We're going to see our grandkids again soon as March
is just around the corner now that November is already here. This is our
delightful little Jhamaica who is 4 and her little brother Lloyd (having fun
with Grandma in the picture below) who is 2, the youngest of our four grandchildren.
(We just wanted to show them off!)
Paul has been spending a lot of time today organizing our schedule and
contacting people in the Philippines in preparation for this coming visit in
March. Amongst other things we are going to be having a weekend with the elders
from all the churches along with their wives which will be packed with
fellowship, bonding time as teams and lots of prayer time and planning
meetings.
We want the elders to tell us where they think we should locate and what
areas they feel we could most benefit the churches as we move back full-time in
2017 once Jubab is finished high school and settled somewhere in Uni or
College.
Would you please pray for Atu and Boding, a brother and sister from the Ricodo church?
Their 12 year old son Jorics, was hit on the head from a falling coconut and
died from the injury. He was buried over the weekend and they are left in great
grief and shock. Boding is one of the praise team and also one of the ladies
who teaches scripture at the school in Kalamalamahan. In another church - the new church at Dungguan
- the believers are going through sickness and loss: please pray for the family
of Tony who the Lord took after a time of sickness. He is an older man but was
a new believer in the Lord. Pray also for Helen who opened up her home to us
when we went to Dungguan, she is having blood pressure problems and pain in her
chest. Also a man who is newly saved whose name is Juan, has cancer. We have
personally been to Dungguan and it is a very isolated and poor community and
medical help is a difficult to reach.
Sickness, grief and trials are
nothing new in this world but the Word of God brings something new and
wonderful and that is the knowledge of Him and of His love and the help that is
constantly near as we walk with Jesus and are empowered by Him. This new and
exciting journey is sustaining hundreds of our brothers and sisters. Yesterday
in the Lapoc church, the pastors there: Ronnie, Rodil and Duyduy started
teaching the book of 1 Timothy which we only finished translating this year. It
was only the introduction but already we have heard of the excitement of the
congregation to hear this new part of scripture and to learn new things in
their walk with God. Some we heard were thumbing through their copies of the partial
Tala-Andig New Testament and were saying, "How come our Bible doesn't have
1 Timothy in it?" They were disappointed to only be able to read it on the
church power point.
The wonderful news though is that we are right on schedule again and
completed our translation goals for the month of October (PLEASE KEEP PRAYING -
YOUR PRAYERS ARE VITAL!) and by the end of this week, 2 Corinthians will be
totally finished and we will be printing new partial Tala-Andig Bibles that
will have almost 70% of the NT in them rather than the 54% which they currently
have and this means that they will then be able to read 1 Timothy in their own
homes and carry it with them wherever they want.
We are already drafting the book of Hebrews and are up to chapter 3.
Please pray that by the end of November we will have up to and including
Hebrews 6 finished.
