Hi Deaf Harvest Friends,
This year has been a year of struggle as well as success. We have learned much from these experiences, and have learned even more to trust in the infinite wisdom of our Lord and Savior, the real CEO of this ministry.
In February, we officially moved our address to Monroe County which significantly reduced our business taxes, and we moved the Post Office Box to Locust Grove , GA ( PO Box 110 ; zip: 30248)
Our corporation was renewed with the Secretary of State, which allows gifts to be contributed to our ministry, and keeps the ministry separate from Al and DeeAnn’s tax filing. Earlier, we had planned to drop the idea of pursing the tax-exempt status with the IRS, but we are again considering looking into it. Although this entails many hours and includes about 25 pages of information required by the IRS, it will benefit the organization in the long-run. In order to pursue this, we need to re-evaluate the structure of the organization and determine how to align our structure with the requirements of the IRS tax system.
We received many monetary gifts into this ministry this year. 100% of that money was spent on ministry (some was donated to other ministries, some was used to pay bills and to purchase postage for shipping, etc…) No one at Deaf Harvest receives a salary or compensation of any kind.
We renewed the domain for deafharvest.com with DirectNIC for the next two years, and we moved deafharvest.org from another registrar to DirectNIC. We also switched to a new host, Harpeth Technology Group, LLC. and we are very pleased with these changes so far. We set up the website so that the .com address points to the .org address, and the server will automatically open .org.
In addition to our problems online (being down since November), I, DeeAnn, made a huge mistake the end of October by changing something in the registry of my home computer and locked myself out. As a result, the computer had to be wiped clean, and all programs reinstalled. Unfortunately, the email address book was lost. Some of the addresses had been stored in other places, but there are many emails from conventions that may not be found. Lesson learned: “Never touch the registry without your "techie" person sitting next to you, and backup the address book every month.â€
DeeAnn and her daughter, Victoria, displayed Deaf Harvest materials at the Deaf Nation Expo event in Atlanta on May 13th. We did not sell a lot of materials, but we did make some great contacts and had opportunity to meet over 4,000 people. Plans are to add some new sale items for this years’ Expo event in May including Bibles, gift items, and religious tattoos (for the kids). We have decided to discontinue the sale of the butterfly posters, but use the rest of them as auction items for these events. In preparation for these conventions, we had a large banner made for Deaf Harvest International, Inc with the wheat symbol. Our former sign was getting old and needed to be replaced with something more professional.
We gave Bibles to some Deaf individuals in need of a Bible that is easy for them to read.
Additional Bibles have been purchased to sell through Deaf Harvest. The two Bibles we have chosen are the FCA Game Plan Bible and the International Children’s Illustrated Bible.
We learned from our dear friend, Noah Butler from New Orleans, that during Hurricane Katrina, his church building was filled with water to 6 feet. When they returned to the church to see if there was anything left salvageable, he discovered the “Lord, Teach Us to Pray†teaching materials had not been damaged at all. Praise God! He has since moved to Texas to begin a Deaf Ministry there. As a result of the hurricane and being displaced from his home and community, he did not have the funds at this time to purchase the “Prayer Walking†materials. At the Lord’s direction, we gave him the teaching package, free of charge. What an awesome thing to know - God’s mighty Hand protected these materials from harm, even from a violent storm like Katrina.
The next Bible Study, “Lessons from the Holy Land ", is still in process. The power point is about 1/3 finished and the outline for the lessons has been set. Some of the script is complete, but much more needs to be added. This Bible study will include Scripture references associated with the Holy Land sites, actual pictures from Israel, maps, charts, and discussion questions for each lesson. I learned so much from my visit to the Holy Land - pictures I had formed in my mind while reading and studying the Bible, I found to be incorrect. I will show you those lessons I learned and clear up some of those incorrect mental pictures. You will want to plan to get this one.
As you can see God continues to do amazing things through this ministry in spite of the roadblocks we have had to deal with this year. There are untold stories of how God has multiplied our efforts in ways that we may never hear about on this side of heaven, and yet those events are storing up treasures in heavenly places. There are Deaf people in countries all over the world that have been reached this year with the gospel message of Jesus Christ through our direct and indirect ministry. None of this would be possible without the constant prayer and financial support we receive on a monthly basis. To you, we give our most sincere thanks, and know that God will not forget your sacrifices for Him. We want to encourage you to come back often, especially to the missionary pages, and pray for Deaf work world-wide. There is much work to be done in God’s Harvest of Deaf souls. You can participate in that work by clipping Campbell's labels, donating personal care items such as hotel sized shampoo and conditioner or donating money to this ministry, and by praying for His mighty power to be poured out in those countries.
May God bless you for your obedience, and at the same time burden you with the reality that so many Deaf around the world have yet to hear about Jesus for the very first time. Thank you for your prayers this past year. Please, keep on praying, that we will have His wisdom in how to proceed in the future, and that He would receive the glory and honor for whatever is accomplished in His name.
We give God all the glory for allowing us to have the honor of working in His harvest again this year. We saw God do some mighty and wonderful things. We are expecting more things this year and I am....
Honored to be a worker in His Harvest,
Mrs. DeeAnn Harmon
Mrs. DeeAnn Harmon
