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This newsletter is also available as an MSWord document, 2005q1.doc.

Report from Richard & Linda Benskin with Joanna & Daniel

Dear friends,

I'm sure most of you know we completed our five year mission to Yendi, northern Ghana a few months ago. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for partnering with us and the Ghanaian Christians in the Lord's work in that place. We especially thank you for the prayers, notes of encouragement and many other forms of assistance that you provided. We urge you to continue to remember this work regularly before the Father in prayer. Please pray for the Ghanaian Christians in general and specifically for the Christian clinic in Yendi. We feel very good about the transition of the clinic to a fully Ghanaian-operated project. We know of course that anyone operating a project of that nature will face many challenges.

We hope this final newsletter can update you on how the work in Yendi is continuing as well as giving a bit of an update on the Benskin family.

Future of the Health Education Program

During our time in Ghana it became very clear that religion and health are inextricably linked, especially in the minds of people coming out of traditional religions. Every health problem is thought to originate from the spiritual world. People typically ask, "Who made me sick?", rather than, "What made me sick?" We provided holistic care at the clinic; we prayed with each patient in addition to giving them health advice and medicines. But, most Ghanaians do not go to medical people first when there is a health problem in their families; they go to their religious leaders. This is especially true when someone is suffering from a serious illness.

If the Christian church leaders are not equipped to give basic guidance in health matters as well as spiritual issues, new Christians in such cultures have a terrible dilemma. The suffering family may feel compelled to return to their former religious leaders for spells, talismans and other "help." The Primary Health Care Worker Program in Ghana has been training Christians in basic health care for years, but clearly more needs to be done worldwide. How can this happen when there are so few medically qualified teachers available?

We realized that many Americans who cannot go to the mission field long-term are able to go for a week to a month, and many of them are qualified to teach village health workers. Why not partner with the national church leaders to handle the logistics of setting up a class, bringing in Americans to teach using the handbook we have already printed? We presented this idea at IHCF's annual Medical Missions Seminar in Dallas in early January, and the response from potential teachers was extremely enthusiastic. Several of the participants who work in other countries were already searching for a way to teach health care to indigenous preaching students, and we are continuing to meet with people here in the USA who are excited about this vision. We pray that this method may be widely useful in strengthening the Church and breaking the spiritual bondage in which so many are trapped.

Goodbyes and Welcomes

The Church and the Clinic in Yendi worked together to give us a "Bye-bye" party, which really helped us through the bittersweet experience of leaving our close friends and co-workers and packing up to start our new life back in Texas. One of our goals when we went to Yendi was to develop a deep sense of Christian servanthood in the local Christians, and we were pleased that this was a common theme of the many flowery speeches at this party.

Our Support Team took very good care of us, before and after our arrival back in Austin. They organized work parties to repair our house (shown here) so that it would be ready for us to move into it, welcomed us joyously at the airport and held a giant potluck in our honor at church. Knowing that we were unable to bring most of our household goods back from Ghana, they also surprised us with a huge "housewarming" shower which included not only many useful gifts, but also loads of gift-cards. The transition to an America changed by five years of events and advances will not always be easy, but it is comforting to know that we enter it surrounded by a loving, understanding Christian family.

Decisions

These past few months have been filled with complicated decisions. Perhaps the most important one concerned Joanna and Daniel's education. In Yendi, other schools were really not an option, so we just continued to home-school our kids, shifting the supervision from Mom to Dad as time went on. But in Austin, Texas, there are a plethora of quality education choices. After much prayer and research, we felt the Lord was leading us to enroll both Joanna (12th grade) and Daniel (10th grade) in Brentwood Christian High school. It is the second-largest private school in our area, but it is still small enough to ease the transition from the isolation of Yendi. Brentwood enjoys an excellent reputation for academics; it also has an entirely Christian faculty and a very positive atmosphere. Both Joanna and Daniel were overwhelmed at first with meeting the expectations of seven different teachers in seven different classrooms, and coming into classes half-way through the year has not been easy, but at this point they are each doing well academically, and they are also making friends with both students and teachers. Praise the Lord! Joanna has chosen to attend Harding University in Searcy, AR in the fall.

The adult Benskins had to make decisions about employment. After prayerful consideration, we decided that Linda should not work full-time during this period of transition for our family. She is currently exploring a number of part-time options, including school nursing at Brentwood. Richard is starting his own business installing home upgrades and making innovative repairs. So far, this seems to be going well.

Our dog would not have lived long in Yendi without us, so we are happy we were able to bring him back to the USA too. Barkley is enjoying eating real dog food from Wal-Mart, having a yard with green grass instead of bare dirt, and going on three walks a day in cool weather in a park full of squirrels.

Please pray that:

• The Yendi Christians will continue to gain maturity and grace, and that through them lives will be touched and souls saved.
• Peace will prevail in Ghana and the surrounding countries.
• Our family will continue to make a smooth transition back into life in the USA.

Still In the Service of Our King,

The Benskin Family

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