Top image: Timothy with his friends at his birthday party.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I know that Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend but all of us have many reasons to be thankful. You will see from the pictures this month that Judith and I are very thankful for our youngest son Timothy. He just turned 16 this month and is doing remarkably well here in PNG. He is the goalie on the boys soccer team, enjoyed going with a good friend to banquet, and had a lot of fun with his friends at his birthday party. He does very well at school and is a joy to have around. And did I mention that he has a soft heart towards God?
Does that always mean that being thankful is easy much less automatic? Certainly not. Life in this fallen world has any number of challenges many of which cannot be avoided. For instance, our son Daniel has a very sore tooth and after seeing a dentist near the Bible school he will be going in for a root canal on Monday. You can be praying for this as the procedure isn’t fun nor cheap. So can we be thankful for a root canal? We certainly won’t be happy about it though we can be thankful for a God who reveals himself to us as we walk through these trying situations.
How about Judith’s green card process? We are 14 months into the first application and the online estimate says that we have 14 more months to go. Wow! Are we happy that it could take 28 months for the US gov’t to decide that we are married. Well, no. This particular challenge has had a number of different spin off issues such as not being able to directly engage with our two boys in the US, and even our connection with family, supporting churches and individuals hasn’t happened in a long while which inevitably impacts our finances amongst other things. The Lord knows this and carries us through which allows us to see His faithfulness.
I just read this morning from a devotional by Brother Lawrence where he stated “…I renounced, for the love of God, everything that was not God, and I began to live as if there was none but God and I in the world.” I think that the ‘clutter’ of our modern lives distracts us from the only thing that is ultimately important- God. Please be praying for us as we have no way to focus our perspective in life on God alone apart from God’s strength. Thank you for standing with us during this time.
In Him,
Eric and Judith, Stephen, Daniel and Timothy
Prayer & Praise
- Praise that we are settled here in PNG seeing as it is the only place on the planet where Judith and I can be together these days. 🙂
- Pray for Eric as he is working on Revelation lessons for Malaumanda. This book is a challenge to make clear and accessible to the Malaumandans so wisdom is needed. Pray also for the many language evaluations that he is involved in of late. There are quite a few people learning Tok Pisin and then next month I will be going into another bush location for a number of evaluations.
- Praise that Judith was able to help with a number of different programs including cooking for the recent Spiritual Emphasis Week for the high schoolers here at Lapilo. She prepared food for roughly 70 people over 3-4 days.
- Pray for Judith’s paperwork to come through. Also Pray for both of us to stay encouraged while we wait. We have no idea when this will end which is hard.
- Pray for Daniel at Bible school. He is doing well in his classes but he has not yet found a job. He really wants to work. Also Pray for wisdom as we work through what he will be doing this Christmas. He can’t be with us but we do want him to be with someone, and Wisconsin is a long way from family. Pray also for his root canal on Monday.
- Pray for Stephen as he is balancing some course at Moody with some work and some personal development. Pray for Judith and I as we struggle to help him grow and mature while being unable to actually be with him. That has been the case basically since he graduated in 2022.
- Praise that Timothy continues to do well at school, sports and his walk with the Lord.
- Pray for me as I try to arrange a trip for Judith and I into Malaumanda in January in preparation for a work team coming in March. More on that later.
- Pray for us to finish 2025 both strong and faithful to the Lord’s direction.