It has been a long while since we last wrote, so sorry! Our life in Dinangat keeps us busy and we tend to forget to share about how we are seeing God at work here in the Dinangat church. We are so grateful to God for all that we get to see and do here. Today we want to let you in on some of those things. Our dear co-workers, the Markleys, are much better than us at writing those things out in English, so we are using what they wrote just recently about the Dinangat happenings.
We want to thank you so much for your continued involvement in the desired outreach of our neighboring village. Though reports still fluctuate somewhat, we have come to an agreement to begin our relationship with them through a literacy outreach first. While the Bible teaching is still meeting some resistance, most of them are very willing and excited about the idea of us (or rather, the Dinangat literacy teachers) running a literacy program so that they will learn to read and write in their own language. Usually we would not begin this program without a starting date for Bible teaching planned, but through much prayer and conversation with our leadership, we have decided to go ahead with the program and ask the Lord to use it to really begin to open hearts through pre-evangelism. The prayer is that through the literacy teachers (who are among our strongest believers) through their testimonies and love, through their very deliberate use of questioning to stir up their thinking concerning the Lord, their personal origins, their sin and consequences thereof, through this very intentional time (as well as teaching them to read and write 🙂 ) God would bring them to a point where they will long to know the Truth. As we all know, the ability to read is an absolute vital aspect of our Christian walk, vital for learning His Word, knowing His character, feeding ourselves on the Bread of Life that we may abound in our knowledge of Him and His grace. So while we are absolutely helping to meet a very felt need for them, we know that the goal of being literate has much more eternal worth than what they are aware of. Please pray, pray, pray! Pray for wisdom as we (the Dinangat church) choose which teachers will go, pray for grace and strength for them and their families (the literacy course is 5 months long and will require MUCH traveling back and forth on the 3 hour trail!) And pray, of course, that many seeds will be planted and the Lord would draw these dear ones to Himself through this course!
The two believing villages continue to grow and discipleship opportunities abound! But truly, we are excited to watch what the Lord is doing and how He is impacting their lives, their culture and their families! We recently have been studying 1 Corinthians with the home village and have seen much growth in understanding. One couple, whose desire to serve Him has been growing by leaps and bounds, recently confessed that as a couple they have not been behaving in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. Through the Holy Spirit’s work they have committed to honor each other the way His Word demonstrates. They’ve ‘apologized’ to one another and ‘shaken hands’ ( a very cultural way to put past wrongs behind you, but not very cultural in husband/ wife relationships, we praise the Lord for the way His Word is breaking cultural boundaries!) On the other hand, one of our precious friends and translation helpers recently had her arm broken by her husband, (we’re not sure if he’s a believer or not.) He’s been judgmental of her change from the beginning and likes to egg her on to see if she’ll revert to her old ways. Please pray for these young, precious believers! Pray that their faith will stand in the trials of mockery and for the grace to chose love and wisdom instead of anger and self righteousness! Their struggles are not too much different than our own!
Thank you for your partnership with us, we appreciate all of you so much!