Joash and Delia's Weblog

Change of Ministry!

joashndelia — Mon, 23 May 2011 04:01:15 +0000

I know it has been a little while since we have written but know that we have not forgotten your faithful partnership with us! While our family has been going through some adjustment and transition lately, we have been earnestly seeking the Lord’s direction and guidance as to what He has for us in the future.
As you may know, our last two years overseas were quite intense and hard on us as a family. We have seen our children struggling to adjust to growing older in a foreign country. As we have talked it over with our mission leadership and our churches, we see the Lord directing us to pause our full-time ministry overseas. We believe that our children will greatly benefit from putting down some roots and having a more consistent living environment over the next several years, especially as our older boys move into high school. This means we will resign as missionaries with New Tribes Mission, effective July 1. We can continue to receive support through the end of June, but that is the last month.
We are so grateful to God for his provision through you over the years! We have been privileged to partner with you in taking the gospel over seas and encouraging the body of Christ throughout the world. Our hearts are, on the one hand, sad as we finish with this chapter of our lives but, on the other hand, we are excited for what our Lord has in store for us next! We are thankful for the trials God has allowed us to pass through as they have drawn us closer to Him and revealed His grace more each day.
Our prayer for you is that you will continue to actively support overseas missions (especially in Africa:-) through your prayers and gifts. If you would like to continue to support the work in Mozambique, please do not hesitate to ask us as we have several colleagues and national pastors who are actively involved and could use more support.
Also, if you have any questions or would like to chat with us about all this we would love to hear from you! We wish we could visit with each one in person, but at this time we are unable. Lord willing, we will remain friends and be able to keep in touch and sit down to visit in the future. Perhaps we will partner once again should the Lord open the door for us to return to full time service one day.
Love IN Christ,
Joash and Delia Tiarks
joash.tiarks@gmail.com
217-778-0951

Winter Newsletter

joashndelia — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 04:46:48 +0000

Here is our latest Newsletter for all to enjoy!

Just click on the file below.

You may print it for easier reading!

Newsletterwinter2011#3

Alive and well!

joashndelia — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:19:14 +0000

Yep, it sure has been a while since we have written! We are so thankful for patient friends and family! We are alive and doing well in Gifford, Illinois. Last you heard from us we were in South Africa saying our goodbye’s before we came back to the States.
The Lord has once again, gone before us and prepared our way. Within a week we had our own place for a reasonable rent and just last night we were given a van for $3. It has a lot of miles on it, but we know that it will serve us well. Thank you so much for your prayers for us and continued support, we praise God for each and every one of you!
As far as our plans for this next 6 months, we are uncertain what God has for us, but we are back so that we can concentrate more on our relationships with our children. We do hope to make our rounds to our churches and visit many of you but it will most likely have to wait until the summer when the kids are out of school.
Enjoy these photos that we took Christmas Eve with Joash’s family

Coming Home!

joashndelia — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 20:18:52 +0000

Dearest Church Family and Friends

We pray this letter finds you well and resting in the grace and love of our great God and Savior! Thank you so much for you prayers and support and also recently your patience:-) We have written this letter several times over the past few weeks but things seem to keep coming up and it gets put off.

For the last several months we have been in South Africa, Potchefstroom to be exact. We have been working with a small church fellowship here and their counsel and support have been a real blessing and encouragement. Also, we have been able to take several trips over to visit our friends and colleagues in Mozambique. Recently, I was able to fly up to Nampula and participate in some team meetings and have an opportunity to share a bit of what we have learned and experienced these last two years in Maputo. We are very thankful the Lord granted us the privilege of getting to know and work along side our Mozambican brothers and sisters: they have taught us so much.

- meeting with the Team in Nampula
The Last Two Years

We have been serving here in Africa these last two years, specifically in the capital city, Maputo. Our focus has been to work with and learn from the National Church. While it has been a very challenging and intense time, we were very blessed and came to appreciate some of what God is doing in Africa! However, for our family, the time has come to make a change. We need some time as a family to work through what God has for us in the future and to provide and more stable, nurturing environment for our children. While we would prefer, according to our human wisdom, to remain with our dear Brothers and Sisters in Mozambique, but we have spoken with our mission leadership and it has been agreed that we will return to the States in December or January for at least six months. Since we need to take some time to refocus on our family health and relationship, we will not be planning to travel much at first as the kids will be in school. Ian has been in Illinois with my parents since July and is attending the local grade school. Lord willing, we will join him and all four of our kids will finish out the school year there.

God’s Faithfulness in Trials

These past few months have been difficult for us as we have faced the possibility of a change. We desire to be open to the Lord’s leading and will for us, even if it means serving Him somewhere else. Please do not misunderstand. We are not discouraged or down. God is good and He has been faithful to take care of us all along the way! You will remember how, when we were in the US during 2007-8, we needed houses in different places. He provided. When we were moving back to Mozambique in 2009 and we could not go ahead to choose a place for ourselves, God provided. In June of this year, when we needed to move out of our current, somewhat cramped living situation, God provided a three bedroom house with a yard here in South Africa literally two doors down from a dear church fellowship who welcomed us in like family and blessed in innumerable ways! We know He is GOOD and we can trust Him completely!

We have learned so much through these trials and challenges and praise God that He considered us worthy to go through them and so learn more of Him! We have experienced the love and grace of God in deeper ways we never would have without the ‘fires’ we have passed through. We are by no means relishing the pain but we can be thankful that God is taking us through this custom made obstacle course because in His perfect love He knows just what we need to grow! We look forward to what He has in store for us in the future and ask that you would continue to pray with us as we seek His will and direction for what is ahead.

Love IN Christ,
Joash and Delia

Finally, Some info:-)

joashndelia — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:52:14 +0000

Yes, we are still alive and kicking! Things have been going well for us here and apart from a little trouble with allergies we have all been healthy, praise the Lord! Actually, we are planning a trip, a return to Mozambique for a few days since our passport visas need to be renewed for South Africa and there are some meetings that I, Joash, will attend up in Nampula. We will drive over on Saturday(pray for safety and an enjoyable trip!) and then I fly up north for a few days. It seems the kids will have the chance to fit back into their old school while we are there and as we have been using the books and such they loaned us they should be pretty well on teh same page. Ok, we are a smidge behind but on a couple of lessons:-)

While I am up in Nampula, Delia will touch base with our friends there since we have not seen them for a couple months. Up in Nampula I will have the chance to share with our team much of the experience we have gained through our relationship with the Mozambican church, Igreja Fiel, while in Maputo this last year and a half. Please pray for our team as we seek the Lord’s direction and enabling to better partner with and exhort the believers here toward maturity! I know God has used our African friends to teach us so much and we pray He will bless and enrich them to go far beyond what we could do in taking to Good News of Christ Jesus to Africa:-)

Thank you so much for your partnership with us as we humbly walk with our Savior,

Love IN Christ,

Joash

Ladies Camp!

joashndelia — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:01:18 +0000

I, Delia, just came back from a most needed time away with some ladies from our church. We went to a Ladies Camp or Retreat which the main speaker was a really neat African man. Now you may wonder why I would even say that but you have to
remember the history of South Africa and the difficulties they have had going through the Apartheid era. It would never have been thought of that a group of mostly white women would have gone to a conference where the main speaker was an African. It was beautiful to see these women just open their hearts to what he had to say. He really spoke to all of our hearts, bringing truth to us in such a unique way. I praise the Lord for the time He allowed me.   We were actually planning on going back to Mozambique for the weekend as our church there was having a building inauguration but through differing problems we realized the Lord was just not wanting us to go back, and actually couldn’t go back, for now!   I see that now the reason the Lord allowed this to happen was that He had a divine appointment with me there on that little farm one hour from where we are currently staying.
The main topic was about “we are the house of the living God” from 2 Cor. 6:16. The different speakers brought home so many points about us allowing God to have full residence and rights to our entire house.   It was a neat picture for me as I am a very visual person and so to see how my soul is likened unto a house, really opened my eyes. Through the seminar I realized how many times I have my “front room” available to the Lord but those back rooms are messy so I prefer not to allow Him in. Our speaker reminded us how the Lord is light and so when we allow His word to shine on our hearts and even into those rooms where we have closed and locked the doors (maybe a tragic event, or a habit, etc) that when we allow the Lord into those areas, He is actually the one that does
the cleaning in those rooms.   In other words, He can do the healing and teaching or whatever it is to make those rooms livable again!!!
We were also challenged about what type of house are we; a beautiful house on the outside that everyone is impressed by, but the inside is in shambles perhaps. As we know what matters is how the Lord sees us and He doesn’t look to the outside but at the heart.   They talked about the windows of our house, saying that the Lord comes through the door (Revelations 3:20), but the evil one comes as a thief through the windows.   They asked us what windows have we left open for the evil one to come in and steal. This was very challenging for me and had such a wonderful time meditating on what all this means to me in my life, how I’m surrendering my whole heart and life to the Lord, not just those sections of my life that I deem safe for entry!

We continue to ask for prayer as we continue to seek the Lord for our lives and how we can minister to our family and to those around us! We also have some big decisions to make over the next few weeks so pray for the Lord’s wisdom and direction as well! Psalm 25:12

I unfortunately didn’t take any video of the sessions but I did get to take a video
of some of our singing. The video is of the 3 daughters of the main speaker.
They were singing in Tswana, one of the local languages.

Recent Unrest in Mozambique!!!

joashndelia — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 10:09:15 +0000

We have seen several disturbing headlines in the news lately concerning riots and unrest in Mozambique. Several people have been killed and many shops were looted and destroyed. This comes as a result of increased prices, especially for the very basic ingredients or necessities of life; water, fuel, bread, etc. It seems the hope is to force the govenrment to do something about lowering the prices again.

Since we are here in South Africa we are not near the trouble at this time. Thus far none of our friends have been negatively affected by the violence, praise the Lord! However, the demonstrations and burning tires in the streets were located in several plazas not for from the church we worked with and our house in Mozambique.

As the Lord bring it to mind, please pray for people of Mozambique. It is by no means a nation that is following Biblical principles but, for the sake of the Body of Christ that is there, ask the Lord for mercy that there would be peace and stability! Perhaps God wants to use these trials to draw the believers to Him so pray for open hearts and minds as well so that, even in the midst of, and perhaps because of, hardship, the Church may grow strong!

About the Van

joashndelia — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:05:53 +0000

You may have noticed in the pictures that we have been having a bit of difficulty with our vehicle:-) We have known about some of the problems for a long time and other are just cropping up! One of the challenges of having a vehicle in Mozambique is maintenance and upkeep or repair with quality service and parts. You have to be careful or you will end up with what we call ‘pirate’ parts; not quality, not original, cheap, easily broken.

We have had a problem with the car overheating for a while now but I have not found a good mechanic to fix it. We have been thinking to get this work done while here in RSA but then realized that, since our vehicle in imported from Japan into Moz. they do not have parts here to replace what is broken! This was made evident to us when the 4×4 ground to a halt as we were on our way to pick up my mom from the airport back in July. We went to see about spares and at Toyota the cost would have been upwards of $2000!!!

But God is good! One of the Leaders of the church we are working with here in RSA is a gear box specialist and has his own shop! Really it seems just about everyone does some mechanic work but he especially was able to help us diagnose the problem and check into our options. He helped us make the van functional so that we could visit Mozambique with my mom and while there look for parts to replace what was broken. And, of course, God provided! On the second try I found a 2nd hand spares shop with 2 of the differentials that i needed. One was ready to just put right it and it looked like it was the one we needed so he sold me that one and I mounted it into to van. However, the gear ratio was just off and when it began to make a bit of noise I quickly took it back to the shop to exchange for the other. This time I made sure to count the teeth on the gears to make sure it was the same as the original!

So, we returned to South Africa with what we needed to fix the 4×4 on our van and just yesterday we were able to get everything put together and mounted! I runs like a dream:-) Praise the Lord for allowing our car to break down at just the right time and in just the right place so we were not injured but were well taken care of!

Now we are searching out options to get the head gasket replaced, as well as a few other minor repairs. Already others in the church have graciously helped to weld a broken window bracket, get the starter repaired after it stopped engaging, etc. Please pray for wisdom and provision in the Lord’s timing for all this. God has blessed us with a great vehicle both for our family size and for the rough country; we want to take good care of it and see it serve for a long time! Thank you, Joash

Recent Pics!

joashndelia — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:47:42 +0000

I just wanted to put some pictures up from recent months:-) I know they are a bit late but…. I thought you might enjoy them anyway!

A Day at the Zoo!

joashndelia — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:04:48 +0000

Just a little note to say that we were able to spend some time with our co-workers as they were on their way back to the USA for the birth of their fourth child. We drove up to meet them in Johannesburg and spent a few hours at the Jo’Burg Zoo to pass the time. It was a beautiful day and we all really enjoyed our time together!

When we get things sorted I will post some pics! Also, we are planning to have some pics up soon of Ian and his baseball team. He started school yesterday there in Gifford but has been playing ball since he landed:-) Praise the Lord, he is doing well and really helping his grandparents.

I, Joash, will be making an effort to take more of the responsibility for the Blog. Delia has been doing a wonderful job of preparing for and getting the kids’ homeschooling started! She is very busy but I am soooooo thankful for her and all she does for our family! She has freed me up to work on some Curriculum Development and preparation for focusing on the National Church!

Thanks for your time, have a great day!

IN Christ, Joash