Cynthia continues to teach her AWANA Cubbies (preschoolers), helps the youth pastor, and occasionally teaches Children's Church on Sunday mornings. During the middle of February, we were invited to teach two classes on Cross Cultural Ministries in Duncan, which is a little over an hour south of us. The Korean pastor of the Native church there recently invited and is housing 7-8 Korean missionary interns in his home. For two months, they are trained followed by three months of ministry on the Island. All are learning English so it is a learning experience for everyone. So on February 20 and March 6, Herman taught a class.On February 28, Cynthia and five other women from Southside Community Church drove to Bellingham, Washington for a Women's Retreat. They had a great time traveling together and being with other women from the Canada Pacific District. Their speaker spoke about her and her husband's journey through West Nile disease. It's hard to imagine how a tiny mosquito could inflict so much suffering. It was cool to see how this lady was able to maintain her sense of humor as she stood by her husband through his sickness, hospitalization, and recovery. It wasn't easy. Overall, the women had a great time being with one another.
Then on March 2, Cynthia received word that her 19-year-old nephew had a stroke. As her family came together, prayers were offered from all over for her nephew. Cynthia flew back to Arizona to be with family and stayed out there for three weeks. God heard our prayers, and on March 15, two weeks after his stroke, he was released from the hospital. Praise the Lord! Please continue to pray that he will give his life completely to God. He has gone through so much and is running from God although he knows the Truth; he was raised in a Christian home. On April 13, it has been three years since his mom died in a car accident. We all miss her still very much.
During the time Cynthia was in the States, she was able to spend time with family and even traveled to Colorado with our son and his wife to visit the Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs. Our son has decided that he will attend NBC this fall, and we are all excited. His wife will be graduating from the University of New Mexico this May so it is an exciting time because she will be the first college graduate from her mother's side of the family. We're very proud of her. While Cynthia was in the States, Herman kept busy visiting people, performed his first funeral, and spoke at Campbell River Native Fellowship, where he was offered a pastorate position. This group has been without a pastor since their young pastor and his wife returned to school. If we do accept this offer, we will need to move to Campbell River, but until we are very clear on this new direction, we will be helping them twice a month.
On April 1, Herman celebrated his birthday, and for his birthday gift, we welcomed a Korean missionary intern into our home. He will be staying with us to the end of June as he works alongside us. It has been interesting so far because his English is very limited. We have to get used to speaking in clear, simple sentences. In the meantime, he has already jumped right in with what we are doing by playing the drums for Sunday morning worship, helping with the Thursday evening AWANA, as well as Friday evening's youth activities. Although he cannot go with Herman to the hospital, they are still able to visit people in Port Alberni. Taking in someone from another country is not new to us. When we lived in Ramah, New Mexico, we had young people from Mexico and Germany stay with us for a month to six months at a time. We also had two young ladies from California and Washington stay with us for the summer at different times. So once again, we are starting up this tradition now that we are in Canada. We hope to see more of this in the future.Another thing that we are so excited about is on April 6, we received our Visitor Registration extensions and to top it off, it was approved for THREE YEARS! Oh, that was totally awesome. We were not even expecting that until next month because the Immigration website had posted information saying they were very, very backlogged. Yet here it was, so the next day, we were able to re-apply for our health insurance, which had expired with our Visitor Registration in January. Once again, God showed us that He is in control. As one person emailed to us, "God has no problems with government red tape and paperwork." Amen!
So that's what we have been up to for the last two months. Can you believe it's already the middle of April??!! Next month, we will drive back to the States for graduations, and we are looking forward to it.
"The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him." Nahum 1:7
