Dear Friends:
Quick update from Charles Woodrow – June 20, 2006
The family has finished visitation, at least for a while, and I am en route to Nampula to host this year’s annual FIEL conference for pastors and church workers. You should receive a report soon written about two months ago updating you on our visitation experiences up to that point.
At present, Julie and the kids are in Nevada with her parents, then they will spend about five weeks with our home church, Faith Community Church in Oxnard, California. We will join up again in mid August to resume church visitation which will end for good 17 October.
I am in Johannesburg buying supplies for the Nampula conference and then will be traveling on to Mozambique later this week. Please pray for an uneventful journey this time! We have to get both our truck and Land Rover across the border, the former loaded with some household belongings of a fellow missionary in Nampula. Please pray that we get across the border without undue trouble. We will be pleased if we can successfully step from South Africa into Mozambique consuming only 8 hours in the process!
The wrecked Land Rover and trailer have been made operational again, though they are not the hardy specimens they were before the accident. All three axels were either replaced or straightened and rebuilt. The frame was cut in many places, straightened, and then welded together again, along with corresponding work to make the crumpled body fit the corrected skeleton. Please pray that the weakened vehicles will stand up to the 1700 mile trek through Mozambique’s wilderness.
We are still hoping to buy a new Land Rover to replace our 17 year old model. The last two trips to South Africa have each cost over $3000 in repairs due to breakdowns from fatigue that then resulted in major damage, the first time to the engine, the second time to the frame and body when the car went out of control and crashed. So far we have received $10,000 toward the $37,000 a new Land Rover will cost. Please pray that we may soon be able to get a reliable replacement for our present car.
The main reason for this notice, however, is to solicit your prayers for the upcoming conference. Karl Peterson has been working for some time arranging a good program for the participants, and now I must get all the local preparations done by 19 July. The conference runs 25-28 July, with a follow-on training seminar from 31 July to 5 August.
Please pray for:
- The border crossing later this week (23 June) to be accomplished smoothly.
- The vehicles to make it safely to Nampula.
- Funds to be provided to obtain a new Land Rover.
- God to draw the right pastors and chuch leaders to the conference.
- Messages to stir hearts, strengthen hands, and sharpen minds for increasingly effective church work in Mozambique.
- My preparations to make the conference a welcome period of spiritual enjoyment and physical refreshment rather than a time to “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
By His grace: Charles Woodrow