Prayer Letter Archive

February, 2006

Dear Fellow Laborers,

We trust this letter finds you well and enjoying the New Year. We wanted to take this opportunity to update you on what is going on with us. I, Ed, spent the last part of November and first part of December at our Mission Training Center in Camdenton, Missouri helping teach a Church Planting module to the missionary candidates there. It came right on the heels of returning from Indonesia so I was still recovering from that long trip…..but we had a great time with the new missionary candidates and it was fun interacting with them and going over the tribal church planting procedure from start till finish.

December 21 we headed to Phoenix, Arizona to spend Christmas with Jeanne's mom. It had been awhile since either of us had been down there so it was good to get down there and spend time with mom, and also to be able to touch base with many of our support team there. On our way back home we were also privileged to be able to stop by and visit our former helicopter pilot and his wife in Odessa, TX. They are presently taking a leave of absence from missions to see their kids graduated from high school but hope to get back into mission flying in three years or so. We will miss having Pilot Andy McCain at the helm these next few years.

Our tribal co-workers, the Kaku and Panius families, were able to travel over land & sea to visit all our churches interior. We were very thankful to the Lord for meeting their needs to do this. They were able to visit all the churches and one of our main outreach areas - the "Kaju Morangka tribal people." The Kaju Morangka people have given our churches a formal invitation to come and teach them the gospel which they have already been doing. More recently they have given our churches the permission to come and build a permanent house there which will be the beginnings of a new village. Plans are to begin constructing the house on February 10. Things seem to be going well in the tribe but we had a disturbing beginning to the new year in the provincial capital of Palu. At 7:00 a.m. local time on New Years Eve terrorist blew up the pork market killing 7 and injuring approximately 50 others. This reminds us that these activities are far from being over and our need for continued caution.

Our kids, Geoff and Tina, are doing well in Peru and making plans to come home on furlough this coming May. It is hard to believe they have been down there for nearly four years. Geoff traveled to Lima a couple of weeks ago and was able to purchase their tickets, and a family from our church here in Nebraska has offered them the use of a house for their furlough time. So little by little things are beginning to come together for them.

Right now I am making plans to return to Indonesia around March 15. I will be going over with three other men and we will be gone for approximately six weeks. We have a number of goals for this trip which include: Church evaluations, leadership training, and further translation checking. (As for the translation - The gospel of John was completed just over a week ago and is now ready for final check!! The plan is to do the final check in the autumn which will complete the whole New Testament. We will have some further read checks to check for smoothness but hope to have this all completed by next year so that it will be ready for print.) We will surely appreciate your prayers for this big trip which faces us- just six weeks away and will be here before we know it! At present we are working on obtaining a visa entry permit and as soon as that comes through we will be looking into getting our tickets.

Jeanne and I also want to take this opportunity to just thank each of you who have been so faithful to pray and help us in this ministry. Your part on our team has been very much appreciated.

Serving together,

Ed & Jeanne Casteel