Home Assignment Updates

Many of you, our faithful friends and supporters, will be praying for Lois today, as she was supposed to be undergoing hip replacement surgery. We appreciate your prayers and suggest that you keep praying, even though her surgery has been put off for now. She is following the well-recommended advice of getting another opinion, this from a doctor who does a much less invasive hip replacement, making her recovery much quicker. We’ll keep you posted on when that surgery will happen (assuming it will work for her).

The month of June was very different for us in many ways. I spent almost all my waking hours at our new fix-me-up home in Loudonville, Ohio. Lois spent a lot of her time with her parents, taking care of the mundane chores of living while they each recuperated from hospital stays. Both are doing much better and we thank you for your inquiries and prayers on their behalf.

Today, if all goes as planned, we will spend our first night in our new home – NOT that everything is done. We have the bathroom, kitchen and one bedroom liveable, so we’re moving in! We’ll work on the rest as we go. It will be fun to finally go through our stored stuff and see what we have…now we can better choose from all those wonderful things you ladies have in those missionary cupboards. 

This move seems to have been a long time in coming, but as we look back over the past month and see how God has so wonderfully provided all our furnishings, we’re reminded again that He does all things beautifully in His time.

 We want to say a special thank you to those of you who have ‘visited’ us in our new home, working hard in this ‘Africa-like’ heat to help us get things done. It has been a big encouragement to us, and makes today possible.

This next Sunday, we will start another round of meetings, including a week of vacation Bible school. Please pray that God will lead us to new faithful friends and supporters as we are still hoping to return to Africa in January 2005.

Causes for Praise:

• “Brother Bob, I’m calling to tell you that our church voted to support your ministry…” What wonderful, welcome news received this week from a Pastor in West Virginia. Praise the Lord for this answered prayer.
• The month of June finds us very busy fixing up our new home. We want to thank those of you who have helped us out. There’s a lot to do, but we’re thankful to have a new home to work on! Isn’t it interesting that we have no meetings in June – God knew we would need this time to focus on a different project.

Concerns for Prayer:

• Support Needs Speedy work on our house so we can move in!
• Surgery – Lois will be having a hip replacement July 5th. Please pray that her recovery goes well. Also pray for me as I present our ministry without her help. 

As I look back over my past updates, I realize with embarrassment and apologies that it has been almost 2 months since I last wrote. We thank all of you who prayed for us during this busy time of meetings. We’ve made lots of new friends and reconnected with many other friends. It’s been so rewarding to share what God is doing in West Africa; we hope always to be a reminder of His faithfulness, both here and there. We trust that God will use these special times together in directing us all as to who will become partners in our new ministry in Niger.

Causes for Praise: Some fun things are happening in our family:

1. Our daughter and her husband will present us with our first grandbaby in November;
2. Our son graduated from law school last week; and
3. We will close on our very own, very small, bank foreclosure, fix-me-up house this Friday. Finally, a place of our own even though we have lots of work to do to make it liveable for us for the next 6 months, and then for renters as we return to Niger.

Concerns for Prayer:

1. Support Needs – we want to return to Niger in January, but need about 40% more of our support. Remember that our previous school ministry subsidized our support; our new ministry will not.
2. Health of Lois’ mom – Mrs. Matheny underwent an emergency appendectomy this past Saturday. Lois and her sister are in West Virginia helping out as they can. They had hoped to bring ‘mommy’ home from the hospital today, but now doctors are saying ‘maybe tomorrow’.