Dear Praying Friends,
We’ve arrived in Katy! Deputation (Version 2.0) is now complete. During our year of ministry travel, we logged 29,500 miles in our vehicle and passed through 26 different states. We arrived at the end of our deputation journey when we entered Katy, TX on Saturday, January 17. Our support level at the outset of deputation stood at 60% of our need; now it stands at 100%! We praise the Lord for providing for our support needs in a relatively short period of time.
In our last letter we reported that after our house-hunting trip to Katy in early December, we had not yet found a suitable ministry home. Our realtor, however, continued to search on our behalf after we had gone; she soon located a home in our target area that was within our budget. After prayer and consultation, we decided that this was the home that God had prepared for us. Our offer was accepted, and after our return to Katy we signed closing documents on January 20th. The result was a bit shocking to us; our original expectation was that God would provide us a beautiful, move-in ready home, that we could furnish and occupy immediately. But God had other plans for us.
To find a home in our budget and price range, God gave us a fixer-upper; it will be necessary to perform multiple major repairs and upgrades before we can move in. The house itself is structurally sound, but it is an older home that has been neglected for many decades. We have some funds set aside, but the list of major repairs and upgrades needed is long and growing longer. These include replacing the electric service panel and other electrical work; removing the badly cracked tile flooring throughout the house and installing vinyl plank flooring; replacing the kitchen cabinets and countertops, which were cruddy and falling through; extensive drywall repair and patching, and new paint for the whole interior. We also need to purchase major appliances and furnish the entire house.
During our year of deputation, multiple churches sent us special, one-time offerings toward the purchase of our home. This was a tremendous blessing! On our purchase date we had the funds in hand to cover our down payment, closing costs, and some of the initial repairs and furniture purchases. If additional churches are interested in a one-time missions project, toward remaining repairs, urgent upgrades, and furnishings, it would enable us to get completely moved in sooner than we might otherwise be able to do.
For us, this two-and-a-half-year process of moving from Taiwan to Texas, buying a home for the first time, and transitioning into a new ministry assignment has felt something like an attempt to colonize Mars! The obstacles have been high and many, the timeline has been long, and the learning curve has been steep. We have great sympathy for how the Israelites must have felt when they stood on the shore of the Red Sea with Pharoah in pursuit. But now the waters have parted; we can see the power of God working on our behalf; the opposite shore is in sight and drawing nearer!
Please pray for continuing endurance for Marla and me, as we complete this transition. We are currently staying with retired BMM missionaries, Dan and Peggy Whitcher, who have graciously invited us into their home, as we work to get our house move-in ready. We are requesting estimates, hiring contractors, and employing handymen to help us work through the list of projects, while Marla and I work on cleaning up the property and working on the lesser repairs that we can manage ourselves. We’ve learned more about construction and home ownership in the last month than we learned in our previous forty years of marriage!
The congregation of Good News Baptist Church has welcomed us into their midst. Our ministry partners, Gerald and Julie Hawk, have been gracious and encouraging as they assist us in settling into life and ministry here. During these last two weeks we have had unique opportunities to develop relationships with contractors and workmen who have come right into our home. These have included a Brazilian, a Lebanese, Hispanics from Venezuela and other Latin American countries, and a Chinese shop owner. One man (S.) has expressed a sense of spiritual need and asked to continue his contact with us. Pray that we would improve these opportunities for evangelism and personal ministry.
Our moving POD will be delivered on Monday, February 2. This contains our Taiwan household items that have been in storage for two years. We hope to begin “camping out” in our master bedroom by early February, while additional work takes place in other parts of the house and we begin to purchase furniture items. Once these major projects are complete and we get more settled, we can slowly work on some of the minor cosmetic issues little by little. As we are working on all of these things at home, we will also slowly begin moving into ministry assignments in the church and congregation.
GNBC is beginning to ramp up its own building program as it pursues more suitable facilities for church worship and ministries. We will update you more about this in future letters. Please begin to pray for this major project. There has been a measurable increase in church attendance over the last several months, which underlines the urgency of this need. Thank you for your faithfulness in praying for us and giving toward our ministry. We need it now more than ever!
Request our new mailing address and contact information by sending us a message.
In Christ,
