“And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.” (I Samuel 30:6)
Have you noticed how easy it can be to become discouraged, especially when circumstances are beyond our control?! It could be the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one, or it could be a health issue that we never saw coming! Way out of nowhere (probably the left field) came this thing called a COVID virus. Yikes! As if the Lord did not know! The past several months have been challenging, to say the least! We are greatly encouraged in the Lord and are rejoicing in His blessings.
We rejoice that there have been no COVID cases here in Tasmania for two months. We rejoice to see people beginning to get past the fear of the virus that made it difficult for us to speak to them. With the warmer weather, we hope to find more people out and about. We rejoice in the fact that our church can meet together for all services, including our weekly prayer meeting. Praise the Lord, the enthusiasm of our church folk who turn out for soul winning has not waned, and even during the times of stricter regulations that kept us from visiting homes, they were still faithful to distribute tracts in letterboxes (permitted in Australia).
We rejoice that we were able to catch up with Sharnie, the young single mom we led to the Lord last year. We had not seen her for several months. She was happy to see us, which was encouraging. We are praying she will be able to visit the church soon with her children.
Tasmania is still closed for travel from other countries and even mainland Australia. This is about the time that the seasonal workers from Vanuatu come to work on the strawberry farm. We have had Bible studies with them the last few years and have been able to win some of them to the Lord. They were delayed in getting back home to Vanuatu at the end of last season because of COVID restrictions. We are not sure that they are going to be allowed in the country now because of the lockdown. Please pray that they will be allowed back in and that we will be able to resume the Bible studies.
We are rejoicing in some good news that Laura got today. She had been on a five-week break from her chemotherapy treatments. The oncologist said the CT scan from last week showed the breast tumor and the spots on her lung have not grown from the last scan several weeks ago. Praise the Lord! She has to see the oncologist in a month, but for now, she is still on a break from the chemotherapy and even had the PICC line removed.
Prayer Requests
1. That Coastline Baptist Church will continue to draw visitors who are ready to listen to the Gospel
2. That Phil, Morris, Sandy, Shobbi, Samuel, Matt, Brad, Brendan, and Jesus will accept Christ as Saviour
3. That the West Tamar outreach will see visitors come and become a church plant
4. That Laura will continue to improve in her health and that the cancer would be completely eliminated
Thank you for believing in us in our perseverance in reaching the lost.
In His great love and mercy,
Bro. Andrew Steers
