“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.” Eph. 3:20,21
What a joy it has been to return to the Simbari ministry and discover all that God has been accomplishing in our absence this year! He continues to remind us that this is HIS work and HE is the One who is building HIS Church. We arrived last week along with our son, Simon and a team from our home church in CA, and were met with singing, hugs, and flower leighs. One of the Bible teachers cried loudly when he hugged Simon, because it had been four years since he had been here, and when he left they didn’t know if they would ever see him again.
The team was able to accomplish a huge amount of work on our house and David’s office as the jungle and mold tend to try and take over while we are gone. We are not getting any younger, so it can be quite overwhelming and time consuming to do on our own, thus delaying us from getting back into Bible translation work.
The Lord answered the prayers of many and gave us great weather the whole week so the team was able to spend a lot of time outdoors with the Simbari people showing them the love of Christ by spending time with them. On Sunday after church we all hiked down to a river and had the amazing privilege of observing 15 men, women and children being baptized and sharing of their faith in Christ alone. (More about that to come!)
It was a very emotional goodbye when the team left, but our Simbari sister, Ellen encouraged us by saying, “Well, now we all need to get busy doing God’s work in anticipation of the coming of Christ. In Heaven there will be no more sorrows or goodbyes.”
We really do appreciate your prayers as we start back into Bible translation this week. We heard that there is a translation checker who may be able to help us in October with the final check on several New Testament books so that we can get them printed. So, we will be working on getting those finalized and ready for checking.
We recently received word from our longtime co-worker, Lori Morley, that she will not be returning to ministry in the Simbari. We are so thankful for the 17 years of friendship and service that we’ve had together, she will be greatly missed. Please pray for her in this time of transition.