Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

(Isaiah 41:10)

God spoke this Word in my life. By this Word, I am still serving Christ in my life. In previous years, even after I came to know Jesus, I could not stand properly. I could not look at others straight into their faces. God gave me strength to look at them now. Praise God for His wonderful work in my life. Now I am doing ministry as well as teaching at CBI.

This semester, I am teaching the Gospel of Luke. In this book, God shows His love to everybody. He loves not only Jews, but also gentiles. He came to the whole world to rescue them from sin and give them life, if they believed Him as their personal Lord and Saviour. I am also enjoying teaching my dear students. God has a greater plan for everybody. So be humble and serve Him in humbleness.

We are doing children’s ministry at our Calvary Chapel. Many more children are interested in coming to our church, but their parents do not allow them to enter. Pray that God will work their parents’ hearts to send them to our church.

We are going to finish the Book of 2 Timothy in our church services. We started with Matthew. Now, we have finished 2 Timothy chapter 3. In our next worship service, we are going to finish 2 Timothy. We also are doing a Wednesday Bible study from the Book of Eziekel.

Every week after our church service ends, we have a youth fellowship. The young adults of our church are enjoying the youth fellowship. They said that they are learning more in our youth fellowship. One of my friends, who is not saved, came to our church service. He is continuing to participate in our youth fellowship and asked many questions there. We all are eager to answer his questions. Please pray for my dear friend. His name is Sujan. May God save his soul.

My beautiful wife is teaching the book of Revelation on a social media platform. Many sisters and mothers from our country and other countries join. She now has reached the book of Revelation, chapter 14.

We are doing a Bible study at the Leper Colony. Every Friday, we gather and study the Word of God. We are now studying 2 Samuel, Chapter 11. We teach verse by verse, chapter by chapter, at the Leper Colony also.

Prayer Requests:

• Pray that God allows all of the children in our locality to come to our church.
• Pray that God will provide our church with all our needs. In our church, many fellow believers are still getting their education. Most of them are students.
• Pray that God will provide our choir team with everything they need to properly worship. A lot of noise comes in from outside while we are having worship. It is not easy to hear the songs sung by the choir.
• Pray that my dear friend, Sujan will accept Jesus as his personal Savior.

Thank you so much for supporting us, praying for us, and raising us up! God bless every entire family and those at Saving Grace World Missions!

Grace and peace,

Your faithful servants,

Rabi and Mahima

“But the Word of God grew and multiplied.”

Acts 12:24

It is always exciting to write about how our God is in our mist, and how His kingdom is flourishing. When we look around, we see so many different ways that He has been working. I will explain some of the ways of how He is working in our mist.

In Our Bible College:

Things are going differently in our country. Young adults want to go abroad to find jobs and to chase their dreams. We have seen a million people leave our country. But there are some young people who want to leave their homes and join Bible college. We see hope in our country that God is working in our mist. These young people are not perfect, but our perfect God has greater plan for these imperfect young people. This new semester 8 new students were admitted in our Bible college. Now all together we have 31 students. There are 10 girls and 21 boys. Please pray that they grow in God’s Word and grace.

In Our Bible College Student’s Lives:

One of our Bible college students graduated a couple of months ago. He went to his hometown and started to share the Gospel. His name is Dhan. He received Christ when he was living at his sister’s house in the capital. He knew about our Bible college and came. 2 years later, after finishing Bible college, he went back to his village. While he was sharing Christ, he happened to meet one of the pastors of that area. That pastor invited him Church and asked him to teach in a house fellowship. Everyone in the fellowship was so blessed to hear Word from him. They had not thought that a young man could teach the Bible and open the scriptures in this way. Then the pastor asked him to teach in his youth meeting. Now the same pastor is asking him to teach in the main church service. Please pray for this young man. May God open the door for him to serve in the ways that God wants to use him.

In Our Bible College Community:

Our Bible college courtyard has become a blessing to our community. We did a couple of outreach programs there and invited the people of our community to come and enjoy the programs. We did Gospel songs, skits, and dances and shared the Gospel message. Since we had the programs, 2 brothers in our neighborhood started to come to church. They love having fellowship with us now. They are getting to know Christ and love to hang out with our students. We also made it open to the community to come and play table tennis in our courtyard, so that we can share Christ with them. Please pray that God may bring more young people to our courtyard ministry so that the students may have chances serve in and out of our Bible college.

Thank you,

Anand and Usha and Family

Greetings in the Name of Jesus Christ! 

I am deeply thankful to all of you prayer warriors for constantly keeping us in your prayers. By the grace and mercy of God we are doing well!!

The homeowners of the house where I was holding church services had a dispute between the husband and wife. After they locked their house up, they moved to rent a house in another village. Because of this, I am facing a lot of difficulties with figuring out where to hold our Sunday worship services.

Currently, there is a small room where we pray together on Sundays. We do not make much noise. We worship God very quietly because the present situation is very serious (we do not want to stir up trouble). We ask you all to pray together with great burden for this matter. May God open a door for us.

The house where I live with my family is a rented house. I cannot conduct worship there on Sundays, because the owner of the house will not allow me to do this.

I am dedicated to doing God’s work, so my God will not let me be ashamed.

Please all of you together pray for us with great burden.

Last month I went to some villages and did a prayer walk. Please remember those villages in your prayers.

May God bless the hands that help me financially. May God bless them in their work and ministry.

In the Lord,

Your Brother,

Pastor 8* and Family

*Names and faces have been changed or omitted for security reasons.

When I was in the island of Java, there was a lady who was outside her home and I was really intrigued by her. I stared at her for a minute and she gave me a big smile and I smiled back and waved at her. I wanted to go up to her but I knew we were soon leaving the location. Later, I found out that her two grandchildren were possessed. I felt a heavy burden come over me and my heart was broken. The image of her smiling wouldn’t leave my mind. I had no idea that behind that smile was a dark, heartbroken life that she was living. It made me reflect on how the gospel is very needed in places where people have no idea who Jesus is.

GREETINGS

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. I am grateful for your partnership and being able to go to Indonesia. God is faithful even when I am faithless. It was unbelievable when I got out of the airplane that I was in Indonesia, considering the prior weeks of not knowing if I was going.

BALI

Bali was not what I expected. When you google Bali you get these beautiful images of the beach, of resorts, and all these adventure type photos. I didn’t see anything like that because it felt like most of what we saw was poverty, financially yes, but more so spiritually. When we got out of the airport and drove to our hotel we saw many demonic statues and temples and I was appalled. I had no idea it was going to be all over and in your face. There were also many offerings on the streets to their gods. Over and over throughout my time in Bali the Lord gave me a burden for the people.

I took this photo above as we were driving to a restaurant and I had no idea if my phone captured the image; when I checked my phone I was shocked at what I saw. There was another photo that I took where you could see there were kids behind the float and on the side.

One night after a woman’s bible study we went to the hospital to pray over someone’s father from the congregation. Barek and I sat outside and waited for our turn, when all of the sudden we heard loud sharp music. As I sat there, I felt this heaviness come over me. I felt like time paused and I couldn’t move. When I stood up to go see what this terrible noise was I saw these men across the street playing different instruments. Barek talked with a security guard at the hospital and asked what it was; and he told him they were preparing for a parade called “The Day of Silence.” The noise was horrific and again my heart was broken for these people.

JAVA

Java was like I stepped into another world. Going from Bali, a place that is filled with so many demonic statues, to Java, a new region that is entirely muslim with so many mosques and calls to prayer, was quite interesting. This area had a different heaviness and darkness. I remember sitting at a restaurant and feeling very overwhelmed and I quickly wanted to return to Bali. A gentlemen who has a ministry in this location shared with us that the people who live there don’t know Arabic yet they claimed to be muslim. It made no sense why the people claim to be muslim if the calls to prayer and the Quran are both in Arabic. The only answer is that the enemy has a stronghold on them. The people are living in spiritual blindness.

OVERALL

On both of these islands the enemy has a stronghold on the people and it breaks my heart. The need is great and so more prayer is needed to see if this is a location the Lord wants to use us in a new work. I am open to whatever the Lord wills. I feel like there is still more to process from everything that I have experienced.

I’M ENGAGED

I am engaged!!! I met Barek a little over a year ago and after much prayer and seeking the Lord we decided to take a step of faith and start dating, and now we are engaged! Barek is a man who is after God’s own heart and I am grateful for the Lord bringing us together. We were able to go up north and see my family. He met my family for the first time and asked for my hand. I am excited to see how the Lord uses us both in our calling to missions.

Praise Reports:

• Praise God for the opportunity to go to Indonesia
• Praise God I got to visit my family, it had been serveral months since I last saw them
• Praise God for working in the ordinary and bringing Barek and I together

Prayer Request:

• Pray for the grandchildren of the lady in Java
• Pray for Barek and I as we step into a new season of engagement
• Pray for God’s will to be done as I am considering going back to school and getting my teaching credentials as the Lord has been showing me I can use this when I move overseas.

Several things fell into place this month. The Lord is faithful and He has blessed us beyond anything we could have imagined and in His perfect timing. It’s easy to look back and write that now. It doesn’t mean that we didn’t have our share of anxious days and stress-filled nights. We haven’t always had peace since arriving in Japan (visa delays and plan changes and team leading etc.), but we have always had access to the Peacemaker. We didn’t often have confidence in the Japanese government, but we did have confidence in our calling. So those moments of doubt and anxiety were hard, but thankfully were few and short-lived.

Since our last update, our change of status was approved, and we now have our three-year visas. Once those arrived, we were able to register with the local city office and look for a place to rent. We had been praying for the right place for several months, but it’s still difficult to rent as a foreigner in Japan. Alishia had been using a website to see what rental units were available in the area around the church, but nothing quite fit our list that we had been praying about. There was a surprisingly low number of places that were open, and it looked like we wouldn’t have many options. However, the day that our visas came through, and we could officially start looking for a place, one came available. It was the place we had been praying for and met every one of our needs. We moved in this week, and it already feels like home.

We were also able start serving at the church. We do set-up and tear-down for our church gatherings on Friday nights and Sundays, we help out with English class on Fridays and Saturdays, and Alishia goes to the ladies’ bible study on Tuesdays. We are preparing for the church’s Easter outreach as well as doing discipleship with some of the other volunteers at the church. And of course, now that Alishia has a kitchen, she is inviting anyone and everyone over for meals or tea. Please keep all of these interactions in prayer.

We will be making a ‘short’ trip back to the States in May for Alishia’s American citizenship ceremony, as well as Daphne’s high school graduation. We’d love to spend time with you then if you’re free and we’re in your area. We’ll only be able to be in Montana and California this time, so let us know. Thank you so much for your prayers, they mean so much to us.

Prayer Requests:

• Praise the Lord that we have an apartment and that we are getting it set up!

• Pray for our ministry opportunities, especially our upcoming Easter outreach.

• Pray for our trip back to America that is coming up in May.

“Jesus said to him, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

Matthew 22:37

The phrase “with all your mind” has been very important in guiding and inspiring my ministries in the areas of apologetics, evangelism, Bible teaching etc, for many years. Despite reading and thinking about this phrase many times over the decades my view is beginning to expand beyond “intellect” to the “whole mind.” I will explain how this new mindset is leading to an expansion in ministry.

Education/Intellect

Sonshine Kids International School/Faith Family Church Cambodia: Since last month, I have been involved in teacher training at Sonshine Kids International School, which is connected to Faith Family Church Cambodia, where I also have been teaching Apologetics/Evangelism in partnership with Ps. Dara to equip his church members. Please pray for wisdom and guidance.

Precious Women Organization/True Education International School: Kayo and I have been working with, supporting, encouraging, and partnering with Precious Women Organization (PWO) since before it began around 14 years ago. Kayo serves on the advisory board, helps with administration, and does some teaching. I have mainly been helping them produce videos and leading staff devotions from time to time. PWO is in the process of starting True Education International School in a rural neighborhood outside of the city. They have started classes for primary students and Kayo and I will be helping them with their English classes. Please pray for us to be salt and light before the students, their families, and the community.

International Fishers: Christian Evidence Ministry: Even though I haven’t been able to produce any new videos for a while and allowed the subscription for the website to expire, IF continues making an impact on Facebook/YouTube as an evangelistic tool that Cambodians can use to reach other Cambodians. Please pray for wisdom and guidance about the future direction of IF.

Expansion into Mental Health/Whole Mind

It seems that God often leads me to minister out of my own trials and pain. My apologetics ministry sprung out of finding answers to my doubts about the truth of Christianity/God/Jesus/the Bible. Now God is opening new doors and giving me a new passion to reach out to those who struggle with mental health issues and their families from my own struggles/victories in this area since 2003. I am pursuing this new aspect of ministry in partnership with Light Association (the parent organization of Light Times Magazine) and the local international church.

So far I have been encouraging a Cambodian Christian man who is struggling with depression and paranoia and helping his family connect to mental health services/referrals through Light Association. I have also been studying and helping other missionaries and Cambodian Christians to better understand mental illness/brain disorders so that they (we) can better minister to those who are struggling and their families. The biggest challenges so far have been overcoming fear, shame, and misunderstandings about the causes of/treatments for mental illness/brain disorders. Please pray for wisdom and favor in this new area of ministry.

Financial Concern

We are blessed and encouraged by the generous and sacrificial giving of our faithful senders in the USA and Japan! We have encountered some unavoidable (some unexpected) large expenses (Benjamin’s tuition, major car repairs, moving expenses, visas/work permit, insurance, etc.) that have significantly impacted our accounts. The economic situations in the USA and Japan are also concerning. Please pray that God will bless and prosper our senders and also help us to connect to additional senders in both countries. We are planning to visit senders/churches/and family in Japan this summer so please also pray for blessings on this time.

In Christ’s Hands,

Darryl, Kayo, and Benjamin

We have had an exciting couple of months here in Oaxaca. In January we had a team of amazing women come from Calvary Rosarito. We had a 2-night women’s conference that was a huge blessing for all who came. It was so fun to spend time with our friends, old and new, from Rosarito. For those of you that don’t know, we spent a year doing the church planting course in Rosarito.

In February we had a married couples dinner to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and about 27 couples came. The youth helped serve the food and had a fun timing hanging out while the married couples listened to a message from Jon, played some games, and ate an amazing meal prepared by one of the ladies from our church.

At the beginning of March we celebrated FIVE YEARS of Calvary Oaxaca and all that the Lord has done. There are really no words to express how grateful we are that God called us here to Oaxaca and has given us a love for this place, and especially for the people. We have seen God’s hand in people’s lives in such amazing ways over these past 5 years including restored marriages, new faith in Jesus, baptisms, amazing friendships grow, and so much more. We have also seen His hand on our lives as He has made this our home, among many other things.

The men and women finished the book of Colossians a couple of weeks ago. This has been such a blessing to be studying the same book of the Bible. Each week we have worship together and then I (Allison) teach the ladies and one of the men teaches the men. It’s a huge blessing that Jon has some men who can teach so he can be part of the study. I am praying for some ladies who might be able to teach too. We would love prayer for that.

Jon has been teaching 2-3 times a week in Spanish. Each week I see more and more improvement in his Spanish! I think we’ll be learning Spanish for the rest of our lives. Haha! Please pray for all 4 of us to continue to grow in this area. Jonny and Noah have lots of friends here who only speak Spanish and somehow they make it work, but they are still shy. Maybe they just don’t speak it in front of Jon and me and are speaking it when we’re not around.

The church keeps very busy during the week. Right now we are doing a Navigators class, prayer night, midweek study, men’s and women’s bible study, Jon has his church planting class on Friday nights, and youth group on Saturday. It’s so fun!

We continue to go to the casa hogar each month to spend time with our friends there. They have become more like family than anything. I have also been teaching some of them how to drive once a week or so. It’s been an adventure.

We also have the exciting news that we will have another granddaughter in August. Austin and McKenna are expecting their second daughter and we can’t wait. Myla is already almost a year and a half, and it’ll be so fun to see them become a family of four. Another exciting thing is that Jonny will be turning 18 in April. I can’t believe we’re going to have two adult sons, and Noah is only a year behind Jonny.

Please continue to keep us in prayer as we serve the Lord here in Oaxaca. We are so grateful for all of you who keep us in prayer, reach out, and support our family and the ministry here financially. If you’d like to support us, please click the link. And please sign up for our email updates. We also continue to post a lot of updates on Instagram and Facebook.

Jon, Allison, Jonny, Noah

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”

Psalm 107:1

And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 

2 Timothy 2:2

Dear Friends and Family,

As the church grows not just in size but in maturity, it seems to be a natural result that ministry and the responsibilities of doing the ministry increases as well. To help keep the ministry flowing and to keep the leadership from being spread too thin, it is important to train up and share some of that responsibility with mature church members.

Recently at Arise Christian Fellowship we announced we would like to train up more volunteers to help with the ministries at the church. We were pleasantly surprised with the amount of interest that was shown. To my delight, the majority were interested in children’s ministry. This was a huge blessing because our children’s ministry can go from 65 when school is in session to 200 when school is on a break. The next largest interest group was worship.  Our worship leader was happy about this because recently she lost 2 of her team members due to their having to relocate because of their jobs. The new worship volunteers are quite young but very motivated.  It is a great discipleship opportunity for us with them as well as training them in worship.  We also had interest in ushering and cleaning.  One man who Brian has been discipling expressed the desire to present announcements for the church services.

With all of this interest we held a volunteer training for anyone interested.  We also had a specific Sunday school training for those interested in teaching, with some practical, hands-on workshops. The training for the Sunday School teachers was done by a co-laborer of ours, called Paul.  He serves with an organization that trains Sunday school teachers all over the world.  He travels all around Uganda training Sunday School teachers.  He also has gone to our compound in Nimule to train the teachers there. Some of our Christmas and Easter productions have been directed by Paul as well. He is very gifted with children.

“Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.”

James 5:14

One of the biggest ministries we have had as of late is helping the many sick chaplains who come through the Far Reaching Ministries.  Most of the chaplains have common tropical diseases but have not been able to receive the proper medicines where they are deployed deep in the bush.  We had one chaplain who had been shot seven times up near the border of North Sudan. We praise God that he was not killed. The doctors here even were amazed at how every bullet missed vital organs or arteries. 

This year I am still homeschooling the children.  I homeschool Liana fully and Luke and Laylee are in online school as well so that they can have permanent records for highschool and eventually university.  For extra curricular activities the girls are in ballet and Luke takes karate as well as playing basketball.

Thank you for praying for our family and for the ministry in Uganda.

In Him,

Brian, Jill, Luke, Laylee, and Liana

PRAYER REQUESTS

• We are so thankful  for the many ways the Lord has blessed us and for everyone who supports us and the ministry in Uganda.
• Please pray for all the volunteers at Arise Christian Fellowship, both old and new.  Pray for them to be filled with the Spirit and gifted for the ministries they are doing.
• Pray for all of the chaplains who are ill or injured. Pray for their healing and for the testimony they are to so many.
• Pray also for Scovia who works for the FRM guesthouse as she just had surgery to remove a large lump from her neck. Pray all the biopsies come back negative.
• Pray for Jill and the children as they continue homeschooling. Pray for patience for Jill and a desire to learn for the children.
• Pray for Brian as he pastors and leads the ministry team at Arise Christian Fellowship
• Pray for the Kanyike children to get called for their citizenship interview.

Hello friends and family! It’s been a little over a month since I last wrote and a lot has happened. When I last wrote I had just arrived in Yorba Linda, California for a missions training program. (We’ll call it MTS from now on.) Without further ado, let’s get into it.

An Inner Burning

In my last newsletter, I talked about how I spent 3 months in Israel. During that time in Israel, I had an urge to reach the Israeli people, yet I had such a hard time when it came to sharing the gospel because of the cultural and language barriers. Though Israel is very Westernized compared to the rest of the Middle East, it still is very culturally different. Not only that but though many Israelis speak English, it often isn’t their first language. Understandably, since I don’t speak Hebrew and am not an Israeli, it was difficult to share the gospel effectively. All this to say that when I got back to the U.S. I was eager to share the gospel in my native language and a culture I understand. During the first month of the MTS program, I decided one Thursday that I would join Pastor Nick (one of the pastors at Calvary Chapel Saving Grace) in his Cal State Fullerton outreach. When we arrived I spent hours sharing the gospel with college students. It was very exciting meeting people of all different backgrounds. Through a long set of divine appointments and stories for another time, I met a girl we’ll call Jessica and a guy named we’ll call Kyle. Kyle had been a believer when I met him, he was a believer for 2 years and was hungry to grow in the Lord and evangelism as well. Since meeting him, he has joined me 2 times to go evangelizing! Jessica is not a believer but is seeking after the Lord. A couple of MTS students and I spent a few hours with her and at the end of our conversation, she told us she wanted to learn more about God and has been faithfully attending Young Adults Group and Sunday services and best of all, 2 of our MTS ladies are pouring into her. All this is to say that the Lord is working amongst the young people.

What Else is Happening at the Missions Training Program?

So what else am I doing in the MTS program? Well, I’m glad you asked. The program consists of classes such as a preaching class, missions class, discipleship classes, and various others. In our preaching class, I am learning how to handle God’s Word to instruct others. I am really learning to love the Word and how it really comes to life when you teach it. It seems that every week of teaching through Philippians, God gives me opportunities to apply what I’m studying at work. The week I was studying Philippians 4:4, I had a rough day at work. It was during my shift that I knew I needed to rejoice in the Lord always even when things weren’t good and so I did. All that to say, God is growing and shaping me throughout the process.

Prayer Requests/ Praise reports

• Please join me in praying for my coworkers for their salvation and that God would open a door for me to share the gospel with them
• Please pray for the Cal State Fullerton campus outreach that the Lord would open up the door for us to establish a good bible-teaching club on campus
• Pray for Jessica and her salvation/ Pray for the ladies ministering to her that God would give them wisdom
• Pray for Steve and Misha that God would bless their work in Israel
• Praise the Lord for the work He’s doing in the young adults
• Praise God for the salvation of Kyle
• Praise God for His Word and how it truly changes lives

Thank you all for your prayers and your support. If you would like to hear more about the things God is doing, feel free to message me and I would love to share with you. If you would like to support my ministry there will be a link below. If you have any questions, please message me. Thank you again. God bless you all.

It has been a little while since my last newsletter, right before leaving for Southeast Asia; I have been back for a few weeks now and I am excited to share all that has happened! I want to first thank all of you for reading my newsletter, praying, and partnering with me as I continue to seek the Lord and train for full-time missions work.

BALI and EAST JAVA

Getting to visit these islands in Indonesia, seeing the culture, interacting with those in local ministry, and witnessing the darkness of the dominant religions has altogether left me with quite a lot to process in this season. A lot of people have asked me what I thought of the region, if I feel called or if I want to go back. The one thing I can say for certain is that there is so much spiritual darkness there, and the gospel is needed; Jesus Christ is needed.

In Bali, where the team spent the majority of our time, we witnessed more Hindu statues than I could possibly have guessed coming into the trip. Quite literally every single corner (every single household) had a shrine or a temple of some kind. The architecture of these is always eerie and off-putting, and as you can see below, the statues are blatantly horrific and demonic. The people on this island most likely do not realize that they are enslaved to these rituals and practices; they live in fear of these ‘gods’ and nearly every aspect of their lives is dictated by this fear. The spiritual darkness is so evident.

In spite of the darkness, the Lord opened so many doors to work with local ministries. Though many of them differ in their approaches to missions, there was an opportunity to share the vision that Saving Grace World Missions takes straight from the book of Acts, aptly called “The Purpose of the Church.” I first heard this in the School of Missions, and through it God has given me a theological, and more importantly, Biblical conviction of my role in fulfilling the Great Commission. I’d love to share this vision of evangelizing and discipling the nations, through church-planting, if any one of you has questions!

Visiting East Java provided our team with such an awesome opportunity, in that we not only were we able to see a predominantly Hindu culture in Bali, but also a predominantly Muslim culture. As soon as the ferry pulled into the East Java harbor we could see multiple mosques from which we would soon hear incessant calls to prayer. In all honesty, the darkness in this island was more palpable than what we encountered in Bali, despite the fact that we spent only three days in Java. On a personal note, I developed some kind of an infection that hit me full force while on this island, as I came down with a fever, sore throat, and strange ankle pain. Though the warfare was happening, I had a peace and a sense of gratitude for my team and my calling. This trip was just a taste of what cross-cultural missions is like, of what culture-shock feels like, and of what my everyday world may eventually look like! Don’t worry, I am not deterred.

The darkness of these places and the lostness of these people does not dissuade me but rather emboldens me in the LORD. If I could summarize what I saw in one word, it would be bondage. I encountered so many people in bondage; whether it was a local Balinese woman whirling and breathing in incense to a ‘god’ at a food altar on the street, or a Javanese Muslim wailing a call to prayer in the streets with incessant and depressing repetition, or even if it was the tourists coming to indulge and seek empty lusts and thrills. Yes I encountered bondage, but I’ve never felt so free in Christ, in a unique and strange way. There was a time in my life when the bondage of these people would’ve either gone over my head, or it would’ve been rationally compartmentalized as something other than exactly what it is; they are enslaved to their sin nature, as I once was. They need to hear the gospel! They need to personally know the victory that is in Jesus Christ, a victory that remains always and resounds forever.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

– 1 Corinthians 15:55-57

IN OTHER NEWS

Upon returning from Indonesia, the Lord has guided me in taking an exciting new step of faith. This past weekend I got engaged! I met Araceli over a year ago and together we have sought the Lord in our relationship, and have both felt it confirmed that we are called to reach the nations together; where and when we don’t know, but we trust Him and His plans, which He and He alone has always been faithful to guide us through. In each other, the Lord has given us both a helper, as Eve was given to Adam in Genesis 2. Please pray for us as we seek the Lord together in this season of engagement and with the missions program as we seek to spread the gospel, by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is faithful!

Thank you for reading this; I hope to continue to connect with you all, and please reach out to me with any questions about the trip, the next steps, or anything!

PRAYER REQUESTS

• For myself and everyone on the teams, both to Japan and to Indonesia; that we’d continue to unpack everything with the Lord and that He’d burden our hearts for these specific countries, if it be His sovereign will.
• For continued growth in His Word and in the work that He has for me as I continue to seek to be used by Him in ministry.
• For my fiancé and I as we enter into this season of engagement, seeking the Lord, and eventually planning our wedding with Him in every detail!
• For a job, as I am currently looking for the best option given where I’m at and what the future holds.

PRAISE REPORTS

• For the victory that we have in Christ, always and forever!
• For God’s continual guidance and provision through my anxiety; He has shown His sovereignty so many times, I am learning and re-learning that He gives me no reason to doubt His love or His promises.
• For the amazing and eye-opening trip to Indonesia.
• For this new season of engagement!