Dear Friends and Family,
We find ourselves mid-way through this third quarter of the school year, constantly amazed at how the time flies. Without the traditional seasons, we can't complain about the change of weather but instead compare this year's excessive rains in January to previous years. Fortunately, February has brought only moderate rains allowing for a relief for hot days, but not causing the flooding and havoc as the rains did in January.
This spring semester the SAM Academy administrator is on furlough so there are additional tasks and roles to be shared by the full time staff at the school. Along with these additional responsibilities and continuing as principal, Bill is teaching a new class, Economics. Despite the added work load, he is enjoying the challenge of looking up new lesson plans, sharing mind-numbingly useless information with his wife :), and engaging in discussion over the dinner table with our teenage sons.
Joy has had a slight change in her job as well since the beginning of January. At the end of last year, the maintenance staff found an impending problem with the engine on the airplane that Joy flies. They grounded the plane immediately and are currently working on importing a newly overhauled engine to install on the aircraft. This importation is a lengthy process, and while we are grateful for the Lord's providence in finding the problem before any serious consequences, it was unexpected and will take approximately three months to get a replacement engine from the United States. This means that Joy continues as flight coordinator and has been given other administrative tasks such as updating airstrip charts and manuals, but that she also really misses being "in the air" and serving the local missionaries in the indigenous communities.
We have always been committed to our local church and this past year we began hosting a small group from our church in our home. Our Peruvian small group meets weekly on Saturday evenings. As the group grows and the 5-6 families start to become more faithful, our small house won't fit everyone in our small living room. Our eat-in-kitchen is also our only area for sharing food, and there is not space where everyone can sit down. Therefore, we accepted SAM Academy's offer to have us move into a different home on the same center. This home has the same number of bedrooms, but has a open concept living area and kitchen with a large screened in porch built specifically for church ministries. This home has the potential to be a great place for many ministry opportunities but needs some serious maintenance. There are a number of house projects that need to be done before we can move in. (For a fun spoof of "Property Brothers" created by our son Cullen, check out this video.) We are very excited that TWO of our supporting churches have volunteered to come with work teams this July to help us move into this house. Please pray for the planning and preparation to receive these work teams.
This coming month, March 2017, we are celebrating 20 years as members of Wycliffe Bible Translators. It hardly seems possible that we have been in full time Christian ministry this long. It has certainly been our joy, honor and personal adventure to serve Christ in South America these many years. We honestly can not imagine what our lives would look like if we had not taken this step of faith 20 years ago. For each of you who have been with us these past 20 years--THANKS. We are grateful for those people that the Lord used to send us to the field many years ago that are now in His presence. And we are very grateful for those who have joined us mid-way through our journey to take up the baton and help run the race with us.
May this spring time be days of renewal and rebirth in your lives.
In Christ,
Bill, Joy, William, Cullen and Camilla |
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