Determined Foe

Last week one of our neighbors and friends took their sick child to a "dukun" (essentially a witch doctor.) They follow the main religion of Indonesia, but like many local Muslims, when things really get "tough" they return to more "traditional" beliefs and practices. Over the past couple of years several of us MAFers have developed a close relationship with this family. They have had many opportunities to see and hear the Truth.

When Joy went up to their shack to visit them after hearing about the "dukun" consult, she said the feeling of oppression was overwhelming--and tangible. Later that night we felt a specific and definite oppressive attack on one of our children. Without going into details, it was immediately lifted in the case of our child, through the power of prayer. Please join us in specifically praying for these dear friends of ours. Please pray that they will be able to one day soon feel the peace and joy that we know. We believe that the seeds have been planted...and watered, and they are close to sprouting. But we face a determined foe. Prayer is critical! Your prayers are critical!

Along these same lines there's a lot of exciting news we'd love to share, but it would be "tough" here in this format. We're looking foward to sharing much of this with you when we're on furlough this coming summer. However, for one example, check out Joy's latest blog posting here.

(The pictures have nothing to do with our neighbors or the story above. Just random shots from my ministry interior.)

This week I'll have the "privilege" of undergoing a "re-standardization" with MAF's head honcho pilot from the U.S. flight training department. Every six months each pilot is required to do a PFR (Proficiency Flight Review.) A PFR is a fairly exhaustive flight, written and oral test that is usually done with one of our local MAF instructor pilots. Among other things they keep us from becoming complacent in our flying--one of the reasons we have such a good safety record. In addition to the PFR, once every four years we are each required to do the even-more-thorough "re-standardization." If you think about it you could pray for me on Wednesday and Thursday my time. Hopefully I will be able to fly in a way that accurately depicts my typical operations, and be able to receive constructive advice, criticism and/or fine-tuning. :) Two other pilots will follow me in this process over the next week and a half.