Looking Back (2022 review) and Looking Forward (2023 goals)

06 Jan Looking Back (2022 review) and Looking Forward (2023 goals)

Update on MUR’s 2022 Year: 

For Phil and Donna, and Mission UpReach at large, this past year of 2022 was the most difficult year in their lives. Personally, Phil and Donna suffered the loss of their adult son, Harrison, who died after struggling for 7-years with a traumatic brain injury. Losing their son on top of seven years of heart ache and struggle as they watched him try so hard to get well was a huge blow. At the same time, Mission UpReach went through one of the most difficult financial crises that it has endured since its inception. Phil says, “2022 was more difficult than 2020.” This was in great part caused by run-away inflation and the spike in electricity, gas/diesel, chicken feed and fertilizers due to the international logistics crisis that began back during the 2020 Pandemic.

Despite these difficult circumstances, thanks to God’s blessings and providence, MUR was able to help establish three new church plants. And their DESEO public school values education program taught Biblical values to 815 children every week for the entire school year in 11 different schools. They also conducted 1-day per week tutoring sessions for 250 of the most at-risk children. Also, during January 2022, DESEO held a three-week Bible camp that had 150 children and teenagers participating. MUR’s school for deaf adults, called ESPERO, had 19 students that completed the year. The Moses Project, which is MUR’s agriculture training center for youth from the ages of 12 to 18, had only 7 participants.

Goals for 2023 are as follows:

Church Planting: Plant three, additional-new congregations and identify and begin working in 6-new communities with the goal of planting a new church in those communities.

DESEO: Increase the number of schools receiving the DESEO program to 14. Increase the number of students receiving the DESEO values education program from the 2022 level of 815 to a 2023 level of 1,100 students. In the tutoring program, the 2023 goal is to increase the amount of tutoring time that each of the 250 most at-risk students receive to two days per week in lieu of the one-day per week that they received during the 2022 academic year.

Moses Project: Increase the number of participants to 19 total for the 2023 academic year.

ESPERO: The ESPERO school for deaf adults has already enrolled 24 new students in the 2023 academic year that begins in February 2023. This would increase the number of students in the program from a 2022 level of 19 to the new total of 43 for the 2023 academic school year.

We invite you to join us in praying that God agrees with our goals and plans and that we will do our part to accomplish them.  Your continued involvement through your support is a vital part of the good we can do. Thank you so much!