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Dear Friends,
Last month we requested prayer that we would have a good group of college students sign up to do their ministry assignment. We did get a wonderful group sign up and as usual, we have a lot of other students involved who haven't signed up but are helping part time because they like it so much. Sunday we had two fellows from Switzerland, one from Austria, and one from Germany. It was such a long day that we didn't get back until well after midnight, but one comment I heard was, "This is the best day I've had since I came to Canada." I heard another one say, "I've worked in a lot of Sunday Schools and Bible camps, but I've never been in anything like this!" What is happening is that we are bringing together people who are so needy and spiritually hungry with students who have a call, a desire, and a vision to minister, all with amazing results. We see the students growing so much in their desire to go into their ministry. Last year one family decided that one year of college was enough and left to go to the mission field.
Karen is going to the Reserve each week now to hold a midweek Ladies meeting and Bible Study, and also is in a missions class in a large church in Red Deer. Verna is helping her with this. She is also involved in helping the local Christian leaders on the Stony Reserve who are starting their own Christian School. This has been an amazing story that we will try to write more about in a supplemental article. A lady visited last week who is praying about helping full time, so we are praying about this also because Karen really needs her help.
The schedule that we are running now is what we feel we have to do because of the need and response of the people, but it is a challenge to accomplish financially. We have long felt that the support should come from the Canadian Church and circumstances are such now that unless we can increase the support we won't be able to continue with what we are doing. Recently the Canadian dollar has dramatically increased in value against the U.S. Dollar. Most of our support still comes from the States, and for years when we exchanged it into Canadian we got a large increase. At one point a hundred U.S. dollars converted into $150 Canadian, but now we are getting somewhat less than $100. Although the official exchange rate is close to par, the banks always make a lot on the exchange. So far this school year we haven't been able to use the college vans because they have been scheduled for college events and none have been available. So we have had to run, at times, two vans on Sundays plus our other trips. This month we had to use our personal support for our family and we haven't had funds to pay much of the mission expenses. We do need prayer to make the right decisions under these pressures
I wish there was some way I could write about the joy we see so often in peoples lives when they are touched by this ministry and some of the wonderful answers to prayer in peoples lives, but words simply fail to express what we so often see and experience. We have to keep this letter which is being mailed, to one page, for various reasons. The letter we post on our web site will be more detailed with pictures. We will have other news and information on our web site as well, such as my recent hike in the mountains.
Please keep us in prayer, as we are so conscious of our weakness and need of God's help. It is an amazing battle and we don't want to fail.
In His Service, Rodger, Karen, and Family
Home | Sunchild Mission | Outreach | News Updates | Devotions | Pictures of the week