 Kim and I spent the past few days on Corn Island, working again with the church there. We enjoyed the company of Pastor Eli's wife, Alva, and Rosemary Chatfield.
Rosemary has known Pastor Eli's family for many years and comes to Corn Island every three months to minister to the women on the island and to be a blessing to Pastor Eli, his family and the congregation of the church.
The church is doing well, even though their pastor is away in the US studying. They have several gifted leaders who are doing a good job of taking up the slack and things seem to be going well.
One area that is suffering is the youth ministry. Rosemary has a real burden for this and she is going to try to raise money so we can bring Nehemiah and a couple other young adults over with us every other week so that he can teach music to the young people while I am training leaders. They can also hold youth events.
 If we do this, we will bring Nehemiah over with us on Wed/Thurs so I can teach the leadership studies and he can teach music. Then we will bring the other young people over on Friday. We will all go back Sunday night together.
Unfortunately this means taking the boat each time . . . aargh. This last trip, Kim and I left the house at 9 am and took a small boatride to the Bluff (across the bay) to meet the Captain D boat. We were able to board the boat at 11:30 am to leave at noon, but at the last minute, the boat decided to load a bunch of sand, so we waited until almost 2 pm before the boat left. Then we finally arrived in Corn Island at 7 pm that evening. Ten hours to go 40 miles. Not fun.
 This will be the most difficult part of working in Corn Island, because once we get there it is wonderful. Pray that God will give us (mostly me, Tim) patience, because I hate to waste time.
Things are moving slowly as always, but we have learned not to be in a hurry. The cabinetmaker (me) is doing so many other things that cabinets are coming together very slowly. The kitchen cabinets still lack drawers and shelves, although the rest is done. Then I still have to build bathroom cabinets, bedroom cabinets, computer room cabinets and then finally finish out the cafe. That is really what is holding us up and will probably push any cafe ministry off by at least a full year at this point.
 Jonathan and Jason are doing well. It looks like Jason will be staying at his current base rather than transferring to an Airborne unit as he had hoped. They need his MOS (job skills) at that base even though there are no TOW missiles there for him to service. He is cool with that. He is continuing to take his classes online and drive commanders around during the day.
Jonathan and I are working on a new web-based business that will launch in about a year. I am doing the web design and he is doing the back-end programming. With the declining economy, we expect our royalty income to decline significantly and we need to make plans to replace that income if we expect to stay here. Our hope is that this will allow me to work from here and will provide Jonathan with a good business that he can build into the future.
 We feel that God has given us a fantastic concept and he will bless it and provide for us in ways for which we will be grateful. I am reminded of the apostle Paul who worked in leather his entire career, providing not only for himself, but also for everyone who was with him.
The picture on the right is Bluefields. I took this as we were flying in from Corn Island (we flew this trip because we had to get back to get ready to go to the US)
Our house is the blue roof with the arrow pointing at it.
We will be headed for the US for a little less than two weeks to NY to visit with our families. This will give us a little bit of respite before we head back to begin the work of training leaders in earnest.
Thank you again for your prayers and your support.
God bless you,
Tim and Kim |
