Kathleen’s salon (front room) is a testimony to the grace of God at work in her otherwise neat and orderly life. Most of the furniture has been moved out the past six months, and the neat, respectable showcase has been converted into a messy recording studio with spotlights reflecting light off of four large discarded real estate signs! The picture wall is hidden behind a large sheet of composite board which holds large background pictures for the recording. The only comfort as one enters the distraught salon is a big picture of the Holy Land casting its shadow of hope over the distressing scene!
The recording phase of the New Testament project is finished except for one lesson and a demo DVD which will be left to the end to tie up any loose ends. The wonderful physical relief from the daily extreme fatigue remained for the months of the recording. The week after the recording finished, the fatigue returned in part, though not as extreme and regular as before. Thank you for praying! We are so thankful for God’s merciful blessings!
After some frustration and delay with equipment and software, the editing phase of the project film has now started in earnest. With many long hours I hope to be able to finish one lesson each week. At that rate about half of the editing will be completed by the time the 2007 college year begins on February the first. I have committed to running the course in the college day-session and evening extension as well as a church or two who want to run the course on a weeknight.
The prayer challenge is for the strength to do this. Along with the initiation of the editing work has come some arthritis in both hands that hinder my long hours on the computer. Would you please pray for relief to meet this challenge. The burden and desire are so heavy on my heart to finish this project.
Yesterday I received a letter from a new Australian missionary in another country that gave me further impetus to finish the New Testament project. Some excerpts are as follows:
“Firstly, I wanted to say that the O T Bible History course that you provided to me has been a great blessing, not only to the students, but to me also. I am sure you have experienced many times in your years in the ministry, that the Lord would use someone to say something that is appropriate for your situation at that particular time, and that person had no idea that that was the case! Well, the Lord has used you through the course to do that. So I thank the Lord for using you in that way. Secondly, I also had a number of requests for copies of the set (from national pastors), which I have nicely declined (until he gets our permission). I have the first group of 8 students about to finish the course (and pass). I let them do all the questions in the quizzes and tests (i.e I didn’t reduce the number of questions). I have some more students that are at different stages of completion… Thanks again for being a blessing to us.”
I cannot express my feeling of joy, that completely unknown to us, God’s people in another country are being encouraged and built up through our labours here! This is only a “drop in the bucket” of what God is doing and can do through these two projects of the Old and New Testaments as helpful tools for building up and training God’s people. So God has motivated us to press forward to completion; only we need some small relief which God can give. Thank you for making this a matter for intercession before our great God! Thank you sincerely for your help and encouragement.
Missionary Outpost 