Dear friends,
We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus.
Thank you for praying for Debbie. Her nose is healing well and we are able to return to Kagoro leaving Northern Ireland on 14th, flying overnight from London to Abuja and then being driven to Kagoro arriving mid-morning on 15th, God willing. Our colleagues, Dennis and Coletta Shelly, will be on the same flight from London and the journey by road to Kagoro. We thank the Lord Dennis does not need surgery and that his health concerns are not as serious as earlier thought. Thank you for praying.
We have two farewell meetings at our home churches. The evening service at Ballynahinch Congregational Church on 5th August (6:30 to 7:30pm) is the first of these with Mike Ewan (SIM Ireland director) speaking at that service. On the following Sunday (12th), there will be a short farewell service at Coagh Baptist Church at 7:45pm right after the evening service. There will be tea after each of these services, we hear. Our role at each service will be to give a short update including prayer requests. Everyone is welcome at these services and we look forward to seeing you there if you are able to attend.
The academic dean at the Seminary has let us know which courses we will be teaching. Debbie will be covering three courses all of which she has taught before while I have been asked to teach a new course on spiritual formation and one on expository preaching. Although this second course is not new, I have not taught it before so I have been working on both courses and look forward to teaching them this semester. The Provost wants me to resume work as the registrar at the Seminary so I will have to find out from Dr. Paul Bidoli what has been happening in the office while I have been away.
We would appreciate your prayers as we pack (six suitcases to take with us on this trip, two of which are full of things for the seminary). It is always hard to say farewell to family and friends and we would appreciate your prayers for us and them as we head off to Africa again. Pray also for our adjustment to being back at Kagoro. It will take some time to get our systems up and running again.
Thank you to all who have been praying for us and contributing towards our financial support. We could not continue our ministries without you and are confident our Lord will reward those who are seeking the extension of His kingdom (Col. 3:23-24).
Yours in our Lord,
David and Debbie
