Dear Praying Friends,
Thank you for your ongoing prayers for Marla and me over these last few months. We last reported to you from Michigan; we moved out of our housing in Midland, MI on January 12 and traveled down to our daughter’s (Beth’s) home in Columbia, South Carolina. We made it out of town just hours before a major snow event hit the state. We are thankful to the Lord for continuing to give us safe travel as we keep adding on more miles to the odometer. We have reported to several of our supporting churches in three different states here in the South, during these last two months.
In Taiwan the ministry team led by Josh Stewart continues to guide Cornerstone Baptist Church. The Stewarts and another BMM couple are working together in teaching, preaching, and congregational ministry. Please continue to pray for the congregation’s need for national leadership.
As Marla and I continue to seek the Lord’s guidance for the future, it has become clear that the ministry opportunity which we were pursuing in the Northeast (mentioned in our last letter) is a closed door. We are thankful for negative guidance (cp. Acts 16:6-8), but we are still waiting for a Macedonian vision! We have begun to pursue another opportunity in the U.S. Southwest. For this purpose, we will be leaving South Carolina on March 14th for a two-week survey trip to a western state; during this excursion we will put an additional 2000+ miles of travel on our vehicle. Our goal for this trip is to get to know the leadership and people in this BMM church plant and to allow them to become acquainted with us, as well. Please pray for us to experience travel safety, to enjoy good fellowship with the people, and to gain understanding of God’s guidance for us. We acknowledge God’s calling to be “strangers and pilgrims” on this earth; however, we are ready to find a place that we can call “home,” to get our household out of storage, and to do all the things that we keep saying we will do “when we get settled”!
In the meantime, we are enjoying time spent with our daughter; we are keeping busy with preparations for future ministry, annual health checkups, and our daily walk with the Lord and with one another. Life’s an adventure! We will keep you posted.
In Christ,
Matt & Marla Hanna