September 2006

Dear friends and prayer partners:

The beauty shop in the first floor assigned for the Rehabilitation Center is already in operation with speaking impaired beauticians.

As Paul said, “A wide door for effective work is open — but there are many adversaries.” We praise God for a new, effective medicine for daughter Elaine in her Upland, California small group home. Elaine was hospitalized four times this year, the last time she was suffering from severe spasms with her seizures when she had to discontinue one type of medicine, which had become toxic to her body. In God’s providence she was referred to additional doctors and a brain-mapping program in a hospital where a high-risk, high-gain medication was monitored and shown to be effective. We give praise for this miraculous solution to her condition, which not only was causing stress but also was the reason Sue returned to the U.S. four times this year in between six trips to North Korea. This month Elaine will return to her day program, which was interrupted by her severe illness.

The big news in Sue’s Lighthouse Foundation work in North Korea is that efforts to refurbish the 4,000 square feet of building space and install equipment for the Rehabilitation Center for the Disabled in Pyongyang will be completed with an opening ceremony in October 2006. This is a project with the Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled in North Korea developed through months of negotiation and prayer. The first floor of an apartment building is to be used for treatment, training, and employment of those physically and mentally challenged — jobs in tailoring and dressmaking, shoe and watch repair, and work in beauty salons and barbershops. The center will provide physical therapy and aids for those physically challenged as well as a cafeteria featuring soymilk and bread. Funds are needed for purchasing physical therapy equipment and sewing machines.

Recognition of this first rehabilitation project for other-gifted persons done with assistance from outside the country is given in the federation’s excellent newsletter. It had also reported on physically challenged Pastor Kim Jeong Hui’s May visit in connection with his organization’s giving the North its first wheelchair van through the Lighthouse Foundation.

Work previously begun continues at a slightly increased pace: feeding some 20,000 small children soymilk and bread and helping two orphanages with clothes, diapers, and medicine. In order to increase the self-sufficiency of the communities near our milk plant bakeries in Pyongyang and Sariwon, sets of mini-tractors, farm tools, and seeds to grow their own soybeans have been sent this year.

The growth in scope of this program since Lighthouse was organized in 2004 can be seen as God’s hand at work and God’s people responding to an opportunity to help those with serious needs. Also two organizations in South Korea have helped with some funding. In July there was flooding in the northeast and southwest areas of North Korea and after some hesitation the authorities there are releasing information to NGOs that up to a million people were flooded out of their homes and thousands died. There were weeks of delay because of North Korea’s rocket launching before the South Korean government decided that it could send rice and other aid.

Prayer Requests:

Pray for the health and protection of Sue and other team members who will make up two groups visiting North Korea in October and for a successful inauguration of the rehabilitation center there.

Pray for the amendment of the private school law mentioned in our February letter so that the hundreds of Christian schools can continue to be Christian and minister through Bible classes and chapel worship.

Pray that American Presbyterians will continue to send in missionary support funds for Sue Kinsler and other mission coworkers. With the many things happening in the denomination lately funding has been falling off.

Pray for God’s continuing healing hand to be on our daughter Elaine and for eldest son John to receive his Master’s in English Literature and be led to the right place of service in Korea.

Yours in Christ’s service,

Art and Sue Kinsler

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 249