Robert & Susan Martin

“…that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you
out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
1 Peter 2:9

What an amazing deliverance it is to be transferred from darkness into light! We were stumbling in our spiritual night of perpetual darkness and then,

“The true light that gives light to everyone
was coming into the world.”
John 1:9

And Jesus, the Son of God came and He shone and He conquered sin and with words of hope and deliverance He says,

“I am the Light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12

This year has been different in how we have been able to 'shine the light of the gospel' to those in prison. Access into the institutions came to a complete standstill in mid-March along with huge changes as we entered this marathon. Initially, we enjoyed a rest and got caught up on some projects. We walked more and we learned how to be ‘zoomers’ with church and friends. And we were also privileged to enjoy happy connected times with family despite the restrictions.

But then as weeks turned into months we grieved the loss of contact with the many inmates we had spent so much time. Letter writing and telephone conversations increased and became the only means of connecting with men. We were thankful for these but how we missed the personal contact.

One afternoon, I received a call from John* in Alberta.

I had first met him when he was in one of the Kingston institutions. He had received Christ as his personal Saviour and began seeking to understand the Bible and how to live out his faith in Jesus Christ and we had kept in contact even after he was transferred to the western region.

After arriving there, he had begun the process of compiling support letters for his future release and one of these letters had been accidentally delivered to another inmate who had the same last name as John’s. The information in that letter had caused other inmates to so resent him that he began receiving death threats from them.

He feared for his life and had called me that afternoon to share his situation. (It's inmate protocol not to go to the staff or management with a situation such as this as it can often bring them greater danger).

I prayed with him for his protection and we read Psalm 27 together:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation: Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?...
When the wicked come against me….they stumbled and fell.
Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear….
For in the time of trouble… He shall hide me: He shall set me high upon a rock.”

We continued to pray.

When he called me a few weeks later, he was excited to inform me that soon after our phone call the tough guys threatening his life were moved off his range due to some illegal activity they had been engaged in. John* saw this as an amazing answer to prayer of God’s protection over his life and we praised God together!

God is always in control. He always has a plan. Our lives are secure with him. And despite this year of disruption and change we can trust His plan because we trust Him! Our days, our lives, our future is securely in His hands.

Returning to the institutions has been slow. I am now able to visit weekly in 3 institutions and conduct a chapel service once a month. The numbers are limited (they need to sign up to come) but we are grateful to be able to have this personal contact again. We pray access will return for the other institutions as well.

Thank you for your prayers for us and for this ministry. We long for the gospel to be effective and for Christian inmates to remain encouraged in their walk of faith. Thank you for all your emails over this year and for your faithful financial gifts. It is a huge encouragement and we thank the Lord for you.

We send greetings for a Merry Christmas and trust your celebrations will be full of peaceful joy and gratefulness for our Saviour.

“…Arise, shine, for your Light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you…” Isaiah 60:1

Christmas Blessings,

Robert and Susan

Our mailing address is:
Prison Minstry, Kingston
PO Box 20051
Kingston, ON K7P 2T6

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Trevor & Hannah Martin

Reaching The World
"Hannah! Teach me how to disciple! I've got baby Christians in Nigeria and Dubai wanting to grow in their faith." - Anastasia

Anastasia is mentoring two youth across the world who are growing in their young faith. Hannah has helped her to figure out how to help these baby Christians to grow as disciples of Christ. Anastasia is also a Residence Advisor on campus this year helping 1st year students through the difficult transition of not only leaving home for the first time, but doing it during a pandemic. She is bringing the light and hope of Jesus to these students on campus.

One of Hannah's other disciples, Sarah, is learning how to love her roommates who are Indian international students. Hannah and Sarah have spent the semester learning about Hinduism and how to bring Jesus into a story that they can better understand. Sarah has grown in her love for God as she prays for and loves her roommates.

Nobody is too far from Jesus' love. Please pray for Sarah and Anastasia as well as the people they are trying to help take steps towards Jesus.

As for family life, we are doing the best that we can here, by the grace of God.  Hannah has dug back into the science side of her brain and has done different science experiments with Amelia. We have made musical instruments, sprouted pea plants, made water 'walk' from one jar to another, and blown up a balloon using baking soda and vinegar. We even got to play in the snow this week! We try to go for walks daily as a family and try to keep to a routine for all our sanity. We have decided to keep Amelia home from all her usual childcare, and balancing work and taking care of her is sometimes difficult. But it has been a joyous time of discovery and spending time together. 

SAD UPDATE
We are sad to let you know that unfortunately we had had a miscarriage a couple of weeks ago. Hannah did not feel well physically for almost a week, but is doing better now. Emotionally it has also been hard especially as it is our second miscarriage. In the midst of this, we know that our God is good, for us and in control.

FINANCIAL UPDATE
We wanted to bring you, our faithful supporters, a financial update:

This year, by God's grace and through many of you giving generously, we had a good financial year. This was highlighted by 3 new monthly partners joining our team and 3 partners increasing their monthly support. We had 5 partners who had to stop their giving. One pleasant surprise, was that we were blessed by 8 large one-time gifts that were outside of our regular expected recurring donations. These large one-time gifts have helped us to maintain a healthy financial position in the short-term.

In the long-term however, our monthly expenses have on average been exceeding our revenue in the past 2-3 years by $600-$800 per month. So, we are looking to raise about $700/month more in monthly support to reduce our average monthly deficit. If you OR someone you know could contribute towards this, please go to p2c.sh/thm, call 1-855-P2C-GIVE or get in touch with us!

Thank you to all of you who have partnered with our ministry financially, in prayer, or both, whether recently or faithfully for a long time.

Some links you might like
1) Christmas Greeting from our National Director
2) O Holy Night
3) Hannah's favourite Christmas dessert

God is doing amazing things through these students.
Please pray that God would
bring hope to a weary world
through these faithful students.

Thank you for all your support in helping students discover Jesus

To give financially to our ministry:
go to p2c.sh/tm or call 1-855-P2C-GIVE
Our mailing address is:
151 Cavelletti Court
Waterloo, Ontario N2K 3X3

Raul & Jessenia Espinoza

Dear Wallenstein family,

Greetings from hot, sunny Ecuador!

FINALLY we are able to greet you from Ecuador again. God was (as always) very good to us and brought us safely back to Guayaquil on October 5th. After 7 1/2 months in Canada for Jessie, and 6 for Raul, we were finally able to find plane tickets that didn’t get cancelled on us and made it home! It was a long, tiring 25-hour flight, but thankfully little Tiago travelled happily which made the trip that much easier for his parents. 

Which brings us to Tiago- he is now 7 months old and is a very contented, friendly little fellow. It was hard saying goodbye to family in Canada, but these past couple months have been full of quality time with Raul’s family.

We are very thankful for our time in Canada. Of course, we had hoped to spend more time seeing people and connecting with you, but unforeseen circumstances upset those plans. Thankfully, this pandemic was not unforeseen by God, and, as we are sure you have seen in your life, he has taken very good care of us through all the turbulence in the world.

So, what happens now? That’s a question we are asking ourselves too. Guayaquil was hit very hard by Covid 19 in the spring, but now things seem more relaxed. Church and youth group have resumed, but with social distancing measures in place. It’s a bit of a learning curve to learn how to live here with a baby as we are coming from the country side in Ontario where there were only a handful of Covid cases, to Guayaquil where many we know have been touched in some way by the virus.

Hope of Bastion School’s classes are online classes (mainly through Whatsapp) and it appears the school year will finish that way too. As most of our students do not have computers in their homes, Raul has not been teaching computer class. However, he is continuing with his role in school accounting and as school treasurer. Jessenia is still working in sponsorship, which also looks very different this year as she can’t work one-on-one with students the way she used to.

We want to say a BIG thank you for being part of God’s care for us. Your faithful support over the years, and especially during this one, is an encouragement and blessing to us. You teach us that we are not alone in the work we do down here, and each month you are proof of God’s provision for us. So THANK YOU very much!

Under his wings,

Raul, Jessenia and Tiago

Prayer requests:

• Wisdom as we want to have a spirit of hospitality, while at the same time maintaining social distancing.

• Wisdom for planning a socially distant Christmas party for the school and still get the students their presents from their sponsors. That they would feel special, loved and remembered during this difficult time.

• For our community’s health and safety

• For us as a couple to be a blessing to those around us

Bastion School Staff Meeting

Dinner with Raul’s family

Richard & Marina Haverkamp

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ at WBC,

I forgot to mention (in last week’s letter) that we are in contact with Lhin, and Chartwell, which has both assisted living and long term care facilities. We are on the list at Chartwell and I already have looked at several rooms that are available, but I'm not sure whether this is the right time to move. We ask your prayers for wisdom and God's guidance.

One more thing, I was in London yesterday (Oct 2), in the hospital to see my hip surgeon. He gave me the result of an ultrasound taken a while ago. There are two tendons that connect the muscles with the bone. One tendon is torn and the other is damaged too. He said that he could maybe operate and try to fix the tendons, but he couldn't promise complete success, so I said no thank you, no more surgery, three has been enough. So I'll walk the rest of my life with a cane and pain. Oh well, I know one of these days It will all be new, praise the Lord, yet a short while, and then......!

Yours, still in His service,

Richard and Marina.

Richard & Marina Haverkamp

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ at WBC,

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the One Who loved us and gave Himself for us. “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Lam.3:22-23. Amen and amen.

It is time to bring you up to date as to what is happening with us, but before I do that, we first of all want to thank you for your prayers and your continued financial support, which is really, really appreciated. Thank you for so faithfully standing with us. May the One we serve together truly bless and reward you, you are certainly laying up treasures in heaven.

I have good news for you, your help is helping me to get the Word of God out to Belgium again. At a church’s request in Belgium I made a message on Zoom and sent it there. It was used by several churches and also put on YouTube. Three more messages were sent, Ron Bauman helping to record them, and by now some 6000 times these messages have been listened to. I sent a fifth message a week ago and it has already been heard some 500 times, praise God. I am reaching more people now than if I were living in Belgium. Who would have ever thought that Richard would preach in Belgium again? Please pray for all the listeners, that their hearts may be touched and their lives changed. I get enthusiastic responses with the request, “Send us more.” However, to be honest, I find it difficult and tiring to preach to a camera without having people there. But it is satisfying to be able to do this in spite of our physical difficulties.

Marina is not doing very well, she is very weak and sleeps a lot, pray for her please. I had an ultrasound of my aorta aneurysm a few weeks ago. The next morning the doctor called me and said that it has increased to 5 cm, after staying at 4.5 cm the past two years. Once it gets to 5.5 cm, surgery will be required, so that will likely be some time next year. It is going to be difficult as Marina is not going to be able to look after me during the recovery period which is from 3 to 6 months or even one year. Please pray that the Lord will give us wisdom in knowing what to do and how to go from here.

However, in spite of our problems we continue to rejoice in the Lord, one day at a time.

I guess that’s all for now. Many thanks again in Jesus’ name for your help and encouragement.

God be with you and keep you until we meet at His feet.

Loving greetings.

Yours, still in His service,

Richard and Marina.