“. . . who knoweth whether thou art come . . . for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)
It is hard to believe that six weeks have passed since we left the United States! We came to our home country for the primary reason of processing our immigration paperwork for India, but the Lord had other plans for us also.
A closing church, which had been without a pastor, asked if we could help them while we are waiting on our paperwork process. The church has been without constant, active leadership for about a year and a half and, as a result, has dwindled to a just a few people. The church closed its doors but had recently reopened.
We have been thrilled to jump in and serve the Lord with them for the past six weeks now. It is so exciting to see how God is working in this ministry! The church has moved from one service per week to recently adding a Sunday school hour and a midweek service. Our group is very small but growing. We recently had our first soul-winning time. A group of 14 of us went door knocking and saw 5 people make professions of faith! We are so thankful for these wonderful people who love the Lord and want to spread the Gospel, regardless of their struggles.
How thankful we are for your love and support of our family and ministry. You make it possible for us to serve where God has placed us.
Adjusting
Things are so much different here than we remembered, but we are slowly getting re-acclimated. The kids have so many new tastes, smells, sights, and sounds around them. Some they really love and some . . . well, not so much! The most common complaints, however, are the extremely high humidity, the heat, and the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes here seem to have been equipped with homing devices; no matter what precautions we employ, they just seem to know where to find us. Our poor kids’ extremities are covered with blisters and blemishes— they have polka-dot legs!
Chikungunya
The church has been in a serious state. There is an outbreak of Chikungunya fever here (a disease similar to Dengue fever). Mosquitoes are the agents of spreading this virus. In recent days many of our people have suffered or are suffering from it.
Our Current Ministry
The church has been in a serious state of decay for some time now and needs a lot of both spiritual and physical repair. We are praying that the church will stabilize and begin a re-growing process. We will also be doing much construction work to get the building useable and up to safety codes. Please pray with us. We certainly welcome any volunteer(s) willing to help us with construction.
Paperwork Process
Our Indian immigration process is moving along slowly, nonetheless, moving. We have been able to acquire preliminary documents for two of our kids thus far and still have one pending. Please pray for God’s timing in this issue.
Prayer Needs
• Stability and growth of the church
• Major building repairs for the church
• New pastor for the church
• Reconciliation for the previous pastor
• Speediness of preliminary paperwork
• Acquisition of the necessary documents to gain permanent status in India
Missionary #6703
