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| August 2005 |
Phone: 814-777-4231 |
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Dear Praying Friends,
As you may be aware, this current prayer letter that you are now reading was due in August. As I start to write it I realize that it is August 12 so by the time it gets printed and mailed it may well be September. I apologize for the delay, we have been pretty swamped as of late. We have recently returned from a trip to MI so we have much to report on.
News From the Road
The last week of July and the first week of August we headed for Michigan for several meetings. July 25-29 we were in our home Church’s youth camp. There were almost 70 kids from 3 different churches (First Baptist Boyne City, MI & Calvary Baptist Gobels, MI were also involved). Our kids had a blast! I was given the privilege to preach 3 nights in the chapel service and Carmen and I helped out in some of the other areas as well. On Friday morning the kids were given a chance to testify about what God had done in their lives and many did so, it was great to see, hear and be a part of.
The Sunday following camp (July 31) we were privileged to be in our home church. This is a rare treat for us and one we enjoy immensely. We were able to fellowship over lunch with the Tharp’s and in the evening service pastor once again allowed me the privilege of preaching in his pulpit. It was good to be “home” for a day and to see everyone. The following day, Monday, August 1, we headed to Flint to start VBS at Bible Baptist Church. We started the week with 35 kids and wound up with 60 as well as 5 visiting parents. It was a great bible school for us and them. Friday night immediately after bible school we headed back to GA to be in our places for Sunday.
News from the Side of the Road The trip up and back was not without incident. In fact we were on the side of the road both on the way up and on the way back. God was surely keeping his hand of protection on us. We broke a belt, burnt up an alternator, had the switch that switches between our 2 fuel tanks fail and then just as we got back the upper radiator hose blew apart (due to a bad thermostat) and then one of the two batteries had to be replaced as well. In short, our truck seems to be out living its usefulness. At the present a new truck seems to be a million miles a way and even a newer used truck seems out of reach to our human minds. We are hoping that by the time we are done here in GA, God will have once again showed us that he does not work on a human level.
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News from GA
We continue to chip away at all that needs to be worked at here in Macon. If I have not yet mentioned it, we lost the zoning hearing about our trailer being parked at the church. Since July 1 we have been parked at a campground 30 miles from the church and driving it 6 days a week. According to the zoning folks we can park the trailer at the church we just can’t live in it while it is parked there (seems pretty dumb to us too but what are you going to do). The church decided to remodel a bathroom and transform some Sunday school rooms into bedrooms for us. Lord willing we are moving in this coming weekend. Rather than spend money on campground rental and having nothing to show for it, we felt it was best to improve the building and create a space that could perhaps be useful in the future. We are not happy about vacating the trailer but we are here to be a help not a hindrance.
With the construction work going on, us being so far away and then out of town for two weeks, it seems like things have seriously slowed down here. We did start our Wednesday Night Discipleship training this past Wednesday and we feel it got off to a good start.
I am sure one of the big questions is “How long are you staying in GA?” It is certainly one we get asked fairly often. When we first got here I was worried about one of two things happening:
1) either getting burned out or bored and saying “we have done all that we can” and heading down the road before it was time.
2) becoming comfortable and staying beyond Gods time line.
Realizing that either one of these situations would be bad for us and for the church, we worked with our pastor to establish some of what we call “transition goals” things that need to be in place before we move on to our next task.
We are making progress and once the goals are met our work here will be done. If you are a financial supporter you will have found a copy of those goals along with this letter.
Please pray for all that needs to happen here.
Family News
Emilee is now 10, which is hard to believe. The kids all enjoyed camp and seeing some friends in MI as well as making some new ones. When we left Charlotte, MI for Flint, Lena and David II stayed with our friends the Potters until Thursday night and as soon as we got to Flint, Emilee went to stay with her friend, Hannah Peterson until Friday, so for a couple of days it was just Carmen and I, it was pretty quite and the trailer seemed bigger but they all seemed to have a good time.
Carmen is still waiting on an appointment with the rheumatologist, but she is continuing on the medication and at least holding her own.
When we got back from MI our friends the Swiatkowski family were here from NJ for 2 days. Matt is a pastor in NJ and being on vacation I didn’t want him to get rusty so I had him preach here Sunday evening. We were able to do some sightseeing on Monday, then Tuesday they were on their way. A number of folks have talked about coming to see us and the work here, so perhaps we will have more guests to write about in our next letter.
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New Support
Praise the Lord we have gotten some new support!! Rodney & Bonnie MacKenzie from Frederick, MD
Finally being able to do the ministry that we know God has lead us to, has helped us get a realistic idea of the amount of support we need to live. We are praying, now that we are unable to physically raise support that the churches that we have presented our burden to will prayerfully consider us and keep us on their hearts and minds when they take on new missionaries. We are praying that God will bring in at least 500 dollars more a month, of which we have already covered some with raised support levels from some churches and new support !! God is good!
Prayer Requests As always we have many things that you can pray about as you pray for us. Some of the more important ones can be found below: God’s Power, Wisdom and Grace
Our family’s health and wellbeing
A Newer Truck to pull our trailer with (Please pray much about this with us)
Carmen’s health & wisdom for the Doctors she is currently seeing
The continued faithfulness of our supporters as we continue in the GA project
God’s blessing on Ayers Road Baptist Church (growth, leadership, workers, stability in the finances)
Upcoming finances with the kids schooling
Our next scheduled prayer letter is October. We will look forward to updating you then on all that God has done.
We truly covet your prayers for our family and our ministry. Because of Calvary, The Iseminger Family David & Carmen Lena , David II & Emilee Romans 10:13-15
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