We sure did! Our loving Heavenly Father blessed us with three weeks with Esther and Curtis and the grandkids in Nova Scotia.
We had a lot of fun together — soccer games and practices, a couple of trips to the shore, celebrating Esther’s birthday and mine (Steve’s) and witnessing the famous Bay of Fundy tidal bore. We’ll share just a few pictures here but if you do Facebook, you can click here to see the photo album that Eida put together.
Natalie is now in grade 8, Reuben in 7th, Kaylie in 4th and Kegan in Kinder. They’re growing up so fast!
After we returned to Texas, and saw the solar eclipse (on TV), we were warned that Harvey could cause flooding in the Austin area. Fortunately, all we experienced was a weekend of thunderstorms and gusty winds. As you know, they had historic flooding in Houston and the rest of the gulf coast.
Then it was Irma‘s turn. The Ethnos360 mission home offices are in Sanford, Florida. A lot of tree limbs broke in that area, bringing down power lines but, by God’s grace, there were no injuries reported and no serious structural damage to our mission offices or the missionaries’ homes, as far as we know.
Regarding the earthquake in Mexico, we’ve gotten word that some of the students in our Mexico City training center are from Chiapas and Oaxaca, the most hard-hit states, but we don’t have any details about how their families and friends have been affected. Please pray for them.
Spanish Language Resources
Good news! We’ve practically completed the checking and formatting of the 7th volume of the new revision of Edifiquemos Sobre Cimientos Firmes(Building on Firm Foundations), with the Bible lessons for 1 & 2 Thessalonians and Revelation. It’s good to finally have all 7 of those volumes in the hands of our cross-cultural church planters.
Of course, there are always more big projects on the horizon. For regions where it is taught that a revelation in 600 AD supercedes the Bible, a more comprehensive beginning-to-end outline of the story of redemption is being developed with the working title of “From Eternity to Eternity.”
The 800 lb gorilla on my virtual desk right now is the migration of our Spanish Resources library from the old NTM members’ website to a SharePoint site which has been set up for our Global Partners around the world. Unfortunately, the move can’t be automated — it has to be done one upload at at time, so it will require patience and perseverance.
Living by faith
In the last few months, we have been notified by several supporters that they will soon be decreasing or discontinuing our support. As things stand now, we will be losing $600/mo. of support by the end of the year.
The Lord has been totally faithful in supplying our needs for these 37 years since we first quit our “civilian” jobs and moved to Baker City, Oregon, to train with NTM.
I just turned 63 in July, so I’m two years away from Medicare and 3 years from Social Security, according to the current charts. Eida is a bit younger than I. 🙂
This is not a physically demanding ministry — no more days of hiking jungle trails. It only requires a sound mind, eyes to see and fingers to type. I’d like to keep contributing as long as I can, regardless of when it is determined that our official retirement status should begin; we just need a livable situation for our senior years.
This is not an appeal to you for funds — you have given very generously for a long time and we wouldn’t ask that you do more. We’re just asking that you pray with us that we would be sensitive to our Father’s leading as we make decisions about how to proceed and for Him to continue to supply in His perfect way.
We should mention that just as my anxiety level was beginning to rise about this (along with my blood pressure), we received several unexpected generous gifts that came just in time to cover the bills for Eida’s retina repair surgery and for some tests I needed for my long-postponed physical.
What a loving and reassuring reminder from the Lord that He is watching over us. Praise His Name! Thank you to those who gave and to each of you who gives each month to make it possible for us to serve God in this way.
Your partnership means more to us than we can express. May the Lord meet your needs abundantly according to His riches in glory,
Steve & Eida Irwin
Spanish Language Resources Ethnos360.org
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