Let the packing commence!

Faith Comes By Hearing

This is for those of you who may be interested in hearing what Lingala really sounds like. We are, of course, aspiring to sound this good but just aren't there yet. The organization that produces the audio here is called Faith Comes By Hearing. They create dramatized recordings of the New Testament in various languages and make them available to poor, illiterate and marginalized populations around the world. They focus on regions that may not have a strong history of the written word but where stories are passed down aurally. This particular recording is of the third chapter of the Gospel of John.



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Here we go...

Praise the Lord! The Snyders have finished support-raising and we now have the green light to return to the Congo. We have all purchased tickets for a flight leaving from Chicago on July 25. The four of us will arrive in Paris the next day and leave several hours later on another flight for Bangui, Central African Republic. We are excited to finally have a date set for departure (even though it is almost five weeks away). There is plenty to do until then, though, as we will be buying the remaining supplies, packing, getting visas and even receiving training in facilitating an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) course.

Thank you all for your prayers and for your financial support of our ministry. These many months of support-raising, training, traveling, waiting, preparing and saying our good-byes is finally coming to an end. Three months after we finished support-raising and five months after we originally hoped to depart, we are finally leaving. And right on time in God's will. You can continue to pray that our final preparations before leaving would go smoothly, that all necessary arrangements would be made and that we would be mentally and spiritually prepared for the next two years as much as possible by the time we board the plane.

May 2010 Update

We will be sending out an additional newsletter next month before we depart for the Congo but we wanted to give you a brief update for the month of May.

This past month has been one of transition. We moved out of our apartment in our church’s mission house and in with some friends on May 1st. And we have just moved out of our room in their house and are now with some other friends in Lindenhurst, IL. We are a lot closer to Sam and Sarah Snyder and close enough to help with working out departure details and assist with TouchGlobal needs in Rockford, IL.

In between these moves we have been saying numerous good-byes. Our church, Lancaster EFC, commissioned us during both services on Sunday, May 30th. We were presented with a Congolese flag and a certificate and were also prayed over by the congregation. It has been bittersweet because we are both excited to be so close to heading back to the Congo and sad to leave the friends we have been so blessed to spend the last several years with. What’s two years, though? Not much in the grand scheme of things. Among other things, Michelle has been finalizing the process that will get potential short-term team members to the Congo and I have been working on a tentative plan for the agricultural program at Elikya.

We are looking at a prospective leave date in mid to late July and should be buying our plane tickets shortly.

Here are some ways you can be praying for us:

-Pray for the Snyders as they finish support raising…only 5% to go!!!
-Pray that preparations for departure would go smoothly
-Pray that we will be attentive to the Spirit as we continue to plan
-Pray that God will be preparing the hearts of those to whom we will be ministering