We forgot to tell you one huge answer to prayer. Carla was able to get her visa without any difficulty our second day here which was a tremendous relief. The process was actually quite easy so now we know how to do it for future reference. She has already worked with Kristy to write all the drafts of the review lessons for the Falam Primer; so that is finished. They’ll begin working on review lessons for the Bualkhaw primer. This is such a huge help to Connie. We have had a wonderful time of rest and are completely recovered and ready to get back to work (though the boys feel differently, they keep asking to go back and see the sharks and “fishies” at the aquarium. We hope seeing grandma & grandpa in Myanmar will make it up to them).

We leave for the airport at 5 am tomorrow (Tuesday), which is 5 pm Monday for you if you’re in EST. It will be difficult if not impossible for us to send general emails while we are there so you may not hear from us for several weeks. Please keep us in your prayers as the two of us will work with a total of 7 different languages. Also be in prayer as Connie leaves a week early to attend a conference on Scripture in Use outside of London. She will rejoin us in Bangkok April 2, but the separation will be hard on everyone, especially the boys, and her time clock will be so messed up she will be lucky if she knows what planet she’s on.

We were excited to receive an email last week from a church which has supported us for years in prayer saying that they were going to begin supporting us financially as well. We were even more grateful when another supporting church emailed a few days later saying they were going to have to decrease what they are supporting their missionaries.

Several have asked what we will do if others want to support us. We have raised what we need for personal expenses but we have numerous ministry needs which is where additional support and most special gifts go. Our two biggest additional ministry expenses are travel costs and computers. For example, in the past few weeks we’ve been asked to consider going to Peru for Connie to teach a linguistics course for missionaries preparing to minister in the Spanish speaking world. We were also presented an opportunity to go to England to receive specialized training in developing alphabets. Both of these are great opportunities and ministries. But if we use the funds in our travel account for either of them we wouldn’t have the funds we need for a second trip to Asia later this fall which is our primary responsibility at this time. Pretty much we take as many trips each year as we have funds for. Now that we are cleared for the field we are hoping to begin helping projects in Africa and South America on a regular basis as well.

Twice now God has burdened people and churches to provide a new laptop for us just as ours was dying. We use our laptops really hard, so they usually need to be replaced about the time the extended warranty expires - every 3 years. This means 2 out of every 3 years we need to be purchasing a new laptop which is basically our most essential piece of equipment for this ministry. So this is the other place any “extra” support goes.

We say this every time, but we mean it every time - we can’t thank you enough for praying. Andrew Murray wrote “missionaries are only as strong as the churches that send them.”
In His Love & Grace,
the Champeon Crew