The last month seems to be a blur of travel and speaking. In April Cecil spoke at seven places in Pennsylvania, one in West Virginia and two in North Carolina. Easter break was nice, we all went to visit family. When Cecil was visiting with his grandmother he had a chance encounter with a doctor in the cafeteria and during the conversation he discovered that this was the doctor that delivered him at birth. A most interesting encounter. The kids also had a great time with their great-grandmother (96 years old!).
We were also able to do a little sight-seeing and history lessons while passing through the D.C. area.
We had a special treat when we spoke in Siler City in late March. The church there is bi-lingual, and the entire service was done with translation. Cecil felt right at home having his sermon translated. Here is a photo with the translator and his wife.
We have submitted an application to have Deanna's I-94 extended, so that she will remain legal until we return to Russia. There are three possibilities: 1. it is approved, that would solve the problem with her I-94. 2. it is denied, and she would have 30 days to leave the country. 3. They don't make a decision, which is fine because she would remain legal. So that situation is taken care of for now, but you can pray that they just don't deny the extension (until we're about to leave anyway). Once Deanna has been in our legal and physical custody for more than two years, we can apply for her to get an immigrant visa and receive U.S. citizenship. So we expect to start jumping through those legal hoops in 2010.
Do to the economic downturn, our headquarters has been working to lower missionary's budgets. This should work to our advantage, so we may be closer to meeting our budget than we thought. We haven't gotten hard figures yet on how exactly our budget has been effected, but we'll soon sharpen our pencils and find out. We are praying that we be fully funded when we return to Russia (hopefully in August).
Please also pray that our time in the States be true ministry as we travel and speak. That the messages would be from the Lord and would be a blessing to those who hear.
We would like to bring a slide show to your attention. It is about a monument in honor of the terrorism victims in the World Trade Center that was erected by Russians here in the States. A gift from the people of Russia to the people of American, hoping for peace. I didn't hear about this in the news, and maybe you didn't either. We pray that peace between Russia and the United States would be firmly established. The slide show is in powerpoint and posted on our web site at http://101649.agwebservices2.org/?TargetPage=56A045DF-A15D-412F-9427-378208341E96 and if you have problems viewing it, please let us know.
May the Lord richly bless you,
Cecil, Tonya, Timothy, Vera and Deanna
