Dear Partners in ministry,

Happy New Year!

New Years Resolution #1 Exercise every morning

New Years Resolution #2 Eat more chocolate

New Years Resolution #3 Get Newsletter out on time

#1 Still going strong

#2 Doing well but future supplies may cause problems

#3 First resolution broken, Oh well.

Parties R us

We did get in 9 different Christmas events before the end of the season and had a good time doing it.  Some were focused on children, some on young people and some on adults but all were fun.  We had several chances to share the story of Christ and went beyond the birth narrative to Jesus’ life and death and why He is important.

New Family

We also helped the new missionary family in our area get established.  We rented a house and got different workmen in to fix things but still ended up adding taps, drains, showers curtains and water heaters ourselves.  The bee hive in the ceiling caused us to pause and after smoking out the bathroom, we removed the ceiling panel revealing honey comb and more bees.  Michael donned a farmer’s hat and a mosquito net and scraped the comb and bees into a box that was sealed and taken from the house.  No-one was stung and we consider it a great group bonding exercise.  Then the toilet /sewer pipe was attacked.  We are well bonded!

Cell Group

New Year in Ban Luang was quieter than usual this year – so we had plenty of time for the above mentioned activities.  We also started a cell group at Inn’s house including one person that was introduced to us through the Christmas parties.  Please pray for the growth of this group.

Wheel chairs came in from different sources and we were happy to give them to 2 of our special needs kids.  In one case it has really freed up the family to take their child around the village and make him a part of their lives.  A short term team has come through and cleaned and repaired several wheel chairs at the hospital so we are looking forward to many more people being supported in the future.

In the power of the Good News,

Larry and Jan

Prayer Points

Praise God for the new wheelchairs that have brought more freedom to some families

Pray for the cell group at Inn’s house that it will be a good place to bring people to introduce them to Jesus

Pray for Larry as he attends a conference for workers in the Buddhist context.