July 2005 Appeal

Click here to download the Appeal Letter (Adobe PDF).

Dear Friends and Supporters,

We are writing this letter to ask for your assistance. As many of you are aware, our director Andy Mendonsa and his family have experienced a life altering event. Andy and Gloria's 17-year-old son, Asher, had an accident that has left him paralyzed and comatose. You have prayed and expressed concern, so we personally and on behalf of the Mendonsa family, thank God for you.

After the initial shock, these situations must be dealt with around practical matters. Asher is now in Shepherd's Spinal Clinic in Atlanta, Georgia. The family is totally focused on Asher's recovery, so the board is assisting with the ministry functions. To that end we are making a special appeal to you, our supporters and fellow laborers in the Widow's ministry.

Please prayerfully consider the following financial needs:

General support for the dozens of widow's repair projects is an ongoing concern. On behalf of the widow's we are asking for special gifts to be provided.

Our ministry vehicle that was leased has been turned in. The need for a new vehicle is acute in that Andy will need to travel to Atlanta on a regular basis to visit Asher and the family as well as conduct ministry business.

Andy and his family are experiencing special financial needs with housing, travel and living expenses while staying in Atlanta. A special fund has been established for Asher to which designated giving will be applied. You can get updates on the Mendonsa family's journey through this time at http://asher.chattablogs.com.

Thank you for your support of the work God is doing through this ministry of mercy.

Sincerely,

Tom

Tom Haymes, Jr. CPA

Board Chairman

July 2005 Newsletter

Click here to download the July 2005 Newsletter (Adobe PDF).

Dear Friends and Supporters:

At 8:15 PM on May 23, 2005, our phone rang at home. It was the phone call that every parent dreads even the thought of getting. The voice on the other end, a friend of our son Asher's, told me that he was with Asher and Asher had just fallen almost 5 stories inside an abandoned building while taking pictures, and that the paramedics were there working on him.

A little over 5 years ago, at around 10 PM at night, I got a call from the chaplain at Mercy hospital in Durango, CO. telling me that my father had slipped and fallen 60 feet off the trail he had been hiking on with my step-mother, Suzanne, and had just died from his injuries.

It would have been horrible enough getting the news about my son, but immediately having to also relive that phone call I had received about my father was almost too much for me to bear.

Gloria and I were almost in a panic to get to Asher. Fortunately, he was only about 5 minutes away from where we live. When we got there, though, they had already loaded him into the ambulance and were about to leave. We knew it was really serious when they wouldn't let Gloria ride with him or even let us see him.

Finally, about 11 that night the Neurologist that had examined him came in to tell us what his condition was. He had a broken neck, a broken back, a compound fracture to his right femur and head trauma that included swelling on the front part of his brain as well as a bruised brain stem. All he could tell us beyond that was that he really couldn't tell us anything. He said he might walk again, but he might not. He might wake up from his coma, but he didn't know when or if he would wake up at all.

I had called my mother to let her know as soon as we got to the emergency room so that she could get word out to all of our widows to start praying. In a very short time their prayers began to spread all over the city, the country and many parts of the world. There are now widows in Africa who have been praying 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since they first learned about it.

Asher spent 1 day shy of 4 weeks in intensive care. They just moved him to an intermediate care room on Sunday, June 19 about 4 PM in the afternoon. Asher is now completely off a ventilator and breathing on his own. He has started making sounds and trying to talk. His eyes have been opened for about 2 weeks now, but he is still technically in a coma. On the scale of 0 to 14 (14 being normal) that is used to measure what level of a coma someone is in Asher is about a 2, possibly approaching a 3. He has come a remarkably long way in just over a month, but he is still at the foot of the mountain that he really needs to start climbing up very soon.

Today (June 23) we were very thankful to learn that Asher has been accepted at the Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta. He could be moved there on Monday, June 27th, at the earliest. This is more of an incredible answer to prayer than you will ever know. Actually, every day since Asher was injured has been filled with answered prayer after answered prayer. And his full recovery still lies in the realm of the miraculous.

Daily updates are posted online at: http://asher.chattablogs.com. (The Asher Update).

It seems so evident to me that since the first of the year Widows Harvest has been hit by the enemy again and again. First, he hit us in our finances. We have been running with a $12,000.00 a month deficit since January. Then, in April, our new administrative assistant, Leda Goodman's husband, Ian, became seriously ill and was initially hospitalized in Chattanooga for a week and a half. He did better for a few days after his release, but then became even more ill and finally went to St. Louis where he was admitted to Barnes Hospital. At Barnes they were able to discover the cause of his illness and he returned home after a couple of weeks. He is still having some difficulties, but is much better.

Leda had a critical role in helping to organize our annual widow's prayer gathering this year. When Ian became so ill, this, of course, prevented her from being able to help out as much as she would have ordinarily.

Interestingly, last year my mother was in charge of organizing most of the prayer gathering, and about a month before it was scheduled to take place she fell and broke her wrist. Then about week later they decided that they needed to perform surgery on it and pin it together so, for her, it was like breaking it all over again (pain and trauma wise). She was still able to help out, but not on the level that she would have if she had not fallen and injured herself.

I really don't have any words to describe all that God did at this years widow's prayer gathering and conference. It is no wonder that the devil tries to interfere the ways that he does each year. He especially does not want widows to pray either here or anywhere else or to learn about the necessity for doing so.

In just a little over a week after our widow's prayer gathering and conference (May 13-14) and our annual day of fasting and praying for widows (May 15), the devil struck another severe blow to Widows Harvest. By laying a trap for my son and trying to take his life, though, the devil has only caused there to be, not only a great outpouring of prayer by thousands and thousands of people, but many have been drawn to God's incredible mercy and grace through the pain and suffering being experienced by so many as a result of knowing about Asher's critical injuries.

Since Asher was first admitted to the hospital Gloria, Hadrienne and I have been there with Asher during every possible visiting hour while he was in ICU and around the clock with him now that he is in an intermediate care room. Which means that I have not been able to carry out those functions in the Ministry that I ordinarily need to do.

This also has prevented my daughter, Hadrienne, from working as an intern again this summer with Dick Mason, our Projects Director. Which basically has meant that we had to start the summer off with no help to assist Dick with all of our summer mission teams and work projects.

In my last newsletter I listed quite a number of financial needs that the Ministry has both for what we are doing here in Chattanooga and other parts of the Country as well as in a number of other countries including Israel, Africa and India.

It is not our claim, but it has become, with more frequency, the claim of others that Widows Harvest is the model for widows ministries both here and around the world because we have been operating for at least 15 years longer than others widows ministries which have only just begun to spring up in the last 2 to 3 years.

I am still convinced that the devil has no defense against "pure and undefiled worship" which, according to James 1:27, is considered by God to be the care of the widows and the fatherless. By fulfilling James 1:27, it has the added benefit of giving rise to one of the most invaluable resources that the Church has available to it, and that is the prayers of the widows.

Last week I received a letter in the mail from a local Christian foundation informing me that after 15 years of giving support to this ministry that we were no longer a priority with them to receive support this year. Of course, if none of the other circumstances that I have shared with you in this letter had not occurred, especially what we have been going through with my son over the last month, this news would have not have been as difficult to receive. Given it's timing, though, it was more than discouraging. It was like being kicked while I was already on the ground.

There are 2 more grant request opportunities for us to apply for between now and the middle of July, but under these present circumstances, it does not look like it will be possible for us to apply for them. As much as grant money from foundations can be of a tremendous help to a ministry like ours, the process for applying for them has always struck me, personally, as demeaning. I know that is not the intention of those who oversee the approval of these grants, but one cannot help the way one feels.

It is interesting, though, that when I have the opportunity to honestly share my heart, like in a newsletter, and people are moved in their own hearts to respond through prayers and giving, the process is not demeaning for me in any way. Perhaps it is because the money and prayers that are given are given in the spirit of unconditional love that all good gifts should be offered in.

I guess I don't know how to finish this letter other than to just plainly say to you that we really need help and we really need a lot of it now. Those who serve with us are depending on it, as well as widows throughout the world. I feel like there has never been a more crucial time for helping us to advance the kingdom of God in the ways that He has been calling us to since 1987 than right now. In a year from now I do not think that I will be able to make the same claim, but if it doesn't happen now, then I honestly believe that a year from now will not be the same either.

Ever your servant in Him,

Andy Mendonsa
Widows harvest ministries