Zion sponsors 4 missionaries:

Gloria Sauck is serving as nurse administrator in Kenya and works with the Arsim and Illaut dispensaries.   She also works in health education using Samburu music and drama.  Please pray for opportunities to share the Good News, daily wisdom, stamina and focus for all her administrative duties. 
 
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Steven & Bethany Friberg are serving in Tanzania. 
Steve is a medical doctor coordinating the work of nine clinics in remote areas of Tanzania.  These clinics are under the Health Department of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.  Bethany is assisting 50 Maasai women in a small income-generating project.  They have two sons Nyika and Zaka in 8th grade and daughter Shalai in 2nd grade.
They write:
We want our supporting congregations to know that our area is experiencing one of the worst droughts on record.  Fortunately, the government is distributing maize every few months to every family.  Just to keep you informed of our work, we are attaching a brief report with some photos.  This is not a request for assistance, but a thank you for supporting us and allowing us to be here.  We do have famine relief funding through December. 
Please pray that rain will come and relieve people, livestock, wild animals, and the parched environment.
The Maasai always say, Eti Enkai.  God is.    It is amazing how trouble forces us to rely on God.  We know God is and that he will act. 
Steve and Bethany Friberg
Ketumbeine Famine Relief
September-October 2009
 During the drought this summer the Tanzanian government has distributed maize to every family in the Ketumbeine area twice.   Funding for famine relief we have received from churches was used to purchase milk powder and high protein flour. For over two months cows and goats have not produced milk. Our priority was to supplement the maize diet of malnourished women and children with protein and vitamins. 
It was a challenge to identify those most in need over a vast area. The first distribution in seven communities was coordinated by the Laigwanan and traditional Maasai leaders. Four hundred pregnant and nursing mothers received the milk and flour. A second distribution for 300 people was through our local church evangelists who identified the most needy in their area. A third distribution was done through Gilai and Ketumbeine clinics. The doctors provided milk and flour free of charge to 200 malnourished patients. 
The Maasai elders cannot remember a worse drought. Ninety percent of the cows have died and now the goats are very weak. Even zebra and buffalo are dying. We thank our Christian family for remembering the hungry.   People express their gratitude daily for this assistance. Having something to offer has made it much easier for us personally to continue working among such stressed people. Thank you.
 Steve and Bethany Friberg
Eric and Christie Anspach-Hanson serve in Japan.  Eric has served as pastor at Tokyo Lutheran Church in Tokyo, Japan since 2007.  Christie teaches English and works as a school nurse in Tokyo.
 
They write (August, 2009):  
 
Hello to all of our supporting congregations!
 
I think this is probably the first contact that I will have had with many of you since Christie and I visited with you this last summer.  In our monthly TLC newsletter (Tokyo Lutheran Church) we try to connect the people involved in both the ministry of Tokyo Lutheran`s English Congregation and the Hongo Center`s English ministry with events going on in the church.  Please check out our newsletter at http://www.jelc-tokyo.org/english/index.html so you can know what we are up to!  Christie and I continue to thank you for all the ways in which you support our ministry.  God bless you all in your mission fields,
 
You are in our prayers too!
 
Eric and Christie

Their address:
Eric & Christie Anspach-Hanson
7-22-37 Shakujidai
Nerima-Ku, Tokyo 177-0045
Japan
 
 
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Jordan Monson is in Pamplona, Spain working in campus ministry among University students. In January he writes:
 
 
Greetings from Pamplona, Spain!
 
I’ve been in Pamplona for over two months now and am really getting the hang of it! I’ve made many contacts at the University and am already developing discipler/disciple relationships with them. 
Through English clubs and conversation, and then the more direct approach of talking to people about their faith, I have had no trouble filling my schedule!
 
In fact, I’m writing this right before going to my first follow-up appointment with a new contact. As a part of my mission to share Christ and talk to others about their faith, I met him on the street a couple of weeks ago. We’re getting together to start studying through the book of John! 
 
My goal is to remove the scales from people’s eyes so that they actually think about Christ, and their own mortality. As C.S. Lewis said in what has been called his “trilemma,” Christ cannot simply be a good moral teacher. The man who says the kinds of things he said (ie. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,”) would be the most wicked of deceivers or a lost lunatic, if it were untrue. However, if it were true, it would make him God himself. 
 
Many are content in Western culture to go through life thinking Jesus was pretty swell, but not the son of God, nor the salvation for our sins. They land in the middle ground and call him a good teacher, but nothing more, when in fact Jesus did not leave that option open for us.
 
This trilemma has really been awakening people’s consciences, and they want to learn more. I’m excited to be getting in the Word with them!
 
It’s been encouraging to move from those preliminary stages of getting set up to now be making many contacts and getting into the message of the Gospel daily.
 
I’d really appreciate your prayer for fruitful ministry and that Christ would draw the Spaniards to himself through us. Please pray that God would make his love and grace known through us, and that we would be rivers of living water to the people.
 
Thanks so much for your prayers and support.
Jordan
 
John 15:4-5 ESV
"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."
Thank you all for your support and friendship in this whole process.
Until the whole world hears,
-Jordan
 
email: jordanmonson@gmail.com
blog:  http://jordanmonson.wordpress.com/
 
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Carol Lackey, former missionary to Ecuador, can be reached at
1106 N. Cleveland
Fergus Falls, MN  56537   
email: bclackey@gmail.com

In October, 2009 Carol writes:

Dear Friends at Zion,
 
What a blessing to know that you folks still think of us and pray for us. That is such an encouragement. Thank you! You have been a great support to us over the years and I appreciate you very much.
 
I am humbled and blessed to hear that you are planning a special offering for us. Wow. Cris, my Ecuadorian "daughter" who is living with us as an exchange student this year, wondered if she might be able to go on a class field trip to Minneapolis and visit the science museum & an art museum & the Chanhassen theater. It costs $80 which she doesn't have, so I suggested that we pray about it and see if there's a way that God provides, and Zion might be her answer to prayer!  : )
 
There have indeed been a lot of changes since Bill's death 8 1/2 months ago. I never could have imagined how different everything is without him! But, we are moving ahead...I traveled to Ecuador in June to sell our household goods and then moved into an empty house in Fergus Falls. In God's timing, our friends here were in the process of buying a rental property just at the time Christina and I decided to move here, so we are renting this 99 year old, 3 bedroom house from them. Through gifts from friends and garage sales, we now have a very cozy, well furnished house! If any of you are ever passing through Fergus Falls, I would love to have you stop in for a visit.
 
I have worked for two months as a nurse aid at a group home, helping to take care of 4 young women, all in wheel chairs, needing total care. It has been a difficult challenge for me, but I think that things are getting better.
 
The girls are doing well. Elizabeth has begun studies at Moody Bible College in Chicago with a major in "Compassion". She hopes to work in counseling with teenage girls. Angela is at Moorhead State majoring in either elementary education or teaching English as a second language. Rebecca is in her second year at Northwestern College in Roseville, majoring in social studies education. I am proud of them and will celebrate when they some day get degrees, but more importantly, they are all desiring to live for the Lord, and that gives me great joy!
 
Christina is a senior here at Hillcrest and as I mentioned before, we are blessed to have Cris Gomezcoello living with us and attending Hillcrest as well. It is a help for both of them to go through the ups and downs of the senior year together.
 
We lived in Fergus for a year 4 years ago and attended Calvary Lutheran. It has been so good to have a home church to come back to where people knew Bill and our situation. Being welcomed into a church family makes being "new in town" easier!
 
So, that is where by God's grace we are today. I have been asked about plans for the future, but I really don't know. At this point I feel like I only have energy to think about one day at a time. Again, please know that we are blessed and encouraged to know that you still think of us! Thank you and God bless you.
 
Love,
Carol