Journeying together

There is a song that my teacher on the ship used to teach us which had the line 'make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold.' Well, this trip, we've been meeting a lot of old friends which has really been "golden" and God has blessed us with great times of fellowship. He has also blessed us mightily with a whole crowd of new friends who, though the song discribes them as silver, I trust will become gold in time. There have been a few people that I just met during this trip who have already been an incredible encouragement to me and I have been really excited to see what God is doing in their lives.

 

We have been seeing God really move in the lives of people that we have met and it is so heart warming to see so many young people really eager to seek after God. Just this last Sunday, we were in an Iranian Church in Sydney which was a blessing in itself already. On top of that, the response and feedback we got was really encouraging and we do want to give God all the glory for lives transformed.

 

Right now, we're in the Singapore OM office. Someone just came from the Philippines and gave us fresh Cebuano mangoes. Yuuuuuuuuuummmmmmm!

 

Quick prayer request, due to a new developement and I won't go into details, I MIGHT have to lead a youth group during a Church weekend retreat so please pray for wisdom. I'll let you know what happens...

 

Debbie

Well, I'm just about to get on the 6th airplane for this summer and it won't be the last. I think we counted that we've still got like 8 to go or perhaps it was less. In any case, we seem to be practically living in airports these days. Nah, I'm just kidding but we are doing quite a lot of travelling.

 

After the hot heat of the summer in the US and then Japan and not to mention Singapore and Malaysia, it should be an interesting but hopefully nice change in wintry Australia and New Zealand. I'm definitely really excited to be going back to the ship. There's a couple of people that I'm just dying to see and talk to and if you're one of them, you'll know who you are. =0)

 

I just wanted to write this short message to keep you updated on where we are and what we're up to in our summer furlough so to clarify, we're now in the Singapore airport (Terminal 3 if you MUST know- and it's not as great as they say it is...I miss terminal 1 and 2) heading for Sydney, Australia. Tomorrow we fly from Sydney to Brisbane where the Doulos is. From there it all seems hazy to me because my dad's explanation of our travels can blur past me like the bullet train in Japan. I will try and let you know what's going on though since a few people keep asking me what we're doing this summer. Oh yes, by the way, I've already put up all the photos we've taken since we left the UK. There's pictures of my new little cousin who is now 2 months old and also our visits with various OM celebrities and well, just great friends.

 

So, thanks for keeping in touch. Keep those emails coming since I'm carrying my laptop around this trip and it gets depressing when I don't get mail or when I get less than 5 or something like that. I seem to be getting less emails but more facebook messages so praise God for facebook! Thanks again for your continued prayers...