2001-06-28

June 28, 2001
Dear Family and Friends,

Praises:
Thank you so much for your prayers concerning the requests from our last newsletter. We both had the physical endurance to meet the June 23rd deadline for the 2002 budget (and with accurate entries). This has been a real learning experience for both of us and we feel like we will be able to be of greater help when we go through this process again next year.

We have had a great 4 weeks of Bible study with the new class that we began June 3rd. Thanks for praying as we chose material, and for us to cultivate relationships with individual class members. Our aim is to train up lay leaders from this group. Please keep this new class in your prayers, as we will not be meeting with them for the next month while in China.

Prayer Needs:
Please continue to keep our son Travis in your prayers for a job that will best meet his school schedule and his financial/medical needs.

We praise the Lord over my Mom’s decision to sell her home and to purchase another home that will require less maintenance. However, we need to find a place to store our 60+ boxes of personal belongings. Please pray that the Lord will provide one place (we prefer to not scatter it all) that will be a dry, rent-free storage for the next 2 years of our 3-year term.

We hope that some of you will commit to pray for us daily as we serve in China. We will be traveling as tourists, and will enter schools under the platform of teaching English as a second language, to middle school students, high school students and some college students. Pray for our safety as we travel (Psalms 91); pray we will be wise and watchful for any open door to share the gospel (Colossians 4:2-6); pray that we will be an encouragement to the believers that we meet – that they will be refreshed by our faith. Pray that God’s peace will rule our hearts, the word of Christ will richly dwell in us to serve in many ways (Colossians 3:15-17).

Important E-mail Guidelines – July 1st-23rd:
We ask that you abide by some specific email guidelines while we are in China. We would like to be able to pick up our email occasionally while there, but it is imperative to remember that the Chinese government closely monitors all forms of communication. Remember, China is a communist country and those who live in China give up many “rights??? such as the right to privacy in all communications. These guidelines are mainly to protect the people with whom we will be working. A breach of security can cause trouble for long-term personnel. If you email us during these dates (July 1-23) – you must not use any Christian, church, mission organization, evangelistic, denominational words. Do not mention words like witnessing, distributing Bibles, etc. Please do not write to inquire about any specific persons that you know are in China serving – unless you identify them by their initials only – such as FB or JB. If for any reason you don’t think you can abide by these guidelines, simply wait until July 24 to contact us. As we all cooperate with these guidelines, long-term personnel are not at risk of losing their legitimate business platforms that springboard them to investing in kingdom work.

We love you all and look forward to giving you a detailed report of how the Lord answers your prayers. It is an honor to be sent and prayed for by you as we all serve our Lord Jesus Christ in many lands

Blessings,
Jackie and Fran

P.S. Please do not hit the reply button to this email. It has “Christian??? language in it and we can’t get any mail like that for the next month.