THANK YOU FROM NOOR EYE CARE PROGRAM

Warm greetings from all of us working with the NOOR Eye Care Program in Afghanistan. We were touched by your generous donation and we want to let you know that it makes a real difference both to our work and to the people we serve. Every day our hospitals and clinics see hundreds of patients with a variety of medical or surgical conditions; everything from eye infections and simple cataract problems to complicated conditions such as glaucoma, severe injury, and advanced cancer. Your support helps us continue providing high quality and affordable eye care to the people of Afghanistan. Thank you very much for being a vital part of our work.

Sincerely yours, Karen Mindling RN, Nursing Administrator

(KRC’s good friends, Tom and Libby Little, are workers in the

NOOR Eye Care Program in Afghanistan.)

Thank you for being a part of the ministry of the Alpha Pregnancy Care Center. Your gifts [through the 2007 Baby Bottle Appeal] to support this ministry of life to the unborn and hope to the lost are deeply appreciated. Without you we would never be able to meet the growing needs of the moms, dads, and families that God sends to us. You are truly our partners and we thank God for you. Please continue to pray for us, our clients, and our volunteers.

Serving our risen Savior together for His glory,

Eivion L Williams, Executive Director

Dear Rev. Meldrim:

We wish to thank your congregation for their enthusiastic and good-spirited work in making the Pancake Breakfast Benefit such a resounding success, and gratefully acknowledge the generous donation for $731. I believe that your community will be pleased to know that this donation will go directly to the cost of building a home in Hudson for a family that is currently living in substandard housing. It is with the generosity of communities such as the Reformed Church of Kinderhook that makes this possible.

We hope that we can maintain a continuing relationship in this project.

Sincerely,

Georgene Gardiner,

Director, Columbia County Habitat for Humanity

RCA Missionary Update

David and Charlene Alexander

Editors, Translators, and Educators in Taiwan

The island of Taiwan, slightly smaller than Maryland and Delaware combined, has a population of nearly 23 million . 93% of the people practice the Buddhist, Confucian, or Taoist religions, and only 4.5% are Christian.

Charlene Box and David Alexander met in Taiwan in 1978 while serving as RCA volunteers. They were married 4 years later, and returned to Taiwan in 1982 as career missionaries. Char teaches English at Chang Jung Christian University, and Dave, who is studying for his doctorate in theology, is also counselor and advisor to international students at Tainan Theological College, and teaches in the lay training division of the college. The Alexanders have 2 children, Kate, a college student, and Grant, who is in eighth grade. Your KRC contributions to missions help to support this missionary family each year.

Dear Friends,

As we walked out of church [a few Sundays ago], Char remarked about the woman with whom we had shared a pew, “She looks like she’s lived a hard life.”

Loa Hui-chu [recently] began to attend a few activities and worship services at New Life Presbyterian Church, where we are members. She learned about the congregation through one of the church’s three summer outdoor evangelism events. These are held every July. For several years the choir, praise band, women’s group, and youth group tried varied approaches at a park about a mile away. Much labor was spent with little visible result. The congregation and pastor were feeling disappointed. Much prayer and reflection went into the planning last spring. The need for a new approach was discerned.

The elder who led up the program moved everything to a newly-opened park only a block from the church. He enlisted the neighborhood government as a cosponsor and invited community groups to offer performances and program content that would not conflict with the church’s gospel message. Ms. Loa belongs to the Neighborhood Sunshine association, a group of several women in their sixties who do interpretive dance and sign language performances. They presented three songs on July 30. She and many other Sunshine Association members stayed for the full evangelistic message delivered by our pastor, Chia Hoai-an, then walked over to the church where a meal was served.

Last Sunday, before worship, she joined us in a pew. She barely had a chance to settle before women her age approached, greeted, and even hugged her. One among us noticed that she had taken neither a hymnal nor a Bible from the shelf at the church door, so these were fetched and she was coached through the service from the praise choruses to the benediction. As people stood to leave, she was again approached and made to feel welcome.

Church can be a difficult environment for a person who has never attended. The fact that Ms. Loa came alone to such a strange event as Sunday morning worship shows her social isolation and desire for connection. It also indicates the work of the Holy Spirit in her heart. We hope and pray that, through the love and acceptance she finds in this congregation, she will come to place her faith in Christ and come to enjoy the very thing that the church is named for, new life.

We are thankful for the care, prayer, and support you offer that make our presence here possible, as well as our participation in the life and mission of Taiwan’s church and Christian schools.

May the Lord bless and keep you all,

Dave and Char Alexander

Notes from CHRISTAR

“Bringing light to the least-reached”

Our missions donations to CHRISTAR help support Betty Ann Stedwell

Dear CHRISTAR Donor:

We serve a fantastic God. In 1909 Florence Drew arrived in Hong Kong with $40 in her pocket, and no promised support, to plant the South China Boat Mission. In 1930 Benjamin Davidson began the India Mission without any missionaries. In 1950 Allen McAnlis began the Iran Interior Mission to try to care for orphans in Iran. These three roots have grown to become CHRISTAR. Over these years God has done wonderful things through and for the CHRISTAR family. He has met our financial needs. He has planted over 250 churches and fellowship in India alone. Presently He has raised up over 325 missionaries working through more than 60 teams among more than 70 unreached people groups in more than 25 countries. Over these years thousands of prayers have been brought to our Lord who hears & answers prayer. Christ, who rose from the grave, is still changing lives and bringing resurrection from spiritual death. Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims have come out of the darkness of hopelessness, ancestor worship, idol worship, animism, and closed-mindedness to a saving faith in a personal God. Hundreds of thousands of prayers have been answered. Our God has encouraged us & provided health and energy. Together we serve a wonderful Lord on behalf of very needy people.

Because there is no other name,

Outgoing President

Patrick Cate,

Dear Friends at Kinderhook Reformed Church,

Thank you for your support of $500 in July toward my ministry through CHRISTAR. Your partnership in this work is enabling workers to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people around the world. We have just concluded a large international conference with several of our missionaries here from around the world. We were challenged to consider suffering and martyrdom, working in multi-cultural teams, and servant leadership. . .

Sincerely in Christ,

Betty Ann Stedwell

MISSIONS THANK-YOU NOTE from YOUNG LIFE MINISTRIES

(Our contributions to YOUNG LIFE help support the work of Seth Rogati.)

Dear [KRC] Friends:

Don Samuels wasn’t raised in the church and his family didn’t own a Bible. But in the late 1950’s Don met Jesus Christ through YOUNG LIFE. Ten years later, Don visited his father’s birthplace in a small Midwestern town and discovered something he had never known - his great-grandfather was a devout man of faith who helped start a nearby church. Recently Don shared the story with his own church:

“I remember that day being overwhelmed with the thought that my life, my becoming a Christian, was an answer to my great-grandfather’s prayers.”

Integral to that answered prayer was a YOUNG LIFE leader named Mal McSwain who led Don to Jesus in the 1950’s. Don and Mal have remained in close contact over the past 45 years, and Don signed his last letter to Mal with these words:

“Your involvement in my life has been such an example of God’s

amazing grace.”

Thank you. Thank you for enabling leaders like Mal to love kids like Don, sometimes for more than 40 years. Thank you for letting God use you and your resources to answer the prayers of faithful people who care about kids. It’s a privilege to be a partner with you in God’s amazing grace.

Denny Rydberg

President

Dear KRC Friends,

I wanted to write and thank you personally for your generous gift of $500 toward the missionary support of Alex and Fran Knauss. I rejoice along with Alex and Fran for your faithfulness in our ministry together. Please accept my deepest and most sincere thanks for the part you play in our ministry. Just recently we received the following from one of our listeners in Cuba:

I give thanks to God for you. It is truly good and it gives me great satisfaction to be able to listen to your precious studies in my own home. Through your program I have learned a lot of interesting topics about the Word of God. God is good and each day He teaches us something new and you have been the instrument of God to help us know more about His Word and walk in His was in spite of problems, difficulties and discouragement. I love knowing God because I need Him and I would be nothing without Him.

It is the faithful support of people such as yourselves that make it possible for us to minister to those in need around the world. Thank you again.

Yours sincerely,

David Tucker

President, Trans World Radio

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your prayer and support for us and the work here in Eye Care. We appreciate your desire to share the love of god with these people [in Afghanistan] in tangible ways. Please pray for us especially during this season – as we pray for you too, in your sphere of influence there. May His light shine in the darkness all the brighter!

Love, Libby and Tom Little

Dear Friends,

On behalf of the Marion Stegmann Fund, its multitude of participants, and the many that benefited, we wish to thank you for your generous contribution of $111. Through your generosity, the fund was able to provide nutritious food and new Christmas toys to over 300 needy families in northern Columbia County. Again, we thank you for your continued support and wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year. May God Bless.

Very sincerely,

Glenn Wallace and Ralph Kring

Co-Chairmen

A $1,000 check will be used to support those working with the people of the Darfur region in Sudan.

KRC supports, with prayer and finances, Trans World Radio.

KRC supports, with prayer and finances, Capital City Rescue Mission

MISSIONS UPDATE - BRIAN & BEA POST

WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS

One of the missions that we support is Wycliffe Bible Translators. Wycliffe is named after John Wycliffe who first translated the Bible into English. Wycliffe Bible Translators was founded in 1942 to help translate the Bible to the Cakchiquel Indians in Guatemala. Over the years, over 500 translations have been completed by Wycliffe, and hundreds more are in progress. The extremely ambitious goal of this mission is to translate the Bible, by the year 2025, into every language that does not yet have it. The following excerpts that do a great job of describing what Wycliffe stands for were taken from their web site:

Wycliffe professes the Word it proclaims. Relying on God and

Rooted in His Word, Wycliffe seeks to bear fruit among new

believers who also become rooted in God's Word. Our goal is

to see Bible translation in progress, through partnership, in

every language that needs it by the year 2025.

Doctrinal Statement: We adhere to the following truths:

·The divine inspiration and consequent of the whole canonical

Scripture

·The doctrine of the trinity

·The fall of man, his consequent moral depravity, and his need

for regeneration

·The atonement through the substitutionary death of Christ

·The doctrine of justification by faith

·The resurrection of the body, both of the just and the unjust

·The eternal life of the saved and eternal punishment of thelost

Wycliffe Believes:

·The Bible is God's message for people everywhere.

·The message of the Bible is evangelistic and is the basis for

church planting and growth.

·The most effective means of communication is the mother

tongue.

·For a church to be truly indigenous, it must have the Bible in

its mother tongue.

·Bible translation is the task of the whole Church, and

everyone can have a part.

Wycliffe Core Values:

·The transforming Word of God

·The language of the heart

·Excellence in all we do

·Partnering as servants

·Transferring vision and capacity

·Trusting in God for the impossible

For more information on Wycliffe Bible Translators

please visit their website:

www.wycliffe.org

KRC Supports Wycliffe. . .

through two families, the Nyquists and Brian & Bea Post. This is especially fitting for KRC, since one of our early members, Cornelius Van Alen Van Dyck, traveled to Syria in the early 1800s and spent his life as the chief translator of the Bible into Arabic. (A plaque in the front of the church commemorates his work.) Brian & Bea Post live in Duncanville, Texas. They both work with Wycliffe; Brian is currently serving as Wycliffe’s International Finance Personnel Coordinator, and Bea is a part time receptionist in the Wycliffe Health Services Clinic. Brian’s parents live in Catskill, so they are familiar with the Hudson Valley. (They are looking forward to stopping by Kinderhook during their next trip.) They have a daughter (Caity) entering her senior year in high school, and a son (Brian) entering his final year in college.

We have supported Wycliffe’s work (via the Posts) with a $500 gift earlier this year, and are sending another $500 gift out this month. On the other side of this insert is a nice note that we received from Brian and Bea, and some excerpts from their “Post Script” newsletter that we receive periodically.

Please keep Brian & Bea,

along with our other missions and missionaries,

in your prayers.