February Prayer Letter

Dear Praying Friends,

God is so good to us! We are always so undeserving, and He is always so merciful. We have been able to see His hand guiding us and protecting us in so many ways this past month that it makes me wish that everyone could see the way our Heavenly Father takes care of this family.

On January 27, we started a new teen class at the church in Belleville. We have a national, Marcel, that has volunteered to teach the class. We will work on teaching him how to teach a Sunday school class. Matt Litson, Marcel, the teen boys, and I built a 20’x 20’ bamboo structure for the classroom. We do not own the land; therefore, we could not put up a permanent building. The building looks very nice, and the church people are proud of it. The third week of class, we had four teen girls accept Christ as their Savior.

The older sister of some of the small girls that are faithful to church died just before church on February 10. She was in the 9^th grade. She tried to murder her unborn child, and in the process she killed herself. Her family did not even know that she was with child. Matt and I were able to go and visit with her family; they are all unsaved and do not attend church anywhere. Please pray that the Father would use this situation to see this family come to a saving knowledge of His Son.

Our car had to pass the yearly inspection before February 13. So, I began to prepare for the inspection on January 31. We replaced brake pads and shoes, rebuilt brake calipers, replaced ball joints, replaced spring bushings, replaced the fuel injectors, and did a host of other things. When we went to get the inspection done, the car was running great until we got in line for the inspection; the longer the vehicle idled, the more it smoked. The car did not pass inspection because of the smoke. It took us two weeks, ten African mechanics, a Canadian diesel mechanic advisor, and a British diesel pump specialist advisor to find the problem. Then, we could not find anyone here who knew how to fix the problem; so, my mechanic and I took three fuel pumps apart and put one good one back together. To our amazement and the amazement of everyone standing there telling us that what we were trying to do could not be done, we fixed the problem.

While I was running around Abidjan looking for car parts, an eighteen-passenger van pulled out and hit the side of my car. When I stepped out to see how much damage had been done, I was immediately surrounded by about forty angry public transportation drivers. They began yelling and spitting in my face; then, they grabbed the young man that was with me and began to drag him up and down the street. With some friendly persuasion, we were able to get everyone calmed down, and we were able to reason with them. Once the problem was resolved and they admitted that they were at fault for the accident, we left. It took a welder and a body repairman about two hours to fix my car. No one was hurt. We are so thankful for your prayers on our behalf. The situation could have escalated into violence very quickly, and it was a miracle that no one was injured. Your prayers are not in vain!

Your friends and ambassadors to Ivory Coast,

Joseph, Laura, Gilbert, and Danny