Weep with those who weep......

Hope bankrupt.

Heaviness and pain and weeping.

Here is our dear sister Aysa,

tears glistening on her eyelashes,

heart almost too heavy to bear,

as she looks down on the beautiful and lifeless form

of her firstborn baby, a little boy,

born just a few hours earlier during the previous night. 

Mark, the grieving Dad, tried to cover his aching heart

with keeping busy, making the little coffin for his son and

the saddest moment: putting that perfect, little body into the coffin

and nailing the lid on and putting it into the ground.

We talked to them a week ago today, had them over for lunch after the Sunday morning meeting as we had been away during the birth and death of their little son. They were in the kitchen with us helping us to get lunch ready and we shared tears together and talked all about the events of that night and about the following days and nights and about what they were feeling and thinking.

One of the things that we asked them was, “What has God used to comfort your hearts in this time since your baby died?” Mark told us about how the story of Job keeps coming back to his thoughts and heart and how he keeps hearing God saying to him, “Trust Me just like Job trusted Me.”

And Aysa said God keeps saying to her, “Keep on, go through this.....keep trusting Me.”

We were so blessed in the midst of heavy hearts and tears to see Mark and Aysa trusting God through this time. They have been married for less than a year, and both of them are involved in ministry. Mark is a bible teacher and goes out each week to teach in the outreaches and Aysa is training to be a scripture teacher in the schools. 

So please pray for them as you think of them in the rawness of their grief and pray that they will continue to have hearts that trust God no matter what.

 

“He heals the broken in heart,

And bindeth up their wounds.”

Psalm 147:3

Aysa’s heart is grieving and wounded but God is healing her, binding up her wounds and her spirit is still strong and her and Mark continue on serving and trusting.....

PLEASE PRAY for continued healing for them and for each one here whose heart is broken and wounded.

 

Church Building in San Aquino - Finally!!

This is the old church building in San Acquino – which looks pretty pathetic but this was the venue through which almost 100 people listened each week to God’s Word, where they heard the Gospel for the first time, and where they started growing in the knowledge of God’s will for their lives and in their desire to serve our Lord Jesus!
 

But things happened - they outgrew this building, someone stole the tarp off the roof.....

But God worked marvelously and provided this beautiful block of land

for the believers in San Aquino. And here is their new church building

going up – a beautiful solid, building – nestled in a quiet place, near clear running

water, close to the village, but enough distance that the noise will not disturb

them as they study His Word. 

This will be the center for their meetings and for their bible studies, for teaching the children,

gathering for prayer, discipling groups of women, training new bible teachers – of which there are an abundance of inSan Aquino. The church here is thriving and is very fertile ground for the Word. Already the local church leadership though young in the Lord, are showing remarkable ability to teach and disciple and there is a growing hunger in this place amongst the unbelievers to join this band of believers and to find out what has happened in their lives as there is such

evident changes and wonders happening in their lives.

God is building His church......not the building but the people......and He is also providing them with infrastructure and buildings needed like this one. San Aquino is about 45 minutes drive from Lapoc on a ROUGH road - it is becoming an outstation of the work here and additional buildings are probably going to be built here as we continue training and sending out teachers (and hopefully missionaries) 

from there.

We are hoping to build more church building like this in other places where the number of believers is growing later on this year. As you can imagine, it is a huge job for Paul, getting the materials together, coordinating the purchasing of and trucking of innumerable loads of cement, roofing material, hardiflex, gravel, sand and on and on.

Your prayers are hugely needed......

Welcome Ben and Leonie!

 

Ben and Leonie have arrived here in Lapoc!!!!
THANK YOU for all your prayers for them:
For their preparations
For their wedding
For their travel
For all the details that had to be worked out......
After all your prayers – well....here they are!!!
And now, they need your continued prayers.
It is not easy to be plunged into a new country, into a remote village, into a place where
there is nowhere to go out, no places to shop, no family or friends around, everyone speaks
a different language, you have to make your own bread, and you see things and hear things
every day that sound and look foreign......and all this on top of not even having been married for
a month yet!!
Ben started classes on Monday and Jubab has been really enjoying having Ben for his
teacher!!!



It is nearly the end of their second week of school
and everything is going great.
Leonie has been doing a marvelous job of organizing
their first household as a married couple and baking bread
and settling in. Today they will be happy to see some of
the landscape more clearly as for the first few days
all they saw was fog.
Thank you for your continued prayers for Ben and Leonie and praise God with us that because they are here, we had a huge week on the translation and were able to work 10 hour days!!! We got a whole chapter of Romans finished by yesterday as well as updating our Tala-Andig dictionary which we use extensively while we translate. And today we made a lot of progress into our second chapter for the week!!! All this because Ben and Leonie are here as without them on the team, our progress on the translation would be seriously slowed down.

Thank you for all your prayers over the years for the fantastic teachers who have team-worked with us,
Julie, Jessie, Jane, Barb.....and now Ben and Leonie!! God is SO AWESOME!!