Exciting news this month! Heart-stopping news!!!!
Remember Kaulayanan? That village waaaaaaayyyyyy up the top of a
mountain that we struggled to the top of in February, 2008, with the hopes of
making an agreement with the village leaders to send a team in there to live
and to preach the Gospel. We already had two families from the Lapoc church who
had committed to move up there so that they could reach this area with the Good
News about Jesus. But to our disappointment, the door there was slammed firmly
in our faces and we felt pretty sad and discouraged as we travelled home late
that afternoon and into the evening.
Well God has opened doors there in a different way!!!! God is the one
who is continually knocking on people's hearts, continually seeking..... as we
have been learning in 2 Corinthians (like in ch 5:19-21) which is the hardest
book of the New Testament that we have translated so far. You might be saying,
"Quick - tell us in a nutshell what this heart-stopping news is!"
Well, it started unfolding a couple of weeks ago when a bunch of school
teachers turned up at our place in Lapoc. Not many of the team were home as the
ladies were all out teaching scripture in the schools, but they talked to Rodil
and said that they had come to ask for scripture teachers to come and teach the
Bible in their school in Basak.
In Basak!!!!! Many of the children from Kaulayanan go to school in
Basak!!! Our first thought when we heard this news was to praise God that He
has opened a way for the Gospel to reach Kaulayanan - through the school
children!!!
It is great timing as the scripture teachers in Lapoc have been busy
multiplying themselves and training others to be teachers of the Word and just
last Saturday they had a special lunch to commemorate a year of hard work and
study that these ladies have put in so that they can become proficient at
teaching children the Gospel and in helping them to grow in Jesus.
The Lord helped us greatly through the month of September to achieve our
goal of finishing up to and including 2 Corinthians 4! This was in spite of
Paul's nasal surgery (septoplasty and turbinoplasty) which resulted in a painful
week of recovery.
This month of October, the goal is to finish up to and also including 2
Cor 12:10. Please continue to PRAY, PRAY, PRAY for this!!! We are so delighted
and thankful for the progress in spite of the many hard hours of mental,
physical and spiritual strain in achieving this.
Some
Prayer and Praise Points:
1. Please pray for
the elders and bible teachers in the Dulangan churches as they look to the Lord
to show them where to reach out, that doors will open before them for the
Gospel.
2. Please pray for
the weekly outreach to Gawgawon which has been tough going for the teams from
Tumpagon and Cauyunan.
3. Praise for the
many new believers in our Lord Jesus at the banana plantations and ask for
wisdom for those heading up the teaching that they will have wisdom for the
next step.
4. For our family -
pray that all three of us will walk in the joy of the Lord, that Jubab will
have great wisdom and encouragement and diligence as he starts his HSC subjects
this term, that we will have tender hearts all the time to the Lord's leading.
5. Please pray for
Dad as he continues to go through the renal cancer. He is very anaemic and has
had blood transfusions, but it seems the problem might be due to side-effects
from the chemo.
