February 2012

Dear Family and Friends,
We hope that your transition into the new year has been a good one, and that the Lord has given you vision of what He wants to accomplish in your life.  Our lives here have been quite busy, and we are getting excited as we are nearing the end of language school.  If all goes well, we should be done with language school by the end of April.  By then, we will have hoped to have acquired language helpers that will continue to help us strengthen our language skills and continue to learn new things.  Pray for us in this as we are praying and thinking about who those language helpers might be.

Another thing that you can be praying about is where we will be in ministry.  We possibly may be able to work in  the church we are currently attending, or in a different church.  We had a chance to visit the street kid ministry at our current church and really enjoyed our time as we observed what they were doing as well as interacted with some of the children.  Possibly in March, we will have a chance to visit some other churches to see what their street kid ministries are like.  Of course, the advantage of staying at our own church is that we have already built relationships there.  Also, the ministry is small at this time with about 15 street kids, which we like because we would be able to get to know them on a personal level.  Still, we need a lot of prayer for this decision and ask you to join us in knowing God's will for us.

Another praise that we have is that we have all been very healthy for quite sometime.  We are thankful for this season of health that the Lord has given to us.  We have also altered some health habits for the children at the recommendation of their doctor, which has been a very big help.

This month, I (Matt) will have the opportunity to be a part of ministry to street kids and to those affected by typhoon Sendong (Washi for the international name).  On February 14th-16th, I will be attending a camp for street children.  I don't yet know to what extent my role will be, but this will be the first one I am attending and  being a part of.  Please pray for me, that I will be ready to serve in whatever way the Lord has me, even if it is scary or uncomfortable.  This is unknown and new territory for me, so pray that I will learn to depend on the Lord for everything.  I have learned a lot this past year that in my weakness Christ is strong.  The second event that I will be involved in is going to Cagayan De Oro in Mindanao where thousands were affected by the typhoon.  This is a follow up trip from one that was taken in early January, which I did not attend due to sickness.  We will be surveying again the needs down there, a couple in our group who are professional counselors will be training pastors to know how to respond to those who have been traumatized by the typhoon and lastly, we should also be doing some relief work.

Well, that is about it for now.  Please join us in prayer for the things that we have mentioned above.  Please feel free to share with us your prayer needs so that we can pray for you!  Thank you so much for the many ways you are supporting us!

Love,
Matt, Becki, Isaiah, and Elijah