Dear friends,
the days are counted… it isn’t long before we will leave Germany again on Aug. 17th for another 4 year term. We’ve enjoyed our time a lot here in Germany with our friends and families. And of course that makes it pretty hard to say good-bye and letting go again. But we are so thankful to not have to doubt that we are going to where the Lord wants us to go again… back to our ministry among the Dinangats.
At lot has been going on in our lives during those 8 months we’ve been in Germany. Here are just a few highlights that we thank the Lord for:
• lots of snow in the winter for sledding 🙂
• the birth of our new addition to our family… Mirjam!
• the opportunity to share and challenge people about missions in more than 50 churches and groups
• an absolute gorgeous spring
• after a somewhat hard start Naomi & Rebekka settled into public school better and better
• a nice family retreat with horses
• ….
We’d like to share with you real quick about what’s going on in Dinangat these days. As most of you might remember there has been and still are others from another denomination active in our area. They not only are telling God’s Word in the very shallow trade language which not everybody understands in the village, but also preach a gospel that is 100% based on works. Those people now have send a letter to our co-workers, the Markleys (our other co-workers the Smiths are also on furlough in the US) and threatened that if we would continue to spread “our belief” among the Dinangats that they would kick us out of there (which they don’t have any right to do). They’ve also addressed all of our Dinangat helpers in different letters and basically told them not to help us any longer.
Obviously Satan is trying his best to challenge and to destroy the young Dinangat church. But we know that God reigns, He is sovereign, He is the Lord of Lords. He promised to build His church and NOTHING will be able to hinder Him to do so. So please pray with us especially for wisdom and strength for the Markleys and the Dinangat believers, that they would lean on their Lord and Savior during this time of trial. That God would use it to strengthen their faith and relationship with Him. Please also pray for the ones that wrote those letters, that in this whole process their hearts and minds might understand and believe the truth.
Would you also please pray for our parents and us as the day to say good-bye is getting closer. Naomi and Rebekka are looking forward to their – as they say themselves – trip home. But of course the good-bye from their Omas and Opas will still not be easy.
As soon as we’ll arrive in Dinangat-land, we’ll let you know.
Thank you so much for standing with us in this journey with our Lord.
Together for HIS glory,
Ralf, Elli, Naomi, Rebekka & Mirjam
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