Hard to believe it, but we have just about finished our furlough.  As a family, we feel that

Pic of our last day of traveling for furlough visits

this was the best furlough we have had thus far.  We believe it has been a success in many ways.  We reported to supporting churches, gave out Gospel tracts and witnessed to folks across America, enjoyed good visits with family and friends, had extra time with our sending church, and feel refreshed to return to Moldova and press on in the ministry there.

For those of you who like statistics, here are some of our stats.  We traveled over 13,000 miles in 17 weeks.  We were in a total of 33 churches (25 supporting churches, 4 new churches, and 4 unplanned stop-ins where the pastor

New supporting church! – Our pin on their map

graciously gave us 5 minutes to talk about our ministry during the service).  In addition to the added prayer support in the new churches, one of them voted to start supporting us.  Our travels included 21 states.  Our only car trouble was that one flat tire.  Out of our 25 supporting churches we visited, 13 of them had new pastors since the last time we visited them.  It was a blessing getting to meet these men.

Since our last prayer letter at the end of June, we had several weeks of refreshment

BIMI Enrichment Week—they met Dr. Sisk

between meetings.  Our children enjoyed a week of Christian camp for the first time (family camp week at the Bill Rice Ranch).  We also had a week of vacation with my parents, brother, and his family.  We also experienced BIMI’s Enrichment Week for the first time ever.  That was an amazing week for everyone in our family to remember.  Stephanie and I got away for several days to celebrate our 18th anniversary at some places that offered free accommodations to missionaries.  We enjoyed the change of pace from the first half of furlough.  We just arrived home today from our last scheduled furlough meeting.

Please pray for us as we work on packing and finishing up the last things on our to-do list before leaving next week.  We fly out early morning on Thursday, August 25th.  We will fly from Memphis to Chicago, Chicago to Istanbul, Turkey, then from Istanbul to Cluj, Romania.  We only have a one hour layover in Istanbul.  We appreciate your prayers regarding us making that last flight.  The plan right now is to spend about 10 days in Romania before driving home to Moldova.  While in Romania, we have an oil leak on our van to fix and x-rays and possible wisdom teeth extraction for Caleb.  Pray for a smooth transition back into life and ministry in Moldova.

While things can change quickly in the future, things seem to be peaceful and somewhat stable in Moldova right now, for which we are thankful.  Please continue to pray for the situation in Ukraine.  I am still reading reports that Odessa, Ukraine is the main barrier we have that is keeping Russia from taking Transnistria and the rest of Moldova.  God knows the future, thus we trust in Him.

Thank you for your prayers and support.