my short trip to Khabarovsk was successful. The biggest success was submitting the application for the resident permit, but a number of other things were accomplished as well. I had several good meetings with various folks, renewed my Russian driver's license, preached several times, put weather-stripping in some of our windows (Russian winter is coming), and started setting up my office space. Another success was getting back to the North Carolina to be with my family. For a bit I thought I might spend more time in Korea than I wanted, since my flight out of Khabarovsk was late. As I was running down a corridor in the airport in Seoul, a uniformed lady asked me where I was going. I said, "gate 47, to Chicago." She said, "please hurry" and then talked into a walkie-talkie in Korean. They held the entire Boeing 777 full of people waiting for their trans-Pacific flight just for me. I felt important, and out of breath. I hope next time I'm less important and breathing easier.
Tonya has managed the home front well, and even packed some suitcases while we were apart. Now we're already in countdown mode, with tickets purchased for the 22nd of October. So the whole family is in the midst of packing. Please pray that we are able to take care of every detail be for departure.
Deanna's broken chin is healing well, but we're not going to let her ride it a bike again until we're in Russia. I told her, "no more broken bones until we're home in Russia!" But we're also grateful that she is recovering quickly and our family's departure was only delayed two months. A couple days ago Timothy took this photo of Vera, Deana, and me while we were sitting on our front porch here in North Carolina. The weather here is warmer than in Russia.
Timothy recently received some awards with Royal Rangers (kinda like a Christian Boy Scouts).
We have a special prayer request. There is an individual who wants to help establish Bible Schools for the training of pastors by purchasing buildings for them. He has made some funds available to us to buy a building for the Bible School in Khabarovsk, but has stipulated that we make the purchase before Dec. 15th of this year. So we need to find an appropriate facility and negotiate for it by the deadline. Some workers with the national church in Khabarovsk have started looking for available properties. Please pray that the Lord would show us the place that He has in mind, and make the purchase process go smoothly.
We also have a general prayer request: that we finish up everything here that we need to so and that we would all arrive safely in the Russian Far East (with all our luggage).
From all of us,
Cecil, Tonya, Timothy, Vera and Deanna
