NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Back from the Holidays

We trust you all had a wonderful holiday season!  What a wonderful time with family! We spent the official Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Nancy’s family, then spent the week between Christmas and New Years Day with Michael’s family. This especially was nice as this will probably be the last time (for a while) that we will all be together. The kids were very spoiled over the holidays, but that is to be expected from grandparents, etc… This year was also special because we got to see our kids becoming more and more aware of the real meaning of Christmas. We praise God for the gift of our precious children!

Pink Eyes and Hot Heads

We expected to start the new year off with a bang, but unfortunately Michael came down with a fever and we all have colds. Then we went through a bout of pink eye! We are now on the road to recovery and are finally catching up from the time we lost.

Prayer Requests

• Pray for Guinea as the Presidential election should be held this month.
• Pray for Michael as he continues making contacts with churches.
• Praise for safe journeys during all of our travel over the Holidays!

Looking Back at the Year

It’s that time when we look back on the past year and reflect on the good and the, er, not-so-good. A year ago we started out on the newest phase of our journey – Partnership Development. Traveling, new churches, trying to make new contacts, tired kids – all these things can be wearying. But we can say that even with the unavoidable stresses, the good definitely outweighs the bad. What a joy to meet and worship with people from the family of Christ! What a privilege to share what God is doing in our lives and around the world! The urgency of the task and our desire to serve God in West Africa is always before us, making it hard at times for us to patiently look to the Lord. However, we do rest in the fact that He IS leading us, and that He can use us here as well as in Africa. We are learning more and more to trust Him, as He continues to show Himself faithful. The Lord is good!.

How to Stay Warm in a MI Winter

That’s easy – keep busy! Our winter schedule is filling up fast. Michael makes contacts, works on information and materials, and prepares presentations – we are hoping to have a full speaking schedule this coming Spring. We also help out at our home church and the Christian school here in Coral, and study French (with Rosetta Stone) as we have the time. We will also be traveling this winter to spend some time with Michael’s family in NH. With his parents heading back to West Africa next year, this will be a special time for the family to be together.

A Growing Family

Our little family is growing up so quickly! Micah pops out new words all the time and loves to pretend that he is a lion or dog. Emma, always our little princess, loves to play pretend stories with whatever she gets her hands on. She and Micah play dress up and ‘go to the wedding’ often. Titus is flying through Kindergarten – after Christmas break they will begin first grade work! He has figured out he can read pretty much anything he wants so he often grabs books and starts reading to anyone who will listen. Nancy’s pregnancy is going well – she and the baby are doing fine. We are so excited for the arrival of this little one sometime in May or June!

Prayer Requests

• Pray for wisdom: We have many decisions ahead of us in the coming year.
• Pray for growth: We see God faithfully working in our lives and we desire to know Him more.
• Pray for our support: We desire to see God continue to raise up partners for our ministry.
• Pray for our kids: For their safety, salvation, health, etc.

Flu and Snowmen

We are finally catching up from a crazy March! The first week we all suffered from a stomach flu. Sometimes you just have to laugh at life; like when you have two kids simultaneously throwing up! The next week we had a fever going around and then the third week we had bad colds. We all seem to be healthy now and are thanking God for that!
When we were healthy we took the time to make 45 snowmen, 200 hair bows, 10 gifts in a jar and Nancy’s mom made 50 scrubbies to sell for money to purchase kitchen items that we need in Guinea. We have a craft sale this weekend at our local community center, pray that it goes well! Thank you to those who sent craft things for us to use!

We also fit in time to print off several brochures to send to churches. We sent out 60 so far, pray for Michael as he calls those pastors to try to set up meetings. If you would like a brochure, or are interested in having us speak in your church feel free to contact us. Michael also found time to update our home church’s website (much overdue for a facelift) and to do several days of substitute teaching at the Christian School!

We may not be able to get to Quebec in August, as we had planned, but we continue to trust in God’s timing for us. Pray that we will remain focused as we look to Him for provision!

I know lots of you have been waiting for news of our van. We had so many paths that we started on to get it fixed and then that path would get blocked, but our mechanic finally just decided to take the transmission apart to rebuild it. He found that only the touque converter needed to be fixed! We got our van back last Wednesday at no cost to us!! A huge thank you to Johnson’s Automotive Repair of Big Rapids MI.

Prayer Requests

• Pray that we would sell a lot at the craft sale!
• Pray that God would give us wisdom as we contact churches.
• Pray that we would have wisdom in what to do for Titus’ schooling next year.
• Praise that our van is as good as new!
• Praise that We are healthy again!