Countdown: In five weeks, we are scheduled to return to the USA and begin a new phase in our ministry. Most probably we had our last overnight guests last night, as two college students who had been 2 weeks with Anne Driesbach headed back to the USA this morning. Ethan Champlin brought them here yesterday, as well as our granddaughters Abigail and Priscilla, and 7 German shepherd puppies. The puppies were sold as part of the girls’ savings toward college.

Saturday, May 19th
Sunday morning, I preached on trusting the Lord for the future. Many times we want to see our solution or our salvation with our eyes rather than trust the all-powerful Creator who we cannot see. I started with the golden calf episode in Exodus. Israel was freed by God, who used Moses as his representative. Yet when Moses went up on Mt. Sinai, and they could see him no more, after a few weeks they asked for a god which they could see, and Aaron produced the golden calf. We too sometimes trust in the person whom God is using rather than in the God who is all-powerful and cares for us. In our case, some of the people were disturbed that my wife and I were leaving, and especially that there was no missionary coming as our direct replacement. But we are convinced that this is the will of the Lord, which He has shown abundantly, and that our trust should be in Him, and not in some person or group.

About 3 years ago, I was encouraged to write a book on missions. I started writing this 3 years ago, and it became quite long. I was encouraged to have it professionally edited, and the Lord brought me to Dr. & Mrs. H. D. Williams and The Old Paths Publishers. Dr. Williams thought that it would be better to break it down in to sections. In the past 6 months, I have been able to put together four volumes thus far, and a fifth is virtually finished. The Williams have graciously edited, proofread, and set up the books in four formats: regular print, epub, PDF, and .mobi (for Kindle).

When I received a note last week about some of my courses which I will be teaching this fall: World Religions and Missionary Forum, the material which I need for teaching the two courses is precisely what I have written in volumes four & five. I look at this as a confirmation that we are on the right track. We are looking forward to beginning at Crown College.

Please continue to pray for us. We are now starting to break down the house in earnest while keeping up with our ministry obligations. Liz has been going through literally thousands of pieces of paper, most of which are now torn up. My books are sorted into boxes. Because of the cost of shipping back to the USA, we plan to go back just with our suitcases, which will be a challenge after 26 years on the field. Fortunately, we will be able to leave some things in Moengo, and will try to take them back to the USA gradually if we are able to return, especially if we will be having students with us.

Please pray for us also as we see not only friends to say goodbye, but also a number of people to whom we have witnessed but have not yet made a decision. We would like to see some of them come to accept Christ before we leave.

The Bibles continue to sell well. We had to ask for more brought from Moengo because the 15 boxes of 24 Bibles were nearly gone in about a month.

Prayer requests:

1. Health and strength for the tasks at hand
2. Our spiritual growth
3. Our people to grow in grace, and in shouldering the responsibility of the churches
4. Safety driving
5. Packing up
6. Making a multitude of arrangements for our departure.