We arrived safely in Imphal, Manipur India almost exactly on time Wednesday morning. We had Thursday to recupperate and worked Friday and Saturday. We’ll try to give you a brief summary of the past week (it’s 8:00am Sunday here, almost exactly the time we were loading up the van to leave Grand Rapids). Sunday morning January 15 - as usual things were pretty crazy, we were overweight and trying to repack everything at the last minute. Rowan and Warren were running and jumping around and yelling which was not helping our stress level. Then we stopped long enough to actually listen to what Rowan was saying, “TRUST IN THE LORD! TRUST IN THE LORD! TRUST IN THE LORD!” We had a good laugh, threw all the extra things in one suitcase, and paid the $25 extra on that bag.

We arrived safely in Imphal, Manipur India almost exactly on time Wednesday morning. We had Thursday to recupperate and worked Friday and Saturday. We’ll try to give you a brief summary of the past week (it’s 8:00am Sunday here, almost exactly the time we were loading up the van to leave Grand Rapids). Sunday morning January 15 - as usual things were pretty crazy, we were overweight and trying to repack everything at the last minute. Rowan and Warren were running and jumping around and yelling which was not helping our stress level. Then we stopped long enough to actually listen to what Rowan was saying, “TRUST IN THE LORD! TRUST IN THE LORD! TRUST IN THE LORD!” We had a good laugh, threw all the extra things in one suitcase, and paid the $25 extra on that bag. Sarah drove us to the airport and one of the men from BI met us at there to help unload all our bags and get us checked in. The Trip itself - we waited two hours in the Grand Rapids airport because the airline had forgot to schedule a pilot for the flight. We had to sprint across the Chicago airport fearful that we were already to late to make our connection. We made it with less then 5 minutes before they shut the door. Boy, was Miss Kristy glad to see us! We had a hard time getting hotels because this is the busiest time of year for travel in Asia but we had a bed at each stop. The boys did amazingly well on the flight. They slept a couple times and mom & dad were even able to sleep a little. We had activities with us they never even got around to using. This trip was a lot easier on both of them and even the jetlag adjustment has been easier than usual. Our Work - Birch has been doing general training with several languages groups. Monday he starts working one-on-one. By the time we leave Imphal a week from Thursday he will have trained 3 languages that are printing their Scripture within the next two years to prepare their text for publishing. His biggest prayer need is power. They had to cut class short the first day because they ran out of it. The second day they brought a large battery unit to charge the laptops and that worked much better. Connie has been struggling for wisdom with her first language group. Please pray for the Tarao. Also pray because they desperately need a primer before their Gospels are printed. BI India Society asked if she could write one while she is here around her other projects. Primers are actually the most difficult thing to write, the simpler the primer, the more difficult it is to write it. Kristy is helping her and they are going to see what they can do but usually writing a primer takes several years not several days. Pray God gives grace to all involved. Our living situation - We had never been to Imphal before so we did not know what to expect. The hotel where we are staying has continuous water and almost continuous power which makes a huge difference. What we really did not expect is that they have something not entirely unlike a real winter!!! Fortunately, Connie had brought some warm clothes and pajamas for the boys because nights can be cool even in Silchar but with temperatures in the low 50s and only short sleeved shirts, mom & dad froze until they were able to borrow some sweaters. Now that’s quite a change from what we are used to in India. Thank you so much for praying for us, especially for the boys while we travel. It was clearly evident that God was giving the an extra measure of grace. In His love and grace, the Champeons