Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Praise the Lord for Working Airbags!!!




On February 2nd, the Lord showed once again how gracious He is in protecting our lives. I was bringing home a softdrink, and after negotiating the corner which turns onto our road, I noticed that some of the cup's contents had spilled onto the passenger seat. I grabbed some paper toweling that I had on that seat and swiped it acrossed the spill. When I looked back at the "road" I realized that I had, in fact, left the road just a split second earlier. I was about 10 feet from a telephone pole! I had NO time for a reaction - no bracing of the arms, no braking, nothing but a extremely brief cry out to God. Immediately on contact, the airbags both deployed and I was sitting in a smoke-filled car a bit stunned! I sensed that I had not been seriously injured, so I got out and stood in the rain to call 911. As you can see in the photos, the pole now stood about 5 feet West of where it had been! You can see the hole behind the front tire where the pole had been previously, with a four-foot section of the pole under the car, and the pole itself - now resting on a driveway. Why did not the pole fall down onto the car? More angelic activity, I suspect! The officer and I estimated that I had probably gotten up to about 30 MPH before the contact. Thanks for praying for your missionaries! Please continue to pray . . . as we must now find another trustworthy car. I sure did love that one. The Lord knows!


Prayer Update - January 2009

Andersons’ Friendly Reminders for Interceding Colaborers Abroad January 2009

Another New Year has dawned, and what a year it promises to be! The new administration has promised change, and many changes are certain to be forthcoming. “Oh Lord, bring revival to our land, and begin that work with your own people! Then, use your Holy Spirit and the precious Word, through the faithful witness of your people, to bring many to Christ in these days! Father, may this be the year when our Savior returns to catch His bride away.” And when He comes, friends, may He find us faithfully serving . . . for His glory!

The first of December Steve drove up to Laval, Quebec. Laval is an island just to the northwest of the island-city of Montreal. Baptist World Mission has two families serving in Laval—the Paul Pelletiers and the Steve Faucettes. Steve and Brenda have worked in an English language church plant on the south of the island since 2003 (after church planting in Nova Scotia for 17 years), and Paul and Kim started the Eglise Baptiste Centrale de Laval in 1994. Steve had the privilege of covering for Paul at EBCL for approximately five weeks. The folks there were very gracious, and serving with them was a real joy. The church averages about 70 in attendance and is a stong work—particularly by Quebec standards. This coverage was occasioned by Paul’s diagnosis of cancer in April of 2008 and the rest he needed following his rounds of chemo (2), radiation treatments (33), and surgeries (3)! We rejoice with the Pelletiers that Paul was informed by the doctors during Christmas week that he is apparently cancer free now! God is so good.

In the middle of Steve’s time in Quebec, he flew to Shreveport, Louisiana, to join the family for Christmas week. We had involvement in two different minstries to the homeless in the area (preparing and serving food) and had the unique joy of caroling in a veterans’ facility on Christmas Day! Our son-in-law Glenn was deployed on January 10 and will be overseas in Central Asia for not less than six months. We appreciate so much your prayers for him, and for Becky and the children in his absence.

We appreciate your prayers, too, that God’s will be done in our consideration of three different furlough-replacement opportunities during 2009-10. They are for ministries in South Africa, Ivory Coast, and New Zealand. We also hope to make a trip to West Africa in the middle of this year to visit our missionaries in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and DR Congo.

Your faithful prayers mean so much to us and are being answered by the Lord. We want to assure you of our prayers for you as well—especially that God would greatly bless and use you all during 2009.

Debtors to His grace,
Steve and Martha Anderson