Prayer Letter Archive

June 2006

Dear Fellow Laborers,

Greetings from Jeanne and I. We trust you are enjoying the nice summer weather and maybe a bit of change in pace that the summer brings. We would like to take a few lines here to update you on the past few months as much has expired since our last news letter.

I just returned home from Indonesia last month from a 7 week trip and as usual had a wonderful and encouraging time. Some of the highlights of this trip included: attending our Indonesia Field Conference, doing a church evaluation in the Tugutil tribe in North Halmahera (the spice islands), leadership meetings with our Wana Tribal church leaders, and working on more Wana Scripture checks.

The church planting evaluation was quite an experience for me. The last leg of the trip was a 60 mile ocean trip on a small long boat with no outriggers. I must admit there were times of apprehension but the Lord undertook through all the heavy down pours, wind and large waves, and even when the motors both died at times. I had claimed Ps. 139 for this trip and also the promise in 2 Cor. 12:9 "…My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness….." was a great comfort to me. It is when we have come to the end of our own strength and resources that God is able to live his life out through us and then His power is made evident in our lives. Many of the believers had been waiting many hours on the beach for our arrival. As we were getting off the boat they were singing a song that they had written themselves telling how they came to Christ. It was quite a touching moment. We had a great time with these believers and it was wonderful to sit down with them and hear detailed testimonies of how they were led to Christ and what God has been doing in their lives. Pray for these "Tugutil" tribal believers as we seek to give them the help they need to see their church go on into maturity.

We also had a wonderful time with our own "Wana" tribal church leaders and teachers. We gave them an overview of 1 Peter and had some good times of teaching and discussion on it. Each morning was spent in Bible study and then in the afternoons we had church business meetings. Our meetings coincided with Good Friday and Easter so we were privileged to spend this time with them as well. Along with this it has been encouraging to see the outreach to the "Kaju Morangka" people continue to progress. Please be praying for these people as our Wana teachers are teaching the gospel to these folks. Pray for understanding on their part and that soon we could see some new believers in this area. After leadership meetings we spent two weeks reading through much of the Wana New Testament Scriptures - having our language helpers read it back to us to see how well it was reading to them, and making notations for adjustments where necessary.

A highlight for us this past month was to have our kids, Geoff & Tina, arrive home to the States on their first missionary furlough from Peru, South America. They were able to stay with us for about 10 days and now living in a lovely home with the Lord provided for them about 30 minutes from here. It is great to have them home for this furlough year.

A prayer request we have is that Geoff might be able to go out to Indonesia with me on my next trip which will be the beginning of September - just three months away! It has been a number of years since he has been able to see his Wana Tribal friends and I would like to take him along so he can reunite with them and also be an encouragement to the believers. I have enough earned air miles for one ticket but we still need to trust the Lord for one more ticket to make this happen. We would appreciate your prayers for that as the Lord brings it to mind.

We do want to thank each of you for being a vital part of our team. Thank you so much for keeping us and our ministry before the Lord - we appreciate it very much.

Serving Together,

Ed & Jeanne Casteel