I have a couple prayer items and a praise item as well.

Special prayer requested: The day before leaving Suriname, I noted a number of extra or skipped beats in my pulse. I was unable to reach my cardiologist, but because my pulse was slow, I did stop one medicine which can cause slow heart beat. I thought that maybe the stress of the last week with meetings virtually every night and then a long trip caused them. However, they persisted and my cardiologist in the USA also noted them on an EKG. I had a stress test yesterday which was not totally normal. I am scheduled for a nuclear scan with a stress test later this week. Of course, this makes our schedule a bit difficult, as we are to leave the area on August 20th. The cardiologist assures me that they will have answers before we need to leave.

Our last week: We had a serious family problem in one of the leadership which ended up after several meetings with the individual involved taking a time of rest to re-order his family. He was not directly involved, but as leader of the family had ultimate responsibility for the family. We would appreciate your prayers. I do not want to give details. The Lord knows.

Sunny Point: We had a really good service as the first service at the new Sunny Point church building. The water was not yet in, and the electricity was not yet on. They brought in a PA system and ran an electrical line from a neighbor’s house. They had asked too late for the benches from the other church to be transferred to the new building, and so the 20 pew benches we had were not enough - I estimated 140-150 persons in attendance. We had a good singing service. I brought a short message both for the unsaved and the saved from I Corinthians 2:14-3:3, and then the church served food to those in attendance. A number of persons in the area are Saramaccan, and the Sunny Point church also has Saramaccans in the church, and love to sing Christian songs in Saramaccan.

We are praying for the many lost who attended to continue and to get saved and the area to be reached. We pray for the electricity and water to be connected - hopefully this week. There is a lot of work to be done also in terms of the property. A bulldozer did clear out the brush and small trees, but the truck of fill dirt that we sent was just a small portion of what needs to be done. It is also apparent that they will need a PA system - it is the second largest of our church buildings. And eventually it would be very helpful to have a fence around the property. The property is the largest of all the churches.

Our trip back: The trip went basically well, but was long. During our flight to Miami, the man next to me appeared to be sleeping, but finally I was able to make conversation toward the approach to our destination. It turns out that he was a Surinamer (he had boarded in Curacao), and we had a good conversation about the Lord. I pray for his salvation.

When we arrived in Atlanta, we had close connections. We sat on the runway for about 20 minutes waiting for traffic to clear, and had a mad dash to the other end of the airport. We arrived just in time to be ready to board, only to find out that the plane was delayed - ultimately over 2 hours, as the flight coming in had been diverted by bad weather. So by the time we got to bed, we had been up 24 hours - and for Liz, 48 hours, as she had not slept the previous night. I got 3 ½ hours sleep. So we were pretty spaced out on arrival.

We have spent our time since arriving getting organized for our trip on the road. Having the basement of the Hubele’s is a huge blessing. It is one of their ways of serving the Lord, and we feel much at home. Liz and I have also been adopted as “their missionary” by the 34-38 year old Sunday school class of our home church, and we had a good time at a cookout for the class on Saturday, and then a chance to present the ministry on Sunday morning.

Prayer requests:

1. Health and strength to serve the Lord
2. Special request for the rhythm disturbance for Bob - proper evaluation and treatment
3. Our spiritual growth
4. Safety on the road. We are renting a 2006 Chrysler minivan while here
5. Our schedule for the next 3 months - to be a blessing at the schools and churches
6. Sunny Point church - building completed, outreach
7. Leadership situation in the church
8. Independence of the churches

In Him and Content,
Bob & Liz Patton