Words are important.  They communicate by their nuance as well as by their meaning.  That is why we are having trouble figuring out what to call our Wednesday updates.  If you have a suggestion for us to consider, please feel free to pass it along to us.

The first word we want you to hear from us this week is THANK-YOU!  We heard that there was strong year-end giving to support the global initiatives of the C&MA in Canada.  We appreciate the efforts you make to participate financially.  Thank-you for using some of the resources God has entrusted to you to support international workers (such as us) and the costs of the ministry.

The second word that comes to mind is “prayer.” Thanks for being intentional in praying with us.  We have also been encouraging children and youth to pray about their schoolwork, relationships, etc.  Today we were encouraged when we heard that one of the fourth-graders had encouraged his Mom to pray to Jesus.  When she responded that she did not know how, he said he knew and could teach her.  Please continue to pray and join us in helping others learn to communicate with the God Who hears and answers prayer.

The third word that we want to focus on is witness.  We are going to be learning and teaching others to tell a different Bible story each month, beginning in February.  People are much more willing to listen to short stories than they are to listen to a formal presentation of the gospel.  So we want to tell them stories that will help them personally discover Who God is, how the relationship with God functions, and how they can experience a restored relationship with that God. We are hoping that will help even those who are strongly resistant to hear some truths about Jesus.  Please pray for us as we learn the story in our adopted languages (Mandarin and/or Taiwanese) and encourage local believers to join us in the adventure of telling Bible stories to those around us.

We are in the process of working as a team (Whites and Lus) to prepare a short report about our work for the month-end regional meeting in Thailand.  Please pray that the video segments that will be filmed by different people in different locations over the next few days will be successful and that Albert will be able to splice them all together without too much problem with the result being a coherent story.

Thanks for those who have written and invited us to share when we will be in Canada this Spring.  We still have some openings in the schedule April 20-22 and May 14-20.  Feel free to dialogue with us if a time on one of those days works for you.