Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehimiah 8:10 (NKJV)
Joy for the believer is a God-given gladness found when we are in communion with Him. When our goal is to know more about Him, the outcome will be His joy in our lives.
Thank you for praying for us. The final check on the books of Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel and Jonah are done! Checking on 2 Samuel is going well and we may finish that next week. (We were tired of all the wars in 1 Samuel so we checked Jonah before continuing on with 2 Samuel.)
When our reader Liyu (to Lance’s right in the picture) was reading the story of Jonah and his complaint against God – Jonah saying to the affect, ‘I knew You would do this and show mercy to Nineveh!” Tadha, the guy hearing it for possibly the first time, burst out laughing and made the rest of us laugh. There are some lighthearted moments during the checking process! It is good for us to experience these times of hearing Scripture for the first time from a Higaunon perspective. Thank you so much for praying for the checking and all of us involved.
An LPG refrigerator that we had purchased slightly used 16 years ago died on us recently. One day Laura took a nap and woke up to the strong smell of ammonia. She knew the fridge must be leaking its coolant. We weren’t sure what God was going to do. We had to get rid of the fridge that stored a lot of frozen meat and fresh veggies! But God provided! One of our neighbors graciously allowed us to rent theirs until we could get one. Who knew!? They purchased their fridge less than a year ago and it barely gets used because the commercial power is off so much of the time. Due to the small space in the helicopter, the fridge we got could only be certain dimensions. We’re so thankful for our pilot’s wife who is acting “buyer” and all the “shopping” she and her husband did to find us a fridge that would fit. Our new fridge has been delivered and we are very thankful. And we’re thankful that the ammonia didn’t make us sicker than it did.
There has been so much RAIN since our family left us last month. It’s obvious to us that God gave special grace to us for the weather we needed for those flights. Ron & Michelle had a supply flight scheduled last week and had to wait four extra days due to the rainy weather.
Internet and electrical power have been huge challenges lately. When the river floods, Ron has to turn on the gas generator to keep our power going. The batteries in the current set up are not functioning well at all. Two of them pictured here had to be removed. They got so hot they started melting. The new batteries for our electrical system are being shipped from Australia. Please join us in praying that they will arrive quickly!
Our internet is supplied by a satellite company in Manila. Some days we have little internet access. Please pray with us about these “little” things that can rob us of our joy in the LORD. We do tend to depend on these things for daily life. Pray we will keep our focus on Christ and be able to complete the work HE has for us.
Thank you so much for your partnership with us in getting more of the Old Testament into the hands of the Higaunon.
Secure in Christ’s love,
Lance & Laura
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.