Answered Prayer - May 28, 2005

Dear Family & Friends,

Just a note to let you know what has happened with our housing situation.

We praise the Lord that people have responded to our housing needs and we had enough to make the downpayment and cover the closing costs on our house!  God has provided us the opportunity now to move forward.

All concerns about the house were addressed and on May 19 we purchased the house!

If any more support money comes in now specific for this need it will be used for carpet that needs to be replaced in the house and paint for the inside of the house (which it needs in almost every room). General repairs are need throughout the house. If additional money came in we would even be able to replace the aging kitchen cabinets!

The house is everything we were looking for in a home. It has three bedrooms which will be idea for providing a room for Jenny and having a bedroom if any friends or family members come to visit. The house needs some TLC, but we hope that we can provide that. Maybe we could even get a few work groups to help us spruce up the house with needed painting and repairs this summer or early fall?

The house is near the church we are likely to attend (Covenant Presbyterian - http://www.cpconline.net/common/content.asp). We wanted to be near our church because we wanted to get involved in the life of the church. In our previous recruitment work with Wycliffe in Chicago we did so much traveling that it was very difficult to become involved with the church during the week. It is much more likely now. (We will continue to keep our membership at our sending church - Second CRC in Kalamazoo)

We also wanted a house with a big enough living room so we could host Bible studies in our home. This house has that large room, but many houses we looked at had very small living rooms! This house would even have a place for Barb's sewing table that I had made for her last Christmas!

We also wanted a home that was about half way between the Wycliffe office where we will be working and the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary where Jenny will be likely going to school to get her Master's degree in theology. This seminary is also where the church is presently located. This house is a little further away from the Wycliffe office than we originally wanted, but closer to the church and school, which is real good.

So, if anyone wants continue to want to support this house project of ours, please don't hesitate to write or call. We'd also be happy to know if anyone would be willing to help us cut our repair costs by helping us with by helping me do the house repairs. That's not one of my strong suits if you know me at all. We will provide free room and board while anyone is here and wants to help.

Thank you to everyone who has responded.

Chuck & Barb

1-888-876-1056

407-243-5114

Answered Prayer - April  2005

We again that you for praying for our work.  We are happy to report that our Pilot Project meetings in Orlando, FL in mid-January went well.  While early reports showed that we have not achieved all our pilot project goals, we are working well as a team and we discovered several areas that need to be worked on.  These areas are now being addressed.  Our Pilot Project is designed to find a better way to recruit more members to join Wycliffe and to help them do that quicker.   

Thank you for praying with us about decisions about our future assignment.  While our minds have been focused on returning to Papua New Guinea, the Lord opened up an opportunity for Chuck to take up a Vice President of Mobilization position in Orlando, FL with Wycliffe.  This position will make Chuck responsible for oversight of all the recruitment and church relations work that Wycliffe does in the USA.  We plan to leave for Orlando at the end of February.       

Answered Prayer - December 23, 2004

Thank you for praying for our National Mobilization meetings recently held in Orlando, FL at Wycliffe's USA headquarters.  We worked out the details of our future work by adopting a new purpose statement, "To accelerate the pace of Bible translation by recruiting 7000 new members by 2014".  This will be our mission over the next number of years. 

We thank the Lord for safe travel as Barb traveled to Dallas, TX to be with Josh & Maria and Ryan as they celebrated the birth of Kody Steven Mishler, born December 1, 2004 in Dallas, TX.  We praise the Lord for Frequent Flyer miles that help get Barb down to Dallas for $ 10 round trip.  We praise the Lord that Chuck was able to fly down to Dallas for a weekend visit for the same price.  Mother and baby are doing fine!

We praise the Lord that Chuck was able to have a root canal done on his tooth that had been causing a lot of pain.  We praise the Lord that a local church is helping cover a large portion of the bill.  The pain is not completely gone so Chuck may also need to have sinus surgery early this spring.

We praise the Lord that our pilot project is off to a good start.  So far, we have 27 people from our region in various stages of application with us.  That compares to 14 in the same period last year.       

Answered Prayer - November 16, 2004

Dear Friends and Family,

God is good!  We thank him for safe travel on our trip to Northwest Iowa.  We thank the Lord for over 50 students who have expressed an interest in Bible translation work as a result of our past six college visits.  We thank the Lord for two students at Grace University who have expressed an interest in doing their student teaching with Wycliffe in Papua New Guinea in the spring of 2006!   

We praise the Lord that Chuck's hernia surgery went well.  We thank the Lord that the recent CT test Chuck had on his stomach came back normal. 

We thank the Lord our pilot project is off and running and already we have three good quality members in application with Wycliffe.      

We thank the Lord for Isaac's safe return from travels in Greece and Turkey. 

Answered Prayer - October 29, 2004

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks for your continued prayers for our work with Wycliffe.  Chuck recently had hernia surgery and that surgery went very well.  Thank you for praying for him during that time. 

Thanks too for praying with our mobilization team as we attended two mission conferences early this month.  Chuck attended both Trinity International University and Moody Bible Institute's mission conferences.  Each conference produced several interested individuals that we are following up on.  Several of these people attended our Trans Scan course which we held on Saturday, October 23 here in West Chicago.      

Several weeks ago, we also participated for the fourth time in a Reformation Faire at a church in Crystal Lake, IL. The Fox Valley Christian Reformed Church has hosted this unique faire to help people see that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, not by works. Since Bible translation was such a critical part of the reformation, they have asked us to come each year to set up a display about the history of Bible translation and talk with visitors about our Bible translation work.

Answered Prayer - September 7, 2004

We wanted to report that both our recent pilot project meetings went very well. In fact, the meeting on August 27 went so well that we finished an hour early!  Now when have you been to a meeting that got done an hour early!

We believe the success of these meetings were an answer to prayer! We tried to make prayer a priority in the meetings and so we spent considerable time before the meetings in prayer, praying for each agenda item and asking God to lead our discussions. At one occasion, we were stuck on an issue and so we stopped and prayed. In almost an instance, a breakthrough came!

Thank you for praying with us.

Answered Prayer - August 24, 2004

Praise that Total It Up went well.  We had great weather and all 21 participants did a great job.  The group worked well together and were united from the first day, which hasn't always happened.. 

We had one person apply to Wycliffe after attending Total It Up and several more indicated an interest in joining Wycliffe.

We were able to pray and provide encouragement with several who had past discouragements, disappointments or persisting sin.  Pray that God will prvide complete victory in these situations.       

Answered Prayer - August 7, 2004

Praise that our meetings for the pilot project we've been asked to be a part of went really well. We developed a project mission statement and now have some short and long term goals. Our project is known as the Recruitment Acceleration Project (RAP).  Our pilot project is designed to accelerate the numbers of people joining Wycliffe, speed up the application process and have the application process go even better than what it currently does.

Answered Prayer - August 7, 2004

Praise that our meetings for the pilot project we've been asked to be a part of went really well. We developed a project mission statement and now have some short and long term goals. Our project is known as the Recruitment Acceleration Project (RAP).  Our pilot project is designed to accelerate the numbers of people joining Wycliffe, speed up the application process and have the application process go even better than what it currently does.

Praise for a large increase in new people applying and joining Wycliffe!  Rejoice!  More people are joining Wycliffe USA. At any given time up to 225 people are beginning to take steps toward Wycliffe membership, with 80 to 90 more in the application process.   Praise that 80 people from the region we are reponsible for have started this process this fiscal year (since October 2003)!

Answered Prayer - June 16, 2004

We praise the Lord for safety in travel to Orlando for Chuck as he attended Mobilization meetings in early June.  We praise the Lord that some long standing isses are being addressed.  

We praise the Lord for Isaac and Jenny's safe return from Haiti and South Africa!  We praise the Lord that He kept them safe through their times in these countries. 

We praise the Lord for the new child that our daughter Maria is carrying.  

Just this week Chuck got an email from a young man who had attended our Trans Scan course two years ago. Chuck had heard very little from in, although on several occasions they emailed each other. Recently Chuck found out this young man was studying to become involved in Bible translation at our SIL school in North Dakota. Chuck wrote him a note to ask how he came to decide to attend this SIL school. Here is a shortened version of his reply:

“After I attended Trans Scan I had no desire, no intention whatsoever, to attend Moody. I had my sights set on the University of Illinois and I did not anticipate anything changing my mind in that matter, even all the letters you sent me encouraging me to go to Moody if I wanted to go into Bible translation. To tell the truth, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go into Bible translation. When I started at U of I, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed everyone that I met, and I enjoyed all my classes (for the most part). I was involved my first year in Campus Crusade and a Bible study. Things seemed to be all right.

However, during my second year there, I stopped going to church, Campus Crusade, and Bible study. I stopped hanging around any of my Christian friends and I stopped reading my Bible all together really. There wasn't really anything about me that would stand out saying "This guy's a Christian."

For one reason or another, I had saved all your letters and everything from Trans Scan and for some strange reason I reread them. This really got me thinking on just where I was going in life. It is not as if your letters were particularly spiritual or anything but God used them more than they could be used by themselves. So, I started re-evaluating my whole life and realized that I really shouldn't be at U of I. While I really loved going there, I really loved everyone in my dorm, I knew that I had to leave.

So I applied to Moody, I have been there for a year and a half, I am continuing next year, and I am liking it more and more. And that is pretty much the whole story. I haven't ever really told it before. Huh.

I am now at SIL because I am trying to make up for lost time from transferring and losing most of my credits. I am also keenly interested at this point into going into language survey.

We believe that is an answer to your fervent prayers! This did not happen because of us. You can see that. My emails to him were mostly about the programs and how best to prepare himself for service in missions. However, God used this and caused a wonderful thing to happen. We give God praise for using us and this work to help bring His glory to the nations.

Answered Prayer - May 15, 2004

Total It Up has just concluded.  We praise the Lord for 16 participants. 

Already we have had one participant turn in their Preliminary Application with Wycliffe.  Several others said they were confirmed in their calling toward Bible translation.  One participant shared that victory was won in learning to trust God for the future.  Some were greatly encouraged by the Christian fellowship while others have already taken steps toward sending others out as missionaries.  Several are taking steps toward missions, but with other mission agencies.  Praise God for new workers entering the harvest fields!

During the week, we felt God's presence with us and He gave us strength to make it through the week.  No one was injured and no one got really sick (although our Hindi meal did burn a few stomachs).  Praise God that everyone made it through the week and all participants worked hard, participated very well and learned a lot. 

All the evaluations were positive and most said they are considering service with Wycliffe.  

Thanks for praying for this week!

Your Missionaries,

Chuck & Barb Micheals  

Answered Prayer - May 3, 2004

Chuck & Barb had a week of mobilization meetings in Orlando, FL from April 26 - 30.  We praise the Lord that some difficult issues were discussed and methods of moving forward were agreed upon.  Praise the Lord for help we received in doing our mobilization work at these meetings.  It was good to get together with about 50 other mobilizers and hear what they are doing that works and how God is moving in our midst.  

Praise the Lord that although we took off from Orlando after the meetings in stormy weather and were delayed by an hour, we landed in Chicago safely.  We didn't get to our rented home in Chicago until 1 AM Saturday morning.

Praise the Lord that one of our supporting churches contacted us and pledged an increase in our financial support for this next year!  That extra gift per year is a big help since some of our older supporters have died recently!     

Answered Prayer - April 20, 2004 

On April 13 Chuck spent a day at Moody Bible Institute doing recruiting.  Praise the Lord that he made many good contacts.  So far, 10% of the student body at Moody is interested in Bible translation work of some kind and 5 have already applied to Wycliffe. 

On April 17 we had another Trans Scan (http://www.wycliffe.org/events/TransScan/home.htm) at our office.  Praise the Lord for the 16 participants who came out of 25 who signed up.  One young woman has expressed great interest in translation work and may be heading for our SIL training school this summer.    

On April 19 & 20 Chuck flew to Minnesota for two days of meetings with the Area Coordinator team (3 couples) there.  Praise the Lord for safety in travel and for the sense of unity with the team.  Praise the Lord that the agenda was worked through and general direction for the fall is planned.   

Thanks for your prayers!

Chuck Finishes National Mobilization Research Project! 

Thanks for praying with us these past two months while Chuck worked on the national mobilization research project.  He finished the report and turned it in to Wycliffe's VP office on Thursday, April 8, 2004

Isaac Is Back In Haiti and Teaching At The Mission School! 

Isaac is back in Haiti after spending a week and a half in Chicago after being evacuated from Haiti.  The school had a normal break at this time of year and Isaac left Haiti for a week (on Feb 21st) and traveled to the Dominican Republic (DR) for a vacation during the week of the unrest.  However, the situation in Haiti forced him to remain in the DR several extra days during which time the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) evacuated all of its missionaries. 

They all regrouped in the DR where Isaac was and stayed there for several days while they evaluated the situation.  Rather than continuing to wait in the DR Isaac's mission allowed him to travel to Chicago to wait with his family. 

We are happy to report that Isaac is back in Haiti now and things are returning to normal there.     

Trans Scans in Indiana on April 3 and in Chicago on March 20 Went Well

We had a great Trans Scan on April 3 at Huntington College.  We had 26 eager students.  Overe 80% of the participants said they ae considering srvice with Wycliffe!

Despite a smaller than normal turn out at the March 20 Trans Scan program (one day look at Bible translation work), things went very well.  We had a group from Urbana Ministries who are planning a trip to Africa who attended the morning part of Trans Scan.  They came to Trans Scan to learn about languages and how it is important that we reach people at a heart level.

That group left after lunch and headed out to our Jungle Jump Off facilities where they received cultural orientation to prepare them for their mission trip.   

This left a small group of 8 people after lunch for the rest of Trans Scan, but there were several very interested participants.  We are praying for a fruit of harvesters for missions from this group! 

Mission Meeting at Moody Bible Institute About Deaf Bible Translation Work Is Attended By Almost 90 Students

We had a very good turn out in mid March for a meeting we had with the Applied Linguistic students at Moody Bible Institute.  These 90 students are getting about 70% of the needed linguistic and Bible training to become Bible translators at Moody.

This meeting was hosted by Mr. Steve Clark, professor in Lingusitics at Moody, our Wycliffe regional office mobilization department (which we head up) and the head of SIL's deaf Bible translation work, Mr. Albert Bickford. 

The presentation was about Wycliffe's Bible translation work in deaf languages.  We discovered that there are over 160 deaf languages in the world today and only a very few have any Bible translation work started in them.  Most of the world's deaf people are illiterate and need Bible translations using line drawings, pictures or in sign writing. 

The students at Moody were challenged to considering doing Bible translation work in these deaf languages. Here are the deaf languages we know about:

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=1

Wheaton College Mission Conference - February 2004 (IL)

We recently got back from a mission conference at Wheaton College (IL).  We want to thank you again for praying for us as we attended this conference. 

As we did at Grace University the week before, we had an opportunity to meet many students and inform them of Wycliffe's work.  We again conducted a workshop on Bible translation work and interacted with many students at meal times.  There appears to be real interest in our work with students.   We had several good meetings with Wheaton College staff members and so we are praying that God will assist us as we continue to build relationships with the staff at Wheaton. 

We met about a dozen students who expressed an interest in our work.  In addition, we discovered that a prayer groups still exists on campus.  The meet weekly to pray for the needs of the Bibleless people of the world.  This group has been ongoing for more than three years! 

Dordt College Mission Conference - Nov 2003 (IA)

Read about our work at Dordt College Mission Conference work (Nov 2003 - IA) online at: http://www.dordt.edu/cgi-bin/news/get_news.pl?id=840!

Jenny in South Africa

We again heard from Jenny.  Classes continue to go well for her at the Bible school in South Africa.  She is finding classes to be a fair challenge due to different teaching styles.  However, she is enjoying all the classes and is doing fine.  Her roommate (one of the RBC college students that went to South Africa with her) already has returned to the USA, so Jenny is rooming by herself this semester.  Praise the Lord for safety and a good start to the semester.

Jenny doesn't have good internet access, so we don't get many emails from her, but phone calls from the USA only cost us 7 cents a minute as compared to 29 cents a minute when we call Isaac!