The Empty File Folder

When I, John, was in Bible school, one of our classes was dedicated to praying for the missionaries on the field. Each missionary family had a file folder and in them were kept the prayer letters that they sent to the school. During class we were assigned missionaries to pray for and we were given their file folder to read their letters for prayer requests. One time I was given a folder that was completely empty! I questioned how I could pray for someone if I didn’t know anything about them. It was very discouraging. The son of the family I was given happened to be at the school, so I asked him about the empty file folder. I will never forget his response, “The missionaries with the empty file folders are the ones that need the most prayer. They are so busy that they don’t have time to write.”

We have not written in quite a long time and we want to apologize for our “empty file folder.” We covet your prayers and desire to improve our connection, so we would like to begin writing shorter notes to you more frequently. Thank you so much for sticking with us and hanging onto our “empty file folder.” Thank you also for your prayers; we could not survive in this work without them!

John & Melanie