As another school year ended, Andrew and Joanna who serve with their children in Asia-Pacific, informally reflected on the past year; in what God did in their own personal and family life and what He did for them in their ministry. Now they look ahead to their plans for going forward.
In March they had a very special time reuniting with Andrew’s side of the family for his brother’s wedding in Bali. His parents were able to then spend a short time with them seeing where they live and minister.
Over the Easter weekend, Andrew was able to attend a special event with nineteen young people and leaders from the city where they live as a family. He was delighted to see a young church in one of the remote areas step up and organise this youth weekend. A total of 530 teenagers and young adults from mainly three tribal and language groups gathered for Bible teaching, games and camping in the mountains. The Gospel was faithfully preached, and many enjoyed getting to know young people from other youth groups.
Joanna’s parents visited in June and spent two wonderful weeks with them, helping around the house and sightseeing. Their highlight was a weekend in a nearby remote village.
They are truly thankful to the Lord for giving them memorable times with family.
Upon reflecting on the dorm work they have lots to be thankful for. Boys and girls Bible studies have continued faithfully and are enjoyed by all. The Wednesday night youth meeting runs with three different teaching groups. One of them being led by Andrew and their national co-worker, sharing the load of teaching the 70 chronological lessons to the newcomers.
Andrew has also started to meet the ten boys, connected to their dorm, for personal Bible study. Every week rotating, he meets with two boys to teach them personal Bible study tools.
Many trips have been made into remote villages for teaching- weekends. Despite being thankful for the four to six young people that live in the dorm full time this year, they have seen numbers dwindle over the years. Both the money and the lack of full-time dorm parents have been factors but they have been blessed to see meetings continue with a good number of youth.
Additional to kids living in their own dorm, local young people that live in other student accommodations, enjoy joining the meetings. Andrew and Joanna would still love to see more young people move into the dorm.
Andrew and Joanna continue to see the need and a deep hunger from local young churches for good biblical teaching material. In the last few months, they have had a couple of extra jobs printing chronological material and introduced some new material that was recently developed for the Sunday school. Local believers still struggle at times to write their own lessons. They continue to look to God for leading and guidance as they on the one hand try and write or adjust material but on the other hand, they want to see them independently write their own lessons.
Please pray for:
- A faithful, national Christian couple to be dorm parents
- More young people to join the dorm, and benefiting from the spiritual programme run by the team