Jen and Udi are proud
parents of their fourth baby and second son!!!
Baby Lloyd arrived safely
on April 5th at around 8:30 pm!!!
He weighed 6.6 lbs. and is
quite a tiny little man but very strong and very alert. He arrived 15 days
early but we praise the Lord that he is healthy and doing well.
Lloyd is the only one of
our four grandchildren to be born in a hospital but it was God’s leading as
Jen’s blood pressure shot up during the delivery and she had to be given
anti-convulsent meds intravenously. Baby Lloyd was in distress and inhaled
meconium during the delivery so both he had his Mummy are on antibiotics.
Udi, Jen and bubs arrived
here Monday the 8th, and the family stayed here until this last Tuesday and then went home
for a short time to Cauyunan. Jen and the children will be coming back on the
first of next month to stay with us for a further 2 weeks. Jen’s blood pressure is still high and she is still on the meds that she was discharged with
from the hospital.
While we were waiting for
baby Lloyd’s arrival, the other three grandchildren were staying with us and the
youngest - 22 month old Jhamaica - was busy clowning it up around here. She is
just a doll and is constantly inventing funny things to say and to do!
The arrival of her Mummy, Daddy and little brother however rocked baby Jhamaica’s
little world for awhile. Her first reaction was excitement and joy at seeing
her Mummy and Daddy but as the evening went on she was just devastated to see
her Mummy holding another baby and she cried like she was broken-hearted. There
were a lot of tears during the first 24 hours or so.
But being the joyful little
person that she is, she bounced back pretty quickly, is getting pretty
proud of herself for being a ‘big sister’ now and likes giving her baby brother cuddles!
So this is our big, BIG
news and joy – another baby added to our family!
This is a
picture of our Lapoc missionary team last week. From the left there are the Ben
and Leonie and their bubs, then there is James and JingJing and their two boys,
then there is Rodil and Annie and their two children and at the end Wingwing
and Hazel and their three children and you would have recognized the three of
us.
This team the
dynamics have changed because James and JingJing are now back in their home
church of Tumpagon and a new family have come for missionary experience and
exposure who we don’t have a picture of yet.
The
transition between the two families went smoothly which is a praise point and
our new team members seem to be settling in well.
Please Pray This Week For........
Hazel
and Wingwing who are in the midst of a family heartbreak because of the
death of Hazel’s oldest brother who died of dengue fever last week. The
funeral was last week and it was very difficult for all of them as the
brothers and sisters were all very close to each other. Also, Hazel
and their daughter Gwen both have health concerns they need to see a
doctor about soon.
Roldan
and Inday and their children Jelo, Jannie and Faith, newly arrived on the
team, that they will feel at home and that they will be strong in the Lord
and shine as lights during their sojourn here.
Annie
had a scare with some high blood pressure last week but this week she is
doing better. It must have been because of the hugely busy week they had
and the stress. She and Rodil are praising the Lord today for their
daughter Ching’s 8th birthday. They need much wisdom as they
are on the leadership team of the church here in Lapoc and also in San
Aquino.
Leonie
just had a bad bought of flu but is getting better today. Pray for a full
recovery and for them to feel a freshness even though it has been a hard
slog of recent times.
Us, that we can enjoy our brimming household and have special
family time with our three grandies - Charly, Clint and Jhamaica - and
with inay Bungguy (the mother who took Paul under her wing when we first
arrived in Cauyunan 24 years ago), even though Jhamaica is teething and a
bit out of sorts and even though we have had an additional 23 people this past week for a seminar.
Jenita, who is a tiny 12 year old girl we have taken into our
hearts and also into our home for awhile. She comes from a very difficult
home life and she became a part of our hearts over the past few years as
we helped her to get surgery to correct a twisted foot she had from
cerebral palsy.
Here we sit on a beautiful Lapoc afternoon a few days
ago......crisp air, gorgeous pine trees, work over for the day, out having fun
with our Lapoc missionary team and the camera.
So what have the past days held for us?
Well, Paul pulled off his first ever surprise party
last night! The occasion was to say goodbye to James and JingJing and their two
boys after a year here in Lapoc having exposure to missions. They return
tomorrow to their home in Tumpagon and another young family will replace them –
also from the Tumpagon Church - to have exposure to missions for a year.
Despite the party involving 47 people (mostly all the
bible teachers and their families who James and JingJing have grown very close
to as well as our team), they all got into our home and the food (including a
whole pig that had been roasted on a spit) was all on the table without James
or JingJing having a clue as to what was going on. And when Paul brought them
in through our front door you should have seen their faces!
The huge yell of “SURPRISE” made Ben and Leonie’s baby
Grace scream in fright but everyone else laughed in joy at the genuine surprise
in James and JingJing’s faces and at the tears of joy in James’ eyes.
Apparently after the party was over, they could hardly
get to sleep and talked late into the night about the party they had been
surprised with. James said that no one has ever done anything like that for him
before and it was a special ending to what has been a great year for them.
So that was one of the BIG things that this last few
days has held but apart from this and apart from a big change in our team
dynamics with one family going and another one arriving, well.......there have
been other happenings too. Jubab has been working hard at school and is nearly
finished Term 1. He’s looking forward to a week’s break from school real soon
(and I think Ben is as well!)
Paul is hugely overworked – overseeing a lot of
building projects, coordinating a lot of supply buying for all the building projects,
for the two training seminars per month, for all of our own personal needs and
for the office work – as well as studying and teaching the book of Ephesians in
the church here in Lapoc and our work translating the New Testament. We are
currently working on the book of Colossians as Philippians has been checked and
finalized!!!!
I am having fun planning for the arrival of 3
grandchildren the end of next week - including one still in diapers - who will
be living with us maybe a month while Jen and Udi await the birth of baby #4!!
Jen is giving birth in hospital this time instead of here at home because of
blood pressure problems. I continue to help with discipleship and am also
heavily involved in the translation project. Last week I had a whole day of
training with the scripture teachers and it was a hugely encouraging day with
the ladies.
Health wise, Paul and I have some really good days and
other days when we have trouble with various things that are bothering us but
basically none of our health ‘woes’ are causing trouble enough to slow us down.
We praise the Lord for the amazing way He has kept us well!
My Dad continues on a tablet form of chemo and we are
comforted knowing that there is a perfect plan in this suffering as our God
uses everything in our lives for good.
We are enjoying serving the Lord and enjoying our
adventures as a family and we are so thankful for all that the Lord Jesus has
brought about in our lives.
The scripture that has encouraged us this week is
about His love.....
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger,
or sword…..no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who
loved us.”
In October before we left
to visit my Grandpa, we held a training seminar and since we arrived back the
end of January we have already held three more. It is not the school of
Tyrannus in Ephesus but the hearts of the men and women who are being taught have
the same passion to spread the Good News about the Lord Jesus throughout
Asia.....and they have already taken the Gospel through four different
provinces and to over 30 towns and villages here in this part of Asia.
Paul is sharing with this
group of men and women – elders, pastors, bible teachers, ladies involved in
children’s ministry and elder’s wives – about the importance of being in the
Word, implanting it in their own hearts and letting it flow out from their hearts
as they teach others.
It was three days,
from Monday until late Wednesday night this week, packed full of
study about doctrine, outlines, team teaching, the need for each other, forming
strong ministry teams, discussion time about church planting and anything else
on their hearts......and many other things.
Behind the scenes were many
ladies who were helping everything to go smoothly, who were cooking, making
beds, cleaning.......and other women who were providing technical help with the
Mp3 players, with the computers and power points and with printing study
materials. Not to mention Wingwing who drove many hours to bring everyone here
and who also brought in large quantities of meat, fish and vegetables from out
in town. Paul had the job of making sure everything coordinated and enough food
was ordered and this was huge.
The men and women attending
these training seminars have been taking their study time very seriously!
At the end of the day when
we’d come back to our home and the evening meal was over, some of them
studied late into every night, only slept a few hours and then would be up
again at 2:00 or 3:00am to continue studying. Our home became a hive of
activity during the evenings of little groups here and there, discussing the Word
with each other and of others finding their own corner to study the Word in and
to write and to ponder. We had never seen the likes of it in our 25 years’
experience as missionaries.
We made sure that there was
coffee on 24 hours a day and kept lights on all night in the study areas so
that they could come and go as they pleased.
One of the exercises we did
with them to help them see the benefit of working together as a team was to get
each of them to prepare a message on Acts 3:1-10, and then the ladies who work
here in the office with us encoded all the information from their combined
lessons into the computer to produce one joint lesson. They then took that
lesson and compared it with their own original lesson to see how much more
insight God had given them on that passage from the joint thoughts and
understanding of their whole group together.
They were amazed and very
pleased with the end result of their combined effort – so much so that when the
elders and bible teachers from Cauyunan went back home, they continued to put
into practise what they had learnt here and they set aside one whole day a week
– sometimes going without lunch – to study diligently together as a team the
book of Ephesians so that they could team-teach it to the church. And as a
result they have seen a re-kindled passion for the Word growing in the hearts
of the believers in Cauyunan and some who had become somewhat indifferent to
spiritual things now look forward to gathering as a church each week because
the fervour of their church leaders is becoming contagious.
When the church leaders
from Cauyunan shared this news with us last month, we got teary-eyed and our
hearts were very touched by what God is doing in their lives! And this month,
they have even more news to share because the church leaders in Tumpagon and
Limondà are following their lead and are also setting time aside weekly to come
together as a leadership team and to discuss the scriptures and to learn from
each other.
During these training
seminars, we have been including a couple of the wives each time – so far 6 of
the wives have attended and 4 more will be coming next month – and we have been
encouraging the men to involve their wives in their personal study times and to
see their wives as their number one disciple and themselves as their wives’
number one disciple as well. And we have been hearing some very sweet stories
of how God is bonding these couples together more and more as they study the
Word together and get more involved together in ministry.
Even the young people in
Cauyunan are catching their leaders’ excitement to study the Word and the
number of youth that are meeting together for Bible studies each week is
growing!
Meal times have been fun –
people spread out everywhere at tables and on the floors and lively
conversations – and we do our best to cook as much variety as we can for them.
The smallest group we have had at a meal for these training seminars so
far has been 18 people and the biggest group has been 30 so it hasn’t been too
enormous but still keeps us on our toes and means starting in the kitchen
before the first rays of sun start to appear in the sky.
We believe this year, that
these ‘school’ times in the Word, twice a month, are an undertaking that God
has committed to us to host and to facilitate and to help teach. It is
something that God laid on our hearts last year and He is helping us with more
and more ideas on how to make these times increasingly beneficial.
Please pray for us to have
great wisdom and to have hearts that continually grow in sensitivity to His
voice and to the direction He is leading. A friend shared Isaiah 41:10
with us yesterday and it is a beautiful thought to close this letter with:
Do not fear for I am with
you; Do not anxiously look about you for I am your God; I will strengthen you,
surely I will help you; Surely I will uphold You with My righteous right hand.
