Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Peterson's Prayer Guide - May 2008

The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand. Psalm 37:23-24

Last month I wrote about the new role Gary is considering. Though he’s very interested, at this stage he doesn’t feel free to move out of his current role. God is really blessing his ministry, and his team is already short-staffed. If God wants Gary in the other position, He’ll need to provide others to fill the needs in his current department. Thanks for continuing to pray for God’s timing and provision of the right staff for the right slots.

When you have a college student here in the US, you have to make an application for financial aid each year. As I was working on this recently I became aware of a mistake I’d made last year which made a significant difference in what government grants Esther was eligible for. We’re in the process of getting it corrected with the appropriate offices, but it means we have to pay back several thousand dollars she wasn’t entitled to. We were planning to use our tax refund this year for something else, but now that money will be needed for Esther’s college fees. How good it is to know that God wasn’t surprised by this, and He can be relied upon to take care of His children!

Esther plans to go to Australia to work on my sister and her husband’s dairy farm for 2 months this summer (cold winter there!). She looks forward to seeing her Nana and other friends and relatives while there too. Pray that she will be a blessing to the Blease family, especially to her cousins (the two youngest she has never met). She will be gone from May 26th – July 26th. We were able to use my frequent flier miles to pay for most of her airfare - PTL!

The exploratory trip Gary and Josiah made to visit colleges went very well. They enjoyed the time together, and came home with a lot to chew on! Josiah hasn’t made any decisions yet, but what he learned and experienced will be very helpful as he does make choices in the months ahead.

Soon after I last wrote, my hives cleared up. When I tried coming off the antihistamines, I found that I no longer had any hay fever, and the heartburn subsided when I stopped the medicine. So I am one happy camper! Thanks for your prayers, and thank You, Lord, for good health!

Gary reports that the Children’s Missions Jamboree on April 5th went very well and produced many great comments from kids and parents alike. Though their numbers were down, the impact was great. All the staff worked very well together and really enjoyed the day too.

April 25th - Gary arrived home on his motorcycle last night at 11:15pm after a VERY LONG day. He had two school groups at the office and a special tour before going to speak at the Hispanic youth group’s mission weekend last night. Many of the young people came up and talked with him afterwards, and 28 adopted a Bibleless people to pray for. Most of the students there were bi-lingual, but they provided an interpreter because they broadcasted the message to a number of countries around the world where they only know Spanish. He didn’t find this out until he got there, so that made it “interesting” with what illustrations he could use and broke up his flow a bit. But God showed up and Gary was very conscious of your prayers!

Here’s Gary’s May Schedule:
30th April – 2 High School groups have just booked in for this day. Their times will somewhat overlap. We’ll run a modified Mission Encounter program.
2nd A-Z Adventure program for two school groups (61 students & 28 adults)
3rd A-Z program for a large church group (50 students & 20 adults)
7th Mission Encounter – school group (30 7th graders & 20 adults)
8th A-Z and Mission Encounter – home school group. (30 students & ? adults)
9th A-Z Pine Castle Christian Academy (32 students & 15 adults)
14th Special tour for youth group from Alabama
16th A-Z for school group (16 students & 6 adults)
20th Mission talk & I cover for the receptionist at WordSpring desk
22nd -24th Help staff a booth at the Home School Convention (5,000+ participants we’ll challenge to come visit us)
23rd Mike Burtnett’s last day. Mike has been my partner for a year now. He’s a former youth pastor who joined Wycliffe 3 years ago. He’s been great with the students and great to work with. He and his family are heading to Southern Mexico later this year to be the youth pastor for the missionary kids at our translation center there. I will really miss him. It adds more work for our team. He will be a hard person to replace. Please pray that God will bring us someone who can help us – especially with the older students. And pray for Mike as he and his family prepare for this big move. It will be their first time living and working overseas. They have three young children.
30th A-Z Downey Christian School (36 students & 10 adults)

*A-Z Adventure program is for Elementary School ages.
Mission Encounter program is for Middle School–College age students.

Once more, let us thank you from the bottom of our hearts for partnering with us in this invaluable way. We appreciate you all so much!

1 Comments:

At 7:09 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

We always enjoy Gary encouraging people to pray for Bibleless languages.

Nate-

 

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