December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas! I’m writing this letter on Christmas day, so most of you probably won’t get it until afterward, but our past week has been busy!

Most of you have probably heard the news about fighting breaking out in South Sudan. About a week and a half ago there was a fight within the South Sudanese military between two tribes that led to what is basically a civil war. In the northern part of the country there are battles going on between the two military factions as each wants more control over the country’s government. We are praying for a quick resolution to this problem as many innocent people are being killed in the process.

For us in Lohutok, the problem still seems pretty far away. The attitude among the people seems to be that they are not part of the fight, and don’t want to see the fight reach our region of the country. Our family left yesterday, on Christmas Eve, for Uganda, but not because we felt unsafe. We have some travelling to do at the end of next week and since it is uncertain what options will be available then, we took a flight that became available. Our original plan was to go back to Lohutok on January 23rd, we are praying that the situation calms down so we can continue with this plan.

The house is almost ready for us to move in, we wanted it to be done before this trip, but it just didn’t happen! Will you please pray with us about the following things:

- Pray for peace in South Sudan, not just military peace, but that the gospel would change hearts and people would begin to love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates.
- Pray for our travel plans. We were supposed to travel through Kenya, but now we are in Uganda trying to work out how to get to Ethiopia, which is where we need to be next week.
- Pray that God would provide for our needs. Because all of our funding has been going to the house, we haven’t really built up an emergency fund, so we’re trusting God for the extra costs we have from being out of the bush longer.
- Pray for the safety of our things and our house that are all locked up in the village without anybody to watch them.
Thank you for standing with us! God is faithful and has a heart for the lost souls in South Sudan, and we are confident that He is going to continue to reach them!