Spring in America and a Successful Gala
May 8, 2025
Greetings from Iowa. Spring has arrived, and I am enjoying this beautiful time of year back in America. It was pleasant to host our son Dustin and his wife Alex for a few days; they came to America to celebrate our annual spring gala with us. We also had the honor of hosting Clayton and Monique who both work with us in South Africa. This year we moved the gala to a new venue on the Des Moines Area Community College Campus. We received lots of compliments that everyone enjoyed the new setting. We are always busy throughout the year raising funds for the ministry that God has called us to do in Africa. The gala is where we have a chance to showcase some of the wonderful projects that we are doing and to do some vision casting as to what we feel that God is guiding us to do next. For 24 years God has faithfully provided all the funds that we need to serve the children in Africa. Our ministry has grown nearly every year since we started back in 2001. It indeed does take a lot of resources to feed 50,000 children, construct new churches, drilling wells and building toilets along with all the other amazing things that we are able to accomplish Africa.
This year’s gala turned out to be a celebration of my own life since I recently celebrated my 80th birthday. I, along with my family and many friends have been celebrating this milestone since January and I am ready to move onto what is next. All this celebrating has caused a few people to ask if I was planning to retire. I would like to squelch that rumor immediately. My current life plan is to move directly from my current position in our ministry to whatever God has planned for me to be busy with in Heaven. An important part of my life plan is to continue carving out 2 or 3 hours/day to enjoy riding my bike here in America or in Africa. I also hope to continue mentoring our son Dustin as he manages the day-to-day operations of Blessman International in Africa and America. I would also like to continue mentoring and encouraging all our 50 employees in America and Africa. I graduated from the University of Iowa medical school in 1972 and from that time on, I have felt that I had the best job in the world. It has not always been the same job but everything that I have put my hand to has brought be amazing satisfaction and joy. The constant in my various jobs over the years is that I always felt that I was able to serve people and show them my love. Helping people is an excellent anecdote for depression and nearly always rewards those of us who are busy helping others with a sense of wellbeing.
Beth and I plan to go back to Africa in late August, and return back to Iowa to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. We will be helping to host several mission teams and other guests who will be visiting our campus and serving with us on the mission field.
Here in America, I along with our staff will be focusing on launching a major improvement and expansion of our Girl’s Empowerment program. We will be encouraging women in America to sew beautiful cloth purses that our girls in Africa will use to discreetly transport their own personal feminine hygiene kits that our Lethabo Sewing Center will sew for them. If you happen to know someone who would like to be part of this new program to bless our impoverished young girls in Africa, please contact our office.
I will also be busy with a campaign to construct our 3rd new church building. This one will be at the Matre Dei retreat center in honor of Fr. Sunny.
Finally, to help our large child feeding program to be sustainable we are starting a new and improved child sponsorship program that will help connect American churches, and families with some of our beautiful African children. This year we struggled with a couple of our shipping containers being held up by customs and the health department. This hiccup led us to finding new and improved ways to be sure that we can continue providing food to our children in Africa. You will soon hear more from us about our Feeding African Children With African Food.