Greetings from Ottawa, Canada! I hope you had a blessed Christmas. For Esther and myself, this was our first Christmas season in Canada since 2011 and the first one ever for Benjamin. We are so thankful to visit family and friends in Alberta, Niagara Falls, Toronto and in Ottawa where we spent most of our time.
This year has been tough to schedule ministry because of a couple of covid waves that were creating havoc on traveling and ministry plans. Thankfully, the last few months have been good. I was finally able to travel to Timor, do our Bible camp and more.. Here is a brief report.
Indonesia needs your prayer right now. As the delta variant is ripping through the nation, we are experiencing the biggest surge we have seen so far. Here in our small town, we are also experiencing an increase in cases. As a result all public gatherings have been stopped by the local government. Our weekly meetings have moved online and all ministry trips have been postponed for the moment.
Warmest Greetings from Indonesia! We hope and pray you are in good health. This past year has been difficult on all of us but we thank God for His help through it all. Our small town here in North Sumatra is still fairing well compared to other parts of Indonesia. Thank God we still have some freedom to live and minister locally. We even managed to make a few short ministry trips these past months. Here is a brief report on what has been happening.
On September 28, 2018 a 7.5 magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami devastated the city of Palu in Indonesia. At this time of writing the official death toll is just over 1,700 people with thousands still missing. The first time I heard about the earthquake and tsunami was during our 2nd night of the Jesus festival in Timor. It had just happened a few hours ago we were all in shock. It took me back to the time when I first came to Indonesia back in 2004. Two months after I arrived, an earthquake and tsunami struck Aceh which is the province to the north of our hometown in Indonesia. Over 200,000 lives were lost during that time.
Greetings in the Name of Jesus from the Island of Sumatra! The work of the Kingdom continues to expand reaching more and more with the good news of Jesus. Praise and glory to our faithful Lord for his provision and protection as we continue to work in this vast mission arena. For the most part Esther and I have been focused these past months developing believers in our house fellowships. This month we will add two more house fellowships in two towns. There are also plans for two Jesus festivals coming up in September and October of this year. Here is a brief update of what has been happening with us.