October Update - Wet Hike!

Rain in the Palm community

Although we were excited to hike up to Palm community for our first Sunday ‘church’ service there, it still wasn’t fun to step out into the pouring rain in the early dawn hours! The rain had awakened us in the early a.m. hours, and we both chuckled as we realized the Lord was testing our resolve…again! (It never seems to fail that it rains the night before we are scheduled to make the trip up…even if the trails are dry the day before.) As we packed our backpacks and grabbed a quick breakfast, we kept waiting for the rain to slow down, but it kept coming down steadily. The rain accompanied us through most of the hike, and gave us the added challenge of making our way across several swollen creeks as well. At one creek we had to resort to taking off our socks and boots and wading through the deep rushing water. Well, removing our boots didn’t make that much difference…we were soaked through anyhow...and soon the rain running down us filled our boots with water anyway! Since we had brought along the story of Jonah to teach…somehow it seemed rather fitting. =) But it was a joy to arrive in the community, and to gather together with over 40 people for our first service there. All of the believers were there—Paulino with his wife and all 10 kids, as well as Paulino’s sister Gloria and son David---and they had invited many others as well. We were especially amazed at the number of children who kept coming in to join us! We’d appreciate your prayers as we continue to teach once a month in this community. As we talk with different folks from this community, it’s obvious that they would like us to come more often—which we hope to do perhaps starting in the new year.

Andrew is an Awa teacher in this community, and has been interested in hearing the Bible teaching for several years now. He and his wife have three cute daughters and another on the way. Last year he sat in on one of our Bible classes in the school, and was interested to find out that God is everywhere. “I thought He was just up in Heaven,” he said, “At least that’s what I had heard before, but I don’t really know that much.” Andrew brought his whole family the other day to hear about Jonah, and was disappointed when I stopped teaching with Jonah still in the belly of the whale! He asked if he could keep the Awa translation of Jonah scriptures that I had brought up, so that he read the rest of the story. Andrew is highly educated for an Awa, actually working on his college degree through a government program. We’d appreciate your prayers that he would continue to listen and understand God’s message. We especially need God’s wisdom in laying a firm foundation for folks like Andrew while continuing to advance the teaching for the believers in that community.

We have many things to be thankful for. The Lord has been gracious to us weather-wise and we have been able to use our new driveway without problems so far. This has been a real help to us as we lead a Bible study once a week in Lita and now are able to drive all the way home even in the dark! We also praise the Lord for granting permanent visas for the Shaubs. This process has been quite a test of patience for them, and they are now on Try 3 to get their new i.d. documents.  Another blessing is that I’ve recently completed the formatting and printing of all that Doug Williams has translated from Genesis. It has been a fun project, and I feel privileged to get it into the hands of the Awa readers.

Thank you so much for your prayers!

In Christ,
Kevin & Kathy Bruce

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