Andersons' June, 2008 Prayer Letter

Andersons’ Friendly Reminders for Interceding Colaborers Abroad
June 2008

The term “colabor” does not appear in the Scriptures. The concept, however, certainly does. A number of texts speak of a working relationship between believers serving in different capacities, regions, or ministries. The word most often used to express this ministry cooperative is sunagonizomai, and it means, literally, to “strive (agonize) together with.” We cannot begin to express our most sincere thanks to you for “striving together with us” in this work. Many of you do so financially, and the Lord meets our needs through your faithfulness. All of you pray for us, and that is a priceless striving, which only eternity can repay. Thank you for “colaboring” with us!

It has been over 2½ months since missionary Don Winch suffered a perforation of his colon while serving in Douala, Cameroon. After his status was somewhat stabilized on the field, he and Karen flew back to the States for further evaluation and treatment. The shortened version of this story of God’s omnipotent care is that Don had, in fact, two resections performed on April 21, 2008. There were two needed because God had orchestrated Don’s small bowel to rotate around and “park alongside” the perforation in the large bowel and “attach itself,” preventing leakage, sepsis, and likely death, until the Winches were in the States. The damaged section of both needed to be removed. Praise the Lord for His goodness and grace! The Winches are both growing stronger each day and plan to return to Douala in early September. (Karen had some health challenges which were not as severe.) We also appreciate your prayers for the Hassmans, the Winch’s colleagues now working in Douala who, along with the national believers, are awaiting their return.

We had the special privilege of seeing our second daughter, Sarah, wed on Saturday, June 7 to Mr. Scott Hose. Scott is a deacon at our sending church, Faith Baptist Church of Davison, Michigan, and Sarah teaches second grade in the church’s Christian school. We rejoice in their desire to establish a Christ-honoring home for God’s glory. God wonderfully used many friends to help with the entire day, and the Lord Jesus Christ was greatly exalted. We will work at getting more of the photos on our blog page (see final paragraph). Thank you for your faithful prayers for missionary children! We want to encourage you to be in prayer, as well, for our son-in-law Glenn who is in charge of a busy airbase hospital in Louisiana. His load is extreme during these days, and we know he would greatly appreciate your prayers! We have had the opportunity to be in several of our supporting churches during this early summer, and that is always a delight for us. Our 25 churches are each very special to our hearts!

There are still “hot zones” in Africa. We appreciate your prayers for South Africa in particular. The missionaries tell us the military was deployed last month to quell the worst civil unrest since the fall of Apartheid. This violence was a reaction to the flood of refugees, mainly Zimbabweans, fleeing the starvation, hyper-inflation, and political oppression in Zimbabwe. If they return to Zimbabwe, they face possible detention and beatings. Many South Africans resent these “foreigners” who compete with them for jobs and resources (sound familiar?); however, South Africa has always been a multi-ethnic society and is thus known as the “rainbow nation.” Ironically, because of AIDS, South Africa actually has a negative population growth rate. The BWM missionaries there have passed out thousands of gospel tracts during this upheaval, and a number of people have made professions of faith in Christ. Fourteen walked to church on their own during a recent Sunday in addition to those picked up at the refugee camp. Pray for this unique opportunity to meet many needs, both physical and eternal.

We very much covet your prayers for us as we travel to the countries of DRCongo, South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya during the months of August and September. Pray for fruit and encouragement. Steve will also be teaching a grad course on Apologetics in Kenya during this trip. Finally, we have a new blog page. Feel free to leave a comment, or read our updates at www.africaharvestfields.blogspot.com. We praise the Lord for YOU.

Steve and Martha Anderson