Big News:
- Our daughter, Betsy is engaged to Luke Freiler and planning a November wedding. See www.betsyandluke.com for more information.
- Kenn is retired as of January 17, 2008. The good news is that starting February we will have a regular income to supplement our donor based income. The bad news is that we still don’t know how much it will be and we did not get the settlement for the back pay owed to us. We have to file an appeal (and wait some more).
- We finally have internet access in our home! Look for us on Skype.
On the ministry side, we
continue to be overwhelmed with new refugees. We are seeing 20 to 50 new
refugees every time we are open. Many are Afghanis who had settled in
Iran and have recently been forced by the government to move on, but when I gave
meal tickets this week, I also enrolled many refugees from Gaza (a Palestinian
territory), Iraq, Sudan, Algeria and Georgia (a former Soviet state, now a
country). There isn’t enough food, or milk or pampers or clothing
or just about anything to meet the needs of these desperate people. I can
now say “no, we don’t have any right now” in several languages. Yet,
somehow in the midst of this chaos, the ones that are truly spiritually hungry
are finding their questions answered in Jesus. You see them
intently watching the Jesus film or pilfering literature from the literature
rack because they don’t want anyone to see. Then they begin to ask
questions or show up in a Seeker’s class or at Persian Christian Fellowship
with an appetite for more than just food. I watched one lady sit
with teammate, Kallie in the office. Kallie would read words from her
Bible in Greek and the lady would read the same passage from her Bible in Farsi
and back and forth they would go, without a single word of common language
between them. Saturday, the 23rd, there will be a
baptism after Tea House in the sea for those that want to publically declare
their commitment to Christ. Pray for our ministry here.
I have started taking Farsi
lessons from Sahar’s mom (our neighbor), “mama Khamrani” along with Ella
(Nader’s wife). I’m really liking it and am anxious to be able to
communicate better with the Afghani women and children with whom I spend most
of my time. I am continuing to learn Greek on my own. Kenn is
taking a government Greek class, 2 nights a week. Most of our time
outside of tea house and language classes and shower ministry is spent
developing staff (coaching and encouraging and communicating and
planning). There is so much to learn about how to be an “international”
team. We had a great conversation recently as a team about how to
communicate “care”. In some cultures, saying “thank you” in the typical
American way can be offensive and not communicate care in the way it was
intended. Honestly, about 2/3s of us sitting around the
circle were shocked to hear that. We have so much to learn and don’t even
really know the right questions to ask sometimes. Pray that God would
give us wisdom.
Thanks for being part of our
prayer team (meant…only to those of you who actually appreciate hearing “thank
you”….for the rest of you come see me in Greece and I’ll give you a big hug).
