Hey Everyone,

            We once again apologize for not updated you all on the plane tickets and project “Keep Pigs Out” after our last update. We’ve had a busy but exciting couple months and also exciting future plans to fill you in on.

Let’s start from the beginning and fill you all in on the projects. 

            As far as the pig fence project we raised all the funds needed to purchase and fly in enough rock cages to protect about half of our yard. Which is amazing. Its such a blessing to a burden lifted knowing that we shouldn’t have to worry about pigs getting in (from that area) into our yard and disturbing the foundation of our home. In the future, we will try and slowly add more cages to eventually protect our whole yard but the worse section is pretty much taken care of.

            We have received some of the funds needed for our plane tickets back to the states but we went ahead and purchased them and we will be landing on U.S. soil April 12 in Philadelphia. If you would still like to contribute to this, please contact us and we can get you more information.

            Thank you to all of you who helped with these projects. It may seem so silly to some you when talking about pigs and keeping them out but they seriously have been the #1 or #2 biggest hindrance to language learning, emotional frustration, and tension point ever since the beginning. So, thank you so so much.

            In our last update, we told you all we were preparing for our language evaluations. Our language consultant came in for a week and did several of our teammates are our language evaluations and the verdict was I (J) officially passed my Dem language study and Briana passed her #2 check. What this means for me, is I have the go ahead to begin helping 1 of our other teammates with translation, lesson development, literacy and all the exciting things that are the reason we moved to Indonesia 8 years ago.

            This was so exciting and I’ve dreamt of this day for years to be finished “studying” the Dem language and I planned it out in my head for years what I would do in celebration of passing my final language check… but when the time came I was so very excited but also hit with the reality of how much work still has to be done before we can tell our Dem friends the Creators talk.

            We are closer now then we have ever been but there so must work that goes into having an accurate translation of God’s word and lesson that will be able to be understand in their culture context that the excitement I thought I would feel wasn’t what I thought it would be. So, I can’t thank you enough for all of you who faithfully have prayed for our language study and have given financially to this ministry. We hope and pray that soon the Dem will be able to hear the Creators talk in their own language for first time in the history of the world and you all had a part in it. So thank you, and please pray for our team in this next year as we begin the daunting task of translating God’s Holy Word into a very complex language and that it is as accurate and clear as possible. Please pray as we plan for the first literacy class in the Dem language so they will be able to read God’s Word. Please pray as we create lessons that the message and meaning would be accurate and clear. Please pray for the Dem that when the time comes to teach their hearts would be open to hearing this message. thanks so so much.

            Another thing that happened was a dear friend of ours became sick and was complaining of stomach pains and vomiting. We (our team) consulted with doctors in town everyday with symptoms and gave medicine according to what we felt was needed.  We started her on some antibiotics and she seemed to improve but then began to have more pain and so felt she needed to be medivac’d to town to be seen by a real doctor. I (J) flew her out along with her sister in law to the capital town and got her to the hospital.

            For those of you in America who might complain about healthcare, please…. count your blessings. The hospitals here are so so different than what you/we are used to but finally we found out she had an ectopic pregnancy and needed surgery. The following day they did surgery and also found that she had an appendicitis so it was a God thing that we made it to hospital in time and was able to have surgery rather quickly for Indonesian standards.

            The lady (Ekana) is doing well now and we are all back in the tribe. You could pray for her and her recovery as she a very frail older woman who didn’t do too well with the surgery so she will be in recovery mode for some time and life in the tribe is hard. She has responsibilities of caring for her 2 younger children, working in the garden, tending to their pigs and so on and her husband is not a very nice man so we would appreciate your prayers for Ekana.

*For both of these ladies they had never been to a city like this so they were aw struck by all the cars, motorcycles, and everything else they saw.

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Upcoming plans-

            Like I mentioned before we will be heading back to America at the beginning of April. I will be adding a brief tentative schedule of where we will be but this could also change but we wanted to give you all a heads up. We plan to be back in the states until beginning of November sometime.

            Also, we mentioned in last update we were looking for a car to rent, borrow for our time back and we are still wondering if there are any leads out there you may know. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible and if you have dates or events you’d like us to speak at please let us know the sooner the better just so we can try and make it work.

Thank you again so so much for your faithful support and prayers.

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TENTATIVE FURLOUGH SCHEDULE-

April 12- May 7-          Boyertown Area

May 7- 19-                  Florida

May 25-June 2 –          Michigan/Indiana

June-August-               Pittsburgh Area

Sept-Oct-                    Boyertown Area.

*Again this is tentative. There will be different occasions where we are traveling to other churches or other engagements but just as an idea for you all to see where we will be for what months.