I sat down to write this prayer letter multiple times over the past couple months, only to have more things occur that were worth sharing. Rejoice with us in the following:

     On June 30th, after our family devotions, our son Daniel asked to speak with me privately.  With tears in his eyes, he asked me when he can be saved from his sins.  We had been talking to him about salvation for quite some time, but the Lord used events from earlier in the day and a talk from our co-worker to finally bring him to see the seriousness of sin and his need of Jesus as his Saviour.  He repented of his sin and put his faith in the Lord Jesus  that night. Please pray for Daniel to understand more and more about this great salvation and grow in the Lord.

     In our last prayer letter, we had mentioned that there were some new people who started coming to services through having attended our Family Conference evenings in May.  One of them was saved and baptized years ago in northern Russia in a Baptist church. She had been attending a Pentecostal church in town until she heard about us through the Family Conference.  She faithfully comes almost every Sunday AM, Sunday PM Bible study at our house, and Thursday PM Bible study.  She loves the Lord and has been a blessing to us personally and others to whom the church is ministering.

Outside of our missionary team, we often have around ten others who come to our Sunday morning service. The Sunday PM Bible study at our house has grown to four Moldovans coming most weeks.  More come consistently to the Thursday Bible study than a year ago, too.  We thank the Lord for the people we get to feed spiritually on a regular basis.

     At the beginning of July, Jacob and Viola Hughes returned to Moldova from furlough.  The next week we held VBS at our house. We thank the Lord that we had more children this year than last year.  A couple weeks later, we ran VBS in Soroca at our meeting place.  On the last day, four girls trusted Christ as their Lord and Savior!  Two of them were girls who had come last year to our VBS.

     The following Sunday afternoon, Jacob and I drove almost an hour away to visit a lady to whom I given a ride back in May. As I often try to do when I pick up hitch-hikers (it is common here), I talked to her about Christ and salvation. She was very distraught with life.  She had cancer surgery at the start of the year, her mother died a couple months after, and she was at the time on her way to the capital city to pick up her brother’s body who had died in a car accident.  We kept in touch off and on over the past several months.  Her problems only increased as she was diagnosed with cancer again and had other complications. She read through a book I had given her on the Gospel. When Jacob and I went to visit her, she said she was ready and wanted to be saved. We had the joy of leading her to Christ.  She wants us to talk with her husband about salvation next. Please pray for “T” and for the Lord to encourage her and help her to grow spiritually and be a light even through her difficulties.

     This summer we had the privilege of seeing the results of prayer and biblical counsel.  A lady who was previously considering abortion, gave birth to a beautiful little girl.  God’s Word spoken to soft hearts is not limited to spiritual salvation but can even result in physical life.

     In July between weeks of VBS, we attended BIMI’s European field conference in Israel.  In our 7 years of being in Moldova, this was our first time to attend the field conference.  Abby and Caleb joined Stephanie and me while the younger three stayed with the Hughes at our house.  The preaching was encouraging and challenging, fellowship with other missionaries uplifting, and sites we saw amazing.  I had so many misconceptions of places and events from Scripture.  I took copius notes and many pictures in order to try and capture the plethora of information during the week.  We thank the Lord for a wonderful opportunity to learn more about Israel’s land and people.  I have already been able to implement in my preaching/teaching the things that I saw and learned.

     In August, our team here in Soroca spent several days together on our annual retreat to pray, thank God for the past year, and plan out the next 12 months.  My big take-away from the retreat is that God had done so much over the past year in answering prayer and working in amazing ways that I can only look forward with prayer and anticipation what the next 12 months hold in store. Opportunities have opened up in two other villages near us.  The harvest is ripe but the laborers are few. Pray for more laborers and these new ventures.

Thank you all for your faithful prayers and support.