The past couple of months have been a blur of activity for us here in Zambia. Allow me to use this letter to bring you up to speed. In May we were blessed to have Preetika’s parents visiting us. They are the first of our families to meet Elijah in person, though many have met him face to face on Skype. Their time with us went by too quickly and was truly a blessing to us, as well as many in our church family. During their visit we were able to have a special Mother’s Day service. In addition to all the regularly attending mothers who were there, we also had 11 mothers of the members visit on that day. One mother was there with her daughter, grandson, and several great-grandchildren! She received a rose for being the mother with the oldest child in church that day. Fortunately, it was obvious, and I did not have to pry too much into the daughter’s age, as some Zambian women can be touchy about that.
The month of June brought the celebration of our fourth church anniversary. It was once again wonderful to see the believers exerting themselves in bringing visitors to hear the Gospel preached at the anniversary service. We had 68 adult visitors with us and were able to reach our third-highest attendance thus far in the history of our church. Over 20 people trusted Christ, with more continuing to be saved as we follow up on them with visits in their homes. Please pray for us as we attempt to locate each visitor, since Zambian addresses are often difficult to navigate. So far, we have had many of the visiting people from that day return to be in our services in subsequent weeks.
The last event that we wanted to bring to your attention is an update on Elijah’s case. While Elijah grows and changes nearly every day, his court case moves at a much slower pace. In our last letter, we mentioned that we had been given a court date, but that date and others have come and gone with no resolution. In fact, we have yet to even set foot in a courtroom. However, we have recently been given a hearing date for the third week of July. Your prayers are greatly desired that this hearing would go ahead as planned and would bring some progress (if not completion) to Elijah’s adoption. Our hope is to be able to visit the States beginning in October around Elijah’s second birthday. We look forward to many family and friends being able to meet this special gift that God has given us. Finalizing his Zambian paperwork would greatly simplify a trip to America. Also, if you would pray for the ministry and church as we prepare them for our absence, as well as the funds to purchase the tickets, we would appreciate it.
Thank you as always for you faithful prayers, friendship, and support. They truly mean more than we could ever express.
