We praise the Lord for the past several months of blessing and encouragement.
We had a good visit from Wade & Deanne and Aubri (18 yrs) and Rob (16 yrs). Deanne, our daughter, and her family are missionaries in Papua New Guinea and they stopped in to visit on their way to the States for a year of home assignment.
It was also good to have our daughter, Dana, visiting with us during that time. Dana was also on her way back to the States for home assignment. During their time here we were able to get away to the beach for a few nights and also spent a little time with them in Kuching, Malaysia. It was so good being together for that little while and getting reacquainted with our grandkids.
On our way up to Kuching by bus, I fell out of the door when exiting from bus at the Malaysian border and broke a bone in my left arm near the wrist. We were able to continue on to the town of Kuching where there are good medical clinics and doctors. After the doctor confirmed with an x-ray that my arm was broken, he was able to set the bone and put a cast on it in his office.
It has now been a little more than 6 weeks since my fall, and I am now starting to adjust back to life without the cast, although my wrist is stiff and somewhat painful to use very freely. While I am able to handle shifting gears to drive our car, I am not able to ride my motorcycle yet.
The last week of July we attended a church conference interior in the area where we used to work. It was so good to spend time with many of our Punan friends, and others there from three other area tribal churches. I asked one of the cooks how many they were preparing meals for and she said “300, including the children”. We were able to meet in a newly constructed church building which was adequate for the size of the group assembling during the 3 days of meetings.
We are back in town at this time and picking up on our routine ministries. Our town group has increased recently with the addition of two new families. They will be getting orientation for this part of the country before being allocated to tribal works. We also have several of our regular town team families newly returning from home assignment.
It has been a blessing to see our national churches growing to the place where they can be given more responsibility for continuing and expanding the work of missions. This is a growing period for both them and those of us in the foreign missionary ranks. The need is great for finding God’s direction in how to proceed in these areas for ongoing church development, teaching and outreach into surrounding areas.
One big challenge for our national churches is taking the gospel cross culturally into neighboring tribal areas. It is a concern on the foreign missionaries part that we can assume more of a supportive roll, and the national churches take the greater initiative. We urge you to pray for the Lord’s direction in these endeavors.
On a note of personal need, Jenny and I are facing a critical period in our missionary career. Our current visa is due the end of this year for another 5 year renewal. We are looking to the Lord for what he has for us in that. We are also coming to the end of our current house rent contract. Our landlord prefers to sell this house and will not offer it to us for re-renting. We are needing to find another place to rent soon.
Assuming that our visa is extended, we will then be making plans to return to the States in early 2011 for our home assignment. We need you to join us in prayer for both the financial needs these items will incur, and God’s clear direction concerning our future ministry here in Indonesia. Thank you so much for your faithful support of us!
Yours by His Grace,
Dave & Jenny