We
had a safe arrival back in Mindanao – thank you for praying!
Jen
and Udi and kids came out from Cauyunan to spend a couple of days with us and
to celebrate Jen’s 39th birthday – hard to believe that it is
26 years since Jen came to our family as our permanent foster daughter! We had
a wonderful couple of days with them and are very excited about a new outreach
that Udi is heading up in another new region - Baongon region. We had some
great hours talking about the amazing things God is doing in that area and
about how the churches in Cauyunan and Tumpagon are rallying together and
helping with some of the costs of this outreach. It is a tough trip to even
make it in there and we are so thankful for Udi and his team who are excited
and eager to preach the Gospel and who are giving up two days of their week to go
there every Thursday and Friday.
Of note a key shaman (witch doctor) there
along with many other people have given themselves to following God’s word and
they even made a fire and burnt their amulets and other things they used in
their worship of the evil spirits. God is so powerful!!! Our son in law is not
the most gifted teacher but his heart is fantastic and he serves in an amazing
way and God has used him along with his fellow servants to plant quite a few
churches. I guess the truth is – if we allow God to use us, He will.
This
weekend we are travelling to a big church conference in one of our regions and
we would love your prayers for this time, there are a lot of people travelling
from afar to get there, a lot of preparation for catering, there are speakers
(including Paul) preparing to share the Word and there are new believers
excited about getting baptized during this time.
Today
we launched into our new project of writing new Evangelism Materials. Our alarm
didn’t go off at 4:30 as I had miss-set it, but thankfully we were woken up at
4:40 am by our little beloved doggy Ducky, so we didn’t miss it by too much.
The water from the tap was just a trickle this morning as water pressure here
can be a problem, but we are old hands at catching trickles of water in a
bucket and bathing in a few dipper-fulls. Getting a cup of coffee took a bit of
effort as the grinder was not functioning properly because our coffee beans got
too old and hard while we were away. 😊 That was
worse than the bird bath shower as we love our coffee in the morning. All the
little hiccups of daily life, hey!
Please
keep praying for us. Church planting and missions always involves struggles and
pressures, attacks from within and attacks from without. Already in just one
week we have been experiencing heart-aches and stresses along with the joys and
the progress. One couple who labour with us in the Gospel were just here this
morning going through some severe testings, overwhelmed almost to the point of
wanting to surrender and leave the work that God has entrusted to them. Our
hours of counseling them, comforting them and reminding them of God’s love and
promises may help them and if we could only just take their hearts and turn
their focus back on Jesus and on His work, how we would love to do that, but it
needs an act of their own wills and their own personal surrendering to the
Lord. So we entrust them to Him and pray, and if you could pray too that would
be such a help.
So
please pray for this couple who are struggling, for the church conference this
weekend, for the baptisms and for our work on the new Evangelism Materials.
But
the BIG PICTURE is our amazing and wonderful God who has us and each one of His
precious children in His hands and no one and nothing can snatch us away from
Him! How awesome is that?!!!!!!
