July 2021 Prayer Letter
As we look at being halfway through this year, we have seen great blessings in the ministry and faced great challenges for our family. There have been great strides in the churches yet also hard times in our personal lives. However, what has remained the same is God and His faithfulness.
We sincerely thank each and every one of you who have contacted us about Ellie’s broken arm. We want to update you on her healing process, however, let me start with Jessica. Jessica has had knee trouble for the past 1-2 years. While we were at one of Ellie’s follow-up appointments, Jessica asked the doctor to look at her knees. After some exams, the Bolivian doctor determined that she had a torn meniscus. We scheduled for her to have surgery to repair this but the week she was to have her surgery the doctor came down with Covid. At the same time, the hospitals were over run. After discussing our dilemma with our pastor, he and I determined the best option would be to return to the states for a short medical leave. We arrived from Bolivia mid-June with tickets to return July 16th. Jessica’s stateside doctor re-examined her and we immediately saw God’s guiding hand. He found she had patellofemoral syndrome, (“runner’s knee”) in both knees and said that if that original planned surgery had been done in Bolivia it would have likely made her condition worse. She had surgery to repair this problem in late June and is still recovering. She has had a lot of swelling but is slowly doing better each day. While in the states, we decided to have Ellie’s arm examined further as well because she still could not flex her elbow all the way. The stateside doctor saw that part of the bone in her elbow had not healed in the correct position and she would require a 3rd surgery to correct this. Due to the time that had passed since the original break, he did not believe, even with another surgery, that she would ever regain full movement. Ellie’s surgery was on July 2nd, when they had to re-break the arm, do the needed repairs, and put in 2 screws. The doctor reported that everything went better than expected and, contrary to his original prediction, he believes her arm will make a full recovery with full usage over time!!! He needs to keep her under supervision for 3-6 months, so this has caused us to have to extend our medical leave. At the time of this writing, we are still trying to revise our date to return home to Bolivia.
Earlier this year, we planned for a team from Medical Missions Outreach to come work with one of the national churches in Bolivia. I returned to Bolivia on July 5th for two weeks to see this 21-person medical team into the country. We set up a 4-day clinic in a local school and were able to see 1,070 patients. These patients received medical help and advice along with any medication they might have needed free of charge. Most importantly, every individual received a personal explanation of the gospel before they left. As a result of the clinic the local church had visitors the very next Sunday! This clinic was not only a great experience but a wonderful opportunity to show the local people that God loves them and to sow the seed of the gospel in that community. After the huge success of this medical team, we have already scheduled at least 2 more future medical clinics.
Before we finish this letter, we want to share more very exciting news. As our 2nd church grows closer to being autonomous, we have started to look toward the future. In January, we began working on what will be our 3rd church plant. We haven’t mentioned this before because there were many unknowns at that time. We are working south of our current church plant in an area that I had a desire to reach about 5 years ago. This work was originally started by a family out of another local church. However, because of the political unrest and the pandemic, they have struggled to get anything going. We have worked with them for months now, seen their desire and the great opportunity that lies ahead in this community. The people in this area are not quite as open as those where we are currently working but they have still accepted us with only a bit of reservation. While we continue to make progress, we look forward to sharing more about the advancements in the days ahead.
We ask that you please continue to pray for our family. The last few weeks and months have been challenging but we have seen God’s guidance throughout the journey. We are grateful for His care toward our family. We also ask that you pray for our churches as we are away. Especially pray for this newest work as we seek the Lord’s will in how to grow and build it into an autonomous church for the glory of God.
