I dedicate this website to the memory of my dear mother Doris Harmon, seen here in one of her high school pictures.  I expect to see her again.

 AND

To my sweet wife Gloria who is a great source of joy to me every day.

Ports O' Call - Missionary Work (Under construction)


Sea Captains and their families were some of the most traveled people in the world of their day. From Searsport and many other ports they sailed to exotic places and brought home mementos of their voyages, trinkets and treasures from the far east and islands of the sea. They would often be away for long periods of time as a round trip sometimes would last two years.


Today missionaries visit these foreign shores for the purpose of sharing the Creator's redeeming grace. They come and go on jets in hours and they send e-mails that reach us in seconds. Their trophies are precious souls who are being brought from heathen darkness into God's marvelous light.

What a privilege it is to know many of these rare people who forego often the pleasures of our modern civilization and the enjoyment of family and friends in order to serve God in far 'flung' ports o' call. It is some of these that we include on this page, especially for the purpose of prayer.


Africa

Frank and Idabel Baggott

 

In 1947, Frank Baggott, arrived in Algiers, following the call of God to him to leave his job in engineering designing in Britain and go reach the tribes of the Sahara Desert with the Gospel. Idabelle Lingenfelter came to Algiers from the States in 1949 in obedience to God's call to her to Africa. They were engaged and two years later were married in the Niger Republic. They served the Lord first in the Algerian Sahara, then in the Niger since 1972. After long years of faithful service, Frank went Home to be with the Lord in April 2006 and is buried in the Niger Sahara. Idabelle is continuing to serve Him there, also their son, Stephen, and their daughter, Verna, who is married to a Tuareg Christian, called John.

.

From the beginning, Frank and Idabelle felt that they should live by faith as did Hudson Taylor and not share financial needs with churches and individuals but rather with God alone. God has faithfully provided their needs through all these years sometimes in most unusual ways. Their son Stephen recalls a time when in Algiers, they had only 6 oranges to eat on Monday morning. The postal money order arrived that very morning. The day before, Sunday, they were walking back from church when a boy drove a donkey cart wildly past them and soon disappeared. Coming to some bumps in the road, they found potatoes had fallen off the cart and the Baggott family picked up their Sunday dinner from the street!

Their desire from the beginning was to preach the Gospel to the desert tribes and to see churches planted. The work though is very slow as in many Muslim lands. Yet who can put the value on even one soul who has been saved by the grace of God! The situation is such that it would be unwise to divulge freely news of the work. But God's people in Britain and in the States as well as elsewhere have been faithful in interceding for the Lord's work in the Sahara. Only in eternity will it be revealed what God has wrought through the prayers of His people.

The backbone of the work has been the faithful prayer supporters over all these many years. At least two are still praying for the work who began when Frank first went to the mission field in 1947! As an example, Stephen remembers a nurse in Britain who suffered from cancer who prayed faithfully. In those days, mail took 6 months to go to or from the desert. Impossible to get up-to-the-date requests! But she would tell Frank and Idabelle that on such a date God had led her to pray for such a person, on this other date God led her to pray for some situation. And they were exactly the needs at the time. May such Spirit-directed intercession be continued to be offered up for this work in the Sahara that God may do exceeding great and marvelous things for His glory.


Both parents now in Glory, Stephen is now the director

From left to right - Stephen, Verna and her husband John, Idabel, The native pastor Maman,his wife Hobsou and their children. Pray for them - they serve in a very difficult area.


A Personal note about the Baggotts.  The Bucksport Bible Church has supported this ministry for over 60 years and they have visited the church (formerly Evangel Baptist) several times during that period. 


******************************

SOUTH AFRICA  - 

MIKE AND MARIE BRUNK


The Brunks are serving in Johannesburg, S.A.  They have been there for several years and have planted a thriving local church with a potential for several daughter churches.  Mike and I together with another missionary from Argentina meet every Tues. at 8 a.m. for prayer on Skype.  We should praise the Lord for these wonderful new tools that can be used in the Missionary enterprise!


Most missionaries these days are interested

in planting churches.  To do this they must train

those who are converted to Christ in the skills

needed to do this. Johanne Seitshiro is training

to be a Pastor. 


***************************

Mexico

 

Efrian and Laura Ruiz

Laura (Sullivan) Ruiz and her husband Efrian are serving the Lord in Tixtla, Mexico. She met him while serving on a missions trip from her home church in California where her family had moved when they left Penobscot, Maine quite a few years ago. They were members of the church in Bucksport. They now have several children (I put it that way so I won't have to upgrade this report as often as everytime Laura announces that they are having another!) They are doing a great work of church planting. Many of Efrian's siblings are also working at church planting nearby. Below are some pictures of the family and a fellowship time in their assemb;y.



***************************

Hondorus, Central America 

Edward Fitzgerald  and Maria 

Ed graduated from our training  institute in Bucksport in the '80's after attending one year at The Burlington Bible Institute.  He joined the BMW Mission and was first assigned to work in Argentina where he successfully served for a few years after which he was transferred to Hondorus.  Now in his 50's he was praying for a wife to join him in the work.  It would have been difficult to find an American girl who would be willing to go to an area very much like our own wild west in the old days, but the Lord, in answer to prayer provided a wonderful partner for him among the very people with which he was laboring.  Maria is very special!  They have visited us in our home in Searsport and we love them both.  They work in San Rafael and have built both a home and a church there.

 

 


Maria is a registered nurse and is extremely helpful in reaching out to those who need her ministry. They have established numerous centers of operation and are training nationals in establishing local churches. There has been phenominal results. The Lord has recently given Ed and Maria a lovely little girl for which we praise Him



**********

Papua, New Guinea  - New Tribes Mission 

Jeremiah and April Markley 

 

 

 www.ntm.org/jeremiah_markley

 

Ready to fly into the tribes  - (see more pictures below)


When April was a child she lived with her parents in a house next door to our church, The Lighthouse Bible Church, where by divine appointment she began one day, on her own, to attend. She soon received the Lord as her personal Savior and not long after that she moved away from the area. We lost track of her until much later when we learned that she was serving as a missionary in New Guinea. Recently the family visited our church again while they were on furlough and we enjoyed getting to know them. Some of us had actually never met them. By now, they had grown to five with the addition of Jordan, Judah and Alayna. At this writing, they are back on the field where they are doing church planting among a primative tribal group called the Dinangats. (See below)


To the right is a new believer named Areke (I call him Eric).  Below are scenesof village evangelism and some of the difficult terrain covered to reach them. This is the village of Tamunat and it is being evangelized by the  Dinangat christians who have only been saved a short time but have been carefully trained by the missionaries.  It took a trek of 4 hours to get from one village to the other.


Austria - Tyrol  - village of Telfs

Rick and Bev Gaudet



The Gaudets have been serving the Lord on this field under BMW since1974. They have a church planted there which I have visited. Since that visit the assembly has moved and now is facing another move (2012). I have not been in their present home but have a nice picture of it. The area nearby may someday be a building site for their church group. Lately Rick and a coworker, Fred Stonehouse, have been carrying on a ministry in Romania which is a very needy field and reached by air.


************************************

All Over the World



Meet the Hodsdon Family.  Ross and Cathy are in the center holding two of their grandchildren.  They  head up the translation team under Bibles International, a division of Baptist Mid-Missions and travel the earth creating and training national  teams in developing Bible transations.  Their daughter Connie together with her husband Birch Champeon work with them in technical support and publication. They are at the far right with their twin boys who travel everywhere with them.  Son Carl and his wife and girls are on the left and are church planters in Lima, Peru.  The others serve on the home front.


*********************** 

 ASIA

Belarus 

 A church planting ministry under Baptist World Mission


Steve Renee, 2nd from left, is the Founder of this Mission,  Middle.  Vladimir, a convert and 1st on left is the pastor of a church in Minsk.  .  A major project of this mission is the establishment of a Dude Ranch on the property seen below.  A second church has been established in the village of Derzinski.  Brother Renee's health which has greatly improved has been a factor in the work.