Hello friends, 

Once again, we sincerely apologize for the lack of updates the last few months. We started an update months ago and things got crazy and just haven’t gotten around to knowing how to finish it well and sum everything up. We don’t want any of you to think that once we presented the Gospel in the Dem language, we didn’t have a need to update you all. That’s not the case at all. 

Actually, there is SO much and so many things that are too good to put into words to be able to update you on everything here, but we will try to give you a quick run-down of the last 6 months. 

After presenting the Gospel story in April, we started the next phase of lessons (Phase 2).  These lessons go back through select OT lessons that we taught previously. But now that they have heard (And many believed) in Christ as the promised Redeemer,  as we go through these stories again they can see that Christ was the one who truly is/was the promised Redeemer in a new light. 

An example of this would be when the 10^th and final plague of the 1st born being killed, and God told the Israelites that in order to be saved, the blood of a lamb must be spilled and cover their door frames. When we taught this the 1^st time around the people loved the story but the 2^nd time we taught it, they REALLY loved it. Realizing that the blood of the lamb was a representation of what would come through Christ. That now those who have believed the blood of Christ was poured out, and it covers us, we have been saved. 

This is just 1 example of how the 2^nd phase of lessons tie the Old Testament to the New Testament and how those of the Dem who have believed are now part of God’s family and what all that means. 

In these phase 2 lessons we have been teaching the people what the word “church” really means Biblically as they have their own thoughts on what a church is, and how it isn’t just a building structure, but rather those who are connected with Yahweh and those who are part of His family.  Also, why we pray, why we sing, what prayer is and we also give a time for people to share any testimonies they may have. 

We have been doing these phase 2 lessons 2 days a week and then meeting again on Sundays to go back through the original chronological lessons of Phase 1.  The 2 days a week of Phase 2 meetings are supposed to be believers meetings, but just like anywhere, we cannot tell for sure those who are true believers and those who are just following the trend, so because of that, we make sure to stress almost every believers meeting that, we do not know for sure who of you are truly connected with Yahweh, but Yahweh does, and if you truly are a believer, then we are all part of the same family, and we have the same Father, Yahweh. 

Typically after the Phase 1 teaching, the group that attends Phase 2 is less.  The hype of “this big, new talk” diminishes and people resume their old schedules. However, we continue to have anywhere from 300-400+ people coming to the believer’s meetings 2 days a week!!  It truly has been the coolest thing Briana and I have ever experienced. We have literally witnessed a miracle (several) first hand. We have seen the birth of the Dem church and for the last 6 months we have been on the ground, talking with and seeing the change the Holy Spirit is doing the lives of our friends we have spent years praying for.  We feel SO unworthy and so in awe of watching God work here. We are so thankful to be a part of what HE is doing!! 

The Dem church is so so very young. They are just babies in the faith. They are hungry for God’s Word in their own language. We have seen change in many of them and they continue to want to hear and understand more of the Creator’s talk and grow more in their understanding of what it means to be a child of God. 

Please continue to pray for the Dem church and thank you for your years of faithful prayers and support.  It has ALL been worth it.  It will be a privilege and a joy to see Dem in heaven with us on the other side of eternity and knowing many of you had a part in that. 

As for our team and family….our kids are growing up fast. Jericho just recently turned 10 and Noelle 6. Soon in January Eden will be a teenager and we are very grateful that all 3 of them love living in the tribe. Since May it has just been us and 1 other family on the ground here as the Curries and VanRensberg’s are in the states on furlough. 

We have had some very heartbreaking things medically happen the past few months, one being one of Jericho’s good friends died very quickly from what we think may have been TB that went to the brain?  We were actually away from the tribe on a long awaited break when this happened, which made it even harder. We managed to thankfully get him a medivac to a town where he had family, but we heard he passed not long after:( It was very hard for Jericho and also us as he was one of the sweetest kids here and always around. 

On the flip side, we have truly witnessed medical miracles. For those of you who don’t follow Briana’s posts on FB, I’ll try to fill you in. There was a young boy named Ande who when they brought him to us for the first time we thought he was going to die. His dad brought him to us for several days and we tried everything we could to help the boy, but literally every day when the dad left, we just assumed the boy would die that night. 

After a few days of this Briana felt strongly for us to try and get the boy to town to just try and give the boy a chance. We weren’t even sure he would survive the flight out. Long story short, Briana spent a month in town with the boy and his father.  Ande was in a coma for a long time and even went into septic shock.  Although he recovered from  the meningitis and sepsis, he seemed like a vegetable.  He couldn’t eat on his own, hold his head up on his own, sit up or talk for a long time. Then he started to slowly make some progress, but we honestly thought he would probably just be a vegetable or have many handicaps if he indeed did survive and begin eating on his own.  Briana came back to the tribe after a month while the boy and dad stayed in town for another month.  During that month his improvement was incredible.  After 2 months of being in town, the Lord healed the boy and he returned back to Dem land. When we saw him it was unbelievable. The Dem believers also were so encouraged and praised the Lord with us, as we all thought for sure there was no way Ande was going to survive, and if so, his quality of life wouldn’t be very good. He still has some recovery but even the doctors said, that only around 10% of cases like Ande recover and now he is smiling, talking, eating and walking around!!!

Another amazing thing about this story, is Ande’s parents didn’t come to the chronological teaching. For some reason they weren’t interested, but because Ande and his dad were in the hospital for almost 2 months, we gave his dad a recorder with the lessons and he sat there in the hospital listening to all 78 of the chronological Bible lessons every day.  When they returned to the tribe, his dad and Ande came to a believers meeting and when I opened it up for testimonies, his dad quickly spoke up and thanked Yahweh for saving his son. (Picture below) We haven’t had a chance yet to talk to him 1 on 1 to see what he thinks of the lessons and hear a testimony, however, the Lord in His Sovereign plan was able to have another Dem guy who refused to come to the lessons, hear the Creator’s talk. 

There is so much more we could share but for now we will stop here. Please continue to pray for the Dem church. They are just baby believers and trying to sort through and figure out how to walk in the Spirit (just like all of us are) and how to fully rely on God and not the things they have relied on their whole lives. 

We also have our 4th literacy going on currently. Most of the students in this class have given clear testimonies, so it’s so cool to now be able to pray with them before class, and talk about how when they are finished with the class they will be able to read God’s Word on their own. We have been training 2 Dem guys to become teachers. They are doing a really good job and both os these guys have very clear testimonies of their faith in Christ. Please pray for Yoro and Tirinut. (the 2 teachers) Teaching takes up a lot of their time 5 days a week and they also have many responsibilities to their families and community, so pray as they navigate through this.

Please also pray for our family. It has been an INCREDIBLE year and we are 100% honored to be here to witness this first hand, but its also been a very stressful, taxing time on our family.  

Sorry, our internet has been really bad and not allowing us to upload pictures/videos.

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