June Prayer Update

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Colorado!  It has been such a beautiful visit here to see family, receive excellent training and see more of God's beautiful creation!  We have some more exciting news to share with you and ask you to continue in prayer with us:

Answers to Prayer
- Praise God that our work permit (TEP) has been received in Malawi and it awaits our arrival to finalize.  This allows us to work for 2 years, at which time we will re-apply.

- Praise God for 3 weeks of visiting with Jonathan's parents and sister's family.  It was so fun to see the cousins interact and get to know each other beyond pictures in Christmas cards!  It's good to pick up where we left off with family, even though we don't get to see each other very often.

- Praise God for an awesome 5 weeks of training at Missionary Training International.  We are privileged to have access to such excellent training in cross-cultural ministry and language acquisition.  The kids both did great in their classes/nursery and the staff were absolutely amazing in caring for our kids and for us as we parent them through many transitions.  We have great respect for their ministry and programming!

- Praise God for relatively good health through our Colorado trip.  Although we are all run down and Micah got a fever the last two days of our training, we are impressed by God's protection over our bodies and health through many stresses and activities.

- Praise God for a house to stay in between now and our departure!  What a gift from a friend from church...complete with play room and sandbox!  Who could ask for anything more? :)

Continue to Pray with us:
- Pray for sleep!  Yes, this is still a prayer request.  All four of us have been staying in the same room together throughout our 5 weeks of training which made for some sleep challenges, but also treasured memories.  As we move back to PA to yet another house, we dearly hope that the kids will settle into good sleep routines, resulting in good sleep for us parents as well! 

- Pray for our move back to PA to settle into another house until our Aug. 6th departure.  We fly out of Denver on Tuesday, June 26th.  

- Pray for our preparations.  We are hoping to do the bulk of our packing from July 11-13th.  Pray hard on these days and leading up to them that we make good decisions, stay calm, respond to each other in love under stress and actually finish what we set out to do.  Hopefully, sleep will be good those nights!  We also have a lot of good-byes ahead of us.  Pray that we say good-bye well and have quality time with friends and family before our departure.  Finally, pray for our commissioning service on July 15th at 10:30am, that it will not only be a time of affirmation and encouragement for us and all who attend, but also a time open to the Spirit's moving in all of our lives.

- Pray for one or two good language helpers for both of us upon arrival in Malawi.  We have been trained how to learn a new language, but will need help from someone who is patient, who speaks well, who has time to meet with us regularly and who is willing to correct us (repeatedly!).  Pray also for wisdom in determining how much time to commit to language learning and finding childcare for our language learning times.

- Pray that God will prepare us for the new relationships we will form when we arrive in Malawi -- particularly those with Malawians.


Grace and Peace,
Jonathan and Becky (and Micah and Rachel)