Hope

As the new year began, we were able to get out of the city and enjoy a few days at the beach with another family. It was nice to relax and enjoy God’s

nature, the pounding of the waves, sea life in the tide pools and a break from all the work. There was going to be another family, but they were not allowed to come as one of them was sick. It was still nice to be refreshed before getting back to our routine.

As we stated in our last email, we were excited that we were given permission to have face-to-face instruction at Faith Academy. But that permission was contingent that we stayed at the current alert level. With the rise of the Omicron virus and the rise of COVID numbers in our region, on January 4, our province and many others went to a higher alert level. This canceled our face-to-face instruction for the time being, and everyone had to change course to go back to distance learning. We did our in-service on January 7 online as many of our staff were sick, becoming sick, or in quarantine at home. Numbers increased over the second week of January, but recently numbers have leveled off and we are trusting numbers will steadily drop this week.

We still have permission for face-to-face instruction if the Alert Level decreases. Our prayer is that the Covid numbers will drop down and that the officials will change the Alert Level on February 1. Then we can gear up for face-to-face instruction. We are thankful that none of our staff needed to go to the hospital; most cases were very mild.

Please pray for our strength-physical, mental, and emotional–as we approach the two-year mark, since the Philippines went into lock down. Plus pray for hope: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” (Pr. 13:12) But our hope is not resting on circumstances but on the character of God. The God of all hope, who is faithful and true and is always good.

With the high number of COVID cases, we were not allowed to minister at the Butterfly Project, a home for abused girls. Pray that they will be safe and healthy and encouraged during the stricter lock down. The girls have not been out of their facility in over a year. We hope that we will be allowed to minister with them in February.

Thank you for your continued prayer support–that is such an encouragement to us.

Blessings,

Walter and Cheryl Spicer