Dear Prayer Partners,
Thank you so much for praying with us. It is hard to believe that there are only two months left in 2023!
Luke 10 Update:
Since we last wrote, Brad has been a part of two, second Luke 10 Exploration Trips to explore and discern if God might be calling Evangelical Friends Church (EFC) to start a mission in South Sudan and/or Tanzania. Hopefully, you have seen general emails from EFM about these trips as well as reports. But we will summarize here:
The trip to South Sudan took place September 10-17. Our group consisted of three Rwandan pastors and key church leaders, three who came from the US, and Brad on behalf of EFM.
On September 18th we visited a missionary training school in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Then from September 19 to the 24th, four Burundi pastors and church leaders and four from the US (including Brad) visited an area in eastern Tanzania.
On these trips, we visited with Christians and non-Christians in various communities attempting to see what God was doing in each of those areas and to see if he is asking us to join him there! It is so exciting to see the Lord increasing the passion and commitment of our EFC-Africa leaders to send their own missionaries out to unreached / under-reached people groups. In both South Sudan and Tanzania, we saw that the Lord is working and our African Friends sense that God is calling them to join him. As EFM we are still discerning what God wants us to do. In the next few weeks, EFM will have several meetings to discern the next steps in the decision-making process. Regardless of whether the Lord leads EFM to send missionaries to South Sudan and/or Tanzania, we look forward to finding appropriate ways to partner with our EFC-Africa Friends as they work to develop their own vision, strategies, principles, and practices for mission work. Brad has been asked to walk alongside them as they work on these things. This is an exciting time! But we also realize that we need the Lord to give lots of wisdom and courage throughout this whole process.
Would you please pray with us for EFC-Rwanda, EFC-Burundi, and EFM as each group works to be faithful to God and his calling for us as Evangelical Friends?
Family Update:
We praise the Lord for how he is taking care of us as a family. Though we go through some difficulties and times of travel and exhaustion, the Lord is faithful to fill us back up, renew us, and keep taking care of us! We recently had the privilege to go and visit Chelsea’s aunt and uncle, who live in the south of Rwanda, over a long weekend, so we had some beautiful family time. The children are all healthy and doing well in school. Gideon continues to love soccer and plays every chance he gets whether at school or home with neighbor friends! Ian is sleeping better these days than he has in a long time and is usually pretty cheerful at school and at home. He tends to keep us laughing with the cute and/or smart things he says! Sarai has been enjoying some reading and writing projects at school and recently participated (and did really well!) in a skit project for her Kinyarwanda class.
Current Burundi Trip:
Brad and Simparinka are traveling to Burundi from October 31-November 3 to help mentor the D for D groups there.
Please pray that what God wants is able to happen, even though the trip is only a few days long. Please also pray for travel safety for the group, and for Chelsea and the kids at home.
Thank you, again, for your partnership with us!
In Him,
Brad & Chelsea
Sarai, Gideon, and Ian
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