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| Paul, Jubab and Deb on September 7, 2013 |
but it HAS and us Howells are on our way back to Aussie on Home Assignment, Lord
willing in December!
The past four years have been an incredible journey and some of the highlights are:
- Jubab has grown from an 11 year old boy in Grade 6 into a 15 year old‘man’ who will soon be starting Grade 10!
- The Gospel has continued to spread through the church here in Lapoc with 4 new churches planted during the past 4 years and about 8 new outreaches started.
- There have been 9 new church leaders raised up over the past 4 years and 423 baptisms.
- There have been four new church buildings built during the past four years: Tinaytayan, San Aquino, Tagbak and Lantod.
- There are new books of the Bible that have been added to the Tala-Andig scriptures: Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians and Colossians is only a couple of week’s work away from being completed!
1. Christmas in Brisbane with both Paul and Deb’s family which will be very
special after many years apart! We are so thankful for the improvement in
Deb’s Dad’s cancer.
2. Move to Ballina in January and set up house. Jubab is looking forward to
going back to his school there and to enjoying a bit more freedom then the
dangers here allow him. (Recently he was looking forward to watching a
game of basketball – the come-back game of his favourite player after a
long time out with an injury – so he was very excited. Halfway into the
second quarter, a gun battle between enemy clans broke out about 500 m
away from our house. That was the end of watching the basketball game
for the evening. Hopefully this won’t happen in Ballina! Danger and
uncertainty is just part of life up here and is often stressful.
3. Catch up with friends, church family and partners in the work of the Gospel
at the first possible opportunity!
4. Write a couple of books? Hopefully! This has been a dream of ours to do for
a few years now and maybe this Home Assignment year we can make some
headway on this dream.
5. Enjoy some quiet time with the Lord and with each other. We are feeling
pretty battle-weary.
Half-way through the year - about June 2014 - we hope to return to Lapoc to
encourage the church leaders and to visit the churches, and then also again in
December 2014.
We praise God for your faithful prayers and partnership in the work here over this
past four years – it has been a huge journey – and we ask for your prayers for us as
there is so much unknown for us in this next year, a lot of adjustments that we will
have to make and much that we will have to trust the Lord for.
May God’s peace and joy fill your hearts!
