Beginnings, Endings

Taking stock: One of the good things about these prayer letters is that we have to look back and say, "What DID we do this month?" Usually that's a pretty easy question to answer, thankfully, and sometimes it's even surprising. That's the case this May, when we are saying, "We packed all that in?" We'd much rather leave stuff out of the prayer letter than scratch to try to put enough into it! In May, besides our normal activities we started with our leadership retreat, held a celebration for Mother's Day, Tim preached, we got our visas, we graduated another English class at the elementary school, and now we're writing from Pennsylvania where we've come for our FIM orientation.* More and more we realize that busy-ness should not be confused with more important things such as faithfulness, godliness, good stewardship, and even hard work, but sometimes it overlaps with them, and we trust that's been the case this May.

* And some catch-up time with Barbara-Lee's family.

We've finished up John's epistles with our Sun-Mon Bible studies and they will be taking a brief OT detour (Jonah) while we are out of the country. The Mother's Day celebration was great. We enjoyed pulling together a group that truly comes from all over and there was a great spirit of enjoyment and friendship. Eddie shared the Gospel, one of his first sermons in Spanish, and he did a great job. So we are very thankful for the month of May. God seems to be continually showing us, even in disappointments and trials, that He is leading and providing.