“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of Grace, that we may receive mercy and find Grace to help in time of need.” Heb. 4:16
Dear PRAYing family and friends,
This month I’ve been meditating on an aspect of prayer that the Lord has been teaching me from Exodus 28:29-30. “Whenever he goes into the Holy Place, Aaron shall wear the pouch for making decisions, which bears the names of the sons of Israel, over his heart as a constant memorial before the Lord.” This speaks to me of the serious responsibility God gives us daily as we bring our fellow believers and their needs to the throne room of God in prayer. Aaron bore their names over his heart meaning that this privilege should always be carried out in love and surrender. It should also be constant. It is a serious commitment that we share to uphold one another before the Lord. 1 Peter 2:9 says that we are a royal priesthood, so as priests we also carry our brothers and sisters’s names and pray for one another throughout the week. I’m so thankful that the Lord has raised up for us a great “prayer” team that takes that commitment seriously. In the spiritual battle we are engaged in, we cannot afford to take this lightly.
Oke is now working on filling in some of the early chapters of the Exodus narrative. She also added chapter 26 to her rough draft of Numbers this month. I am continuing content checking and comprehension testing the Numbers verses and still have a little over 3 chapters to go. BUT…this week I took a break from that and did an initial comprehension test on Psalms 1, 8 and 14. I have not done any comprehension testing of Psalms, so this is a new learning curve. It was clear that several verses were not drafted well. Others just needed minor changes to smooth them out. I have much redrafting work to do on those that landed in the first category, but at least now I have some idea of how to rework them.
Oke would like prayer for Grace this month. As you may remember Oke has raised her since she was 18 months old when her mother, Oke’s sister, passed away. A couple of prayer requests for Grace are (1) that she will do well on her final exams for junior high school this spring, and (2) she is tentatively planning to move to the provincial capital for high school in the fall and is looking into the possibility of living in a Christian church dormitory for girls that is on the high school property. The church is also on the same location so she would not have to be driving anywhere in town.
I mentioned last month that the Moi tribal church in Papua had their dedication of their newly printed New Testament on January 4th. Doigumbi Maneapa, one of the tribal church leaders, gave this testimony: “What I am really thankful to the Creator for is this. Wow! Our lives here are totally different! Based on what the Creator has done for us, we now celebrate with dancing, and we rejoice. And with joy we feast. And when I see that I think, ‘Wow, thank you Creator God.’ We could not have thought up the truth out of our own hearts. But it is through the Creator’s book that we are able to see his characteristics / way of doing things, and it is through his actions that our lives have become different. On that basis there, I am thinking ‘Thank you!’ to the Creator. Regarding this book, it’s in our language. It’s ours. But (even more) the purpose contained in it is for causing us to live well. And for that reason, the joy in my heart is beyond words! And it is with that statement, that my talk is now done.”
We are looking forward to visiting one of our long-time partner churches in Bozeman, MT later this month for a few days during their 10-day mission conference if the weather co-operates. Please pray for good connections with new and old friends there.
Election day in our country was this week and while we don’t know who the new president will be, we expect that it will have some ramifications for the ministry of church planting. We pray that the door will remain open for the gospel to go out and change lives.
PRAISE AND PRAYER POINTS:
- Praise for good progress on translation of the Semandang Old Testament
- Praise for the power of fervent prayer for one another
- Pray for safe travel to Bozeman for the upcoming mission conference and good connections there
- Pray for Grace’s schooling
- Pray for the election results in Asia-Pacific
- Continue to pray for the Sekadau Bible which is in the process of being printed
Thank you so much for upholding us in prayer this month! May God richly bless your life,
Darcy Berglund (for Ron and Nita Berglund also)
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