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June 2005
"Many are the plan's in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails" Proverbs 19:21 This verse encouraged me this morning as I was reminded of what an awesome God we have and that His purpose is all that matters. We may make plans and set our heart on one thing, but unless our plans are according to His purpose, they are futile in terms of eternity. I'm glad it's not up to me to figure things out. Well, I've completed about three months of language study and as would
be expected, am thoroughly confused as to what I'm communicating. But
I'm certain that I must be gaining some ground and this coming week language
and culture consultants are coming in to my village to evaluate the progress
that my coworker and I are making. They are part of New Tribes Mission
and will help us to see what areas we are progressing well in and what
direction we should be going next. Please pray for us all this next week
that the consultants would have wisdom in the guidance that they give
us and that we would be able to speak clearly the things that we've learned
in order to give them a true estimation of where we are at in this learning
process. Some other news is that last Friday night I got to experience some serious lightening up close and personal. Lightening is not at all uncommon here, as most bush missionaries will tell you. We tend to be like a magnet for lightening, having more metal and electrical equipment than any of the other houses in the "neighborhood", and also from being up on a high point. I don't really like thunder storms anyway and the stuff I've seen here is way worse than anything I've experienced before. So on Friday, the storm rolled in and we had one close lightening strike that blew a hole in our washing machine as well as our porch that it was sitting on. Besides the washer and the damage to the porch, it also seems to have burned out the thermostat on our refrigerator, but I'm SO thankful to the Lord that no one was hurt and am amazed that our solar panels, batteries, and inverter all came through it unscathed. Please be praying, too for the Believers here in my village. Out of the many that heard the Gospel when it was first presented and professed faith in Christ, there are only a few that are faithfully walking with the Lord today. The majority of the others are either no longer interested in learning about God, or else they are pursing a works based religion that fits so well with their animistic background. Pray that the Lord would give us wisdom in how to encourage the faithful few and how to challenge the rest. Right now, it's hard for me to do much in the way of either encouragement or challenging until I learn their language better. My prayer is that I will learn quickly so that I can be involved in discipleship of the women and helping to build up the church here in my village. Thanks so much to all of you that have been so faithfully praying for me and supporting me over here. I am so very grateful to you all and want you to know what a vital role you are playing in the Lord's work here. THANK YOU!!! Because of His Love,
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