January Prayer Letter

The past few months have been exciting. On November 15, we flew to Houston to spend the holidays with our families. Our families bought our tickets so that we could spend the holidays with them. The grandparents, great-grandparents, and all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins really enjoyed playing with Gilbert and Danny.

We spent six weeks in Texas and Oklahoma. Gilbert and I had some much needed dental work done. We all four had a physical as well. The doctor who did our physicals was a man that I had worked for while I was in high school. He did not charge us for our visits or our blood work. The Lord surely does take good care of us.

We have had some time to pray about what our options are for beginning a new work, and we are very excited about what God has led us to do now that we are back in Ivory Coast. Before we left for the States, we had the opportunity to visit several different cities. The Lord has laid it upon our hearts to start a church in the city of Bonoua. Bonoua is about one and a half hours from where we live right now. There has never been a Baptist church in Bonoua, and until recently the door to that city has been closed to all non-Catholics. Because of this reason, we have sought some godly counsel on how to best begin a work in such a place. I plan to go there once a week and spend the day soul-winning and then have an afternoon Bible study for a while. Then when we return from furlough, we will have a core group of people with which we can begin our church.

While we are doing the ground work in Bonoua, I am going to help Matt Litson with the church that he has just started in Belleville, which is just outside of Anyama. The church people are working on building a small bamboo shelter that we will be able to use as a Sunday school room. We will be starting out with about ten very faithful teens and another ten that come sometimes. Then in May, the Litson family is going to go on furlough for one year; during that time, we will oversee their work while they are gone.

There are also two single ladies from my wife’s home church who are coming to help start an orphanage in Anyama. Lenell Smith, the first of the two, will arrive in March. We are going to be in Anyama to help them get established and get the orphanage up and running. So, with the new baby on the way, soul-winning, preaching, and paperwork that we will be doing, we will definitely be staying busy.

We would like to ask you to pray that we will be able to meet the right people in Bonoua and other people who are from that ethnic group that would help us to start that work there. God has a plan for that town, and we are praying that we do His work there according to His plan. Also, please pray for us as we get our car ready for its yearly inspection. The inspections here are not like the ones in the States, and we have quite a time getting through that red tape!