Fifteen Years of Life & Ministry

On April 16th, my wife and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we took a short break from language study and took a trip from Manila to Palawan where our ministry with NTM began back in the early part of 2003. Beyond enjoying a quiet weekend getaway, this trip was also very special in that this was the first time we had returned to our first NTM ministry assignment in five years.

During the two plus years that we served at NTM’s guest house in Palawan we saw the center undergo a number of changes, which included the building of two new guesthome facilities for missionaries serving on the island. During the five years we have been gone the center has continued to undergo changes in an effort to better service the needs of missionaries serving throughout the island. We praise God for the work that He has done there, for the work He is doing there, and for the work He will do there.

Psalm 90:17
“May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.”
New International Version

Praise & Prayer Points:

1. On March 22nd I completed my first Culture/Language evaluation. Overall I did well but am in need of building vocabulary in order to improve my language ability; “He needs to work on adding a lot more words to his ‘Iceberg’ each week than he currently is adding. We recommend at least 100 new words each week…”. Please pray that I will find success in this area. I do praise God for the great relationships we continue to build within the local church we are attending. In April we attended a Family Camp with MBCC and recently one of the members has taken on the challenge of helping me learn language.

2. Sheila’s last day of school was on March 26. We praise the Lord for all of Sheila’s hard work in school this past year despite the challenges of starting late and being constantly on the move. At her completion of the third grade she received recognition for high academic honors. Please pray for her, and for us, as she will be completely homeschooled for the fourth grade. We praise God for the provision of funds to pay for her curriculum.

3. Cirena has been busy throughout the month of March teaching Sunday School to the kids at MBCC. Besides taking care of the home she also stays busy assisting new missionary families as needed as well as hosting other missionaries in our home as we are able. Please continue to keep our three sons in Albuquerque in prayer, one of whom has had a very difficult time emotionally after being out of work for nearly a year now. We have considered the possibility of returning home for a period of time to encourage him but ultimately in prayer and in further discussion with him and with our NTM leadership we have determined this would not be necessary at this time.

We are tremendously grateful to all that pray regularly and support our ministry financially. While we continue to serve well below our recommended support level, we are grateful for how we have seen God provide through many of you during our greatest times of need. All praise be to God for His magnificent grace despite difficult financial times.