The response we got to the e-mail my husband sent out this morning was totally overwhelming! It is SUCH a blessing to be upheld before the Lord in such a way! We received dozens of e-mail responses to let us know that we were being prayed for! God answered the prayers of His people. We received offers of help from many of our missionary friends, and several of our church members came together to get the work done. My house would have been crammed full of helpers if I had accepted all the offers of help I received. Some of our missionary friends live in our neighborhood and their teenage children helped me all day with getting food made, decorating, cleaning.... My own children pitched in and had a great attitude about preparing for this special event. Our "assistant pastor", who has Tuesdays off headed in to help before we even called to beg him for help! :) He went out and rented tables since I only had seating for about 30 people and suddenly found out there would probably be about 60 people here. He helped me figure out how to fit many tables in to a small area while my husband (who would usually help with that) was able to be a comfort to the family who lost a husband and father last night. One of our young ladies came in and ironed many tablecloths and prepared flowers while another spent all morning at the market looking for more tea pots, creamers, sugar pots, food.... Another young lady came in and helped with getting food done. Everything just fell together! I am usually the type that gets flustered and needs my husband around to tell me everything will be fine. :) Today, God calmed my heart and helped me figure out what needed to be done. My husband arrived home a few hours before the tea party and joined right in with all the preparation. He also agreed to be one of the "servers" at the party tonight! People loved that! I also asked him if he would teach the lesson for me. I usually enjoy doing that, but just decided God would be pleased to have him give a clear Gospel presentation tonight.

The party was to start at 5:00. At 5:00 the only people here were all my helpers! I started having that feeling of overdoing it! You know... I have enough seating for 54 people and 15 people are going to come. However, when 5:15 arrived, everything changed! People started pouring in! I had invited 15 neighbor ladies thinking that 2 or 3 might come. Well,,, there were about 30 neighbors here! Our church ladies did a WONDERFUL job of bringing friends and relatives. We ended up having at least 85 people here (not counting my help)! We had to keep adding more and more chairs at the tables. I then began to think, "OK! This is going to be utter chaos!' It was.. but it was happy chaos! Our church people were SO excited and our visitors were having a great time. When Rodney gave up to share the Gospel, people got quiet and listened attentively! It was amazing! For many of our visitors, this lesson about sin and forgiveness was entirely new to them. We are praying that God will put more questions in their minds and that they will remember what they heard. Pray with us that there will be some eternal results because of the few hours we spent with these people today. After the lesson, we played some silly games and enjoyed more fellowship. A few of the young ladies stayed afterward to spend some time with one of our church girls. Pray for us as we follow up with these young ladies.

Once again, thank you for your prayers! To my missionary friends, thank you for the many offers of help! It is great to have other missionaries that are willing to be there when we need them!

Thankful for You,
Becky

(Below is From Rodney)

Now for the rest of the story....... Becky admitted that her back was hurting some before and during the party. This is typically the first symptom she experiences when her adrenal glands can't keep up. The next symptom is usually chest pain, but as she put it, "only after the party was over, and it wasn't bad, only a few sharp stabs." The next thing that usually happens is fatigue, sometimes to the point of complete exhaustion. Lord willing, she will rest tomorrow.

For those of you who do not know, Becky is taking a number of "natural cure" type medicines that have been helping her tremendously. Six months ago, Becky could not even go to the market without having symptoms 10 times worse than today. Today's events did not seem to set her back too much, but tomorrow will really "tell the tale." Please continue to pray for her health.