Friday 2 January 2009

January update

Dear Friends

We send you greetings in the Name of Jesus and wish you a happy new year!

Thank you for praying for our farewell service at Ballynahinch Congregational Church. The meeting was well attended and thank you also if you were one of the people who was able to be there. The church forwarded a substantial gift to SIM to help us buy a replacement car and we thank them for this practical concern. (Our 21-year old Toyota Corolla at Kagoro is almost a ‘classic car’ and good spares are hard to find.)

I am preaching in both services at Coagh Baptist Church on 4th January so pray they go well (texts Psalm 95 & John 11).

We don’t have our visas yet so keep on praying they will be processed on time. We received a call from London and have posted some more documents to the High Commission. We hope to leave N. Ireland on 19th and arrive at Kagoro on 20th January. As I am sure you can imagine, there are lots of things to do before we leave. There will also be many things to do right after we arrive and the new semester will already have started at the seminary.

I am still working on my dissertation. I have received helpful feedback from my advisor which I will work on in coming days. It looks like I will not be able to finish the dissertation before I leave which is unfortunate but hopefully the bulk of the work is done.

Thank you for praying for the situation in Jos. It sounds like things are calm now. Pray for all those bereaved and for peace in that city. (More information can be found if you follow the links.)

Thank you again for your interest in the work at Kagoro. We look forward to being back there though it is always hard to leave family and friends, especially my father who still has limited mobility after his stroke in April.

As members of SIM we are supposed to produce an official prayer letter four times a year. Normally we manage three. We thank the Lord that people in our supporting churches photocopy and make these available to church members each time. We are, however, looking for someone to help us distribute the ones that are posted (approx 140). We thank Lyn at the SIM office for helping in this regard but we feel it is time to relieve her of that work. Anyone who would like to help should have a computer, some knowledge of word processing, and an email address. We will pay for the expenses involved. If someone reading this would be interested in helping with this task, please contact us using davidcolvi@aol.com. Thanks.

Yours in Christ,

David and Debbie