September 2006

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! Your probably still feeling stuffed from that Christmas day meal. Me too. What a nice feeling though. I mean, a nice “low fat” meal feeling. Low Fat? Are you kidding?! Bring it on!

Anyway, we trust you’re enjoying the Holiday Season. We have too. This year we have families coming and going and staying in the guest flats. Our kids have enjoyed having other kids to play with. Nice to have others to celebrate Christmas with.

42.5 mph

We were planning to go to a village Church service, a Church that had been planted by local believers. It was sure to be a day of rejoicing. However, the winds had come up and a family that was planning to come here was afraid to make the journey in their little boat so we had to go get them. BUT, what a joy it was! First off, we have a new motor on the boat and we are extremely grateful for it. It’s everything I had hoped for, quiet, fuel efficient, and powerful. It’s one of the few “new” mechanical things I have ever bought. Well, I didn’t really buy it yet. You know how that goes. If you’d like to give towards the motor project, Great!!! We stepped out on faith believing the Lord would provide. Many have given already for which we are thankful.

At first when I heard we had to make the boat run to pick up the family, I thought, “hey, it’s Christmas….” But you know, many times there are blessings in that extra mile. We have been making boat runs for 6 years now and each one with its own memorable moments. Many of those memories are of engine problems or high seas. But this time, the Lord was gracious. The seas were calm and after 20 miles out, we saw spouts come shooting out of the water as we came upon a pod of pilot whales. Never seen them before. We were able to slow down and get right along side of them as they would surface and go back down. A rare and really neat experience. Wish you could have been here.

We missed the Church service and I haven’t heard a report of how it went as of yet. However, another village Church met and had over 300 people attend. A real encouraging time for the believers and missionaries who had spent 15 years training the people from God’s word, teaching them to read and write and patching not only spiritual sores but physical ones as well.

We are looking forward to the New Year as Joan’s sister’s family is coming to help out here. We’ll be taking them to 3 different tribal locations to help the missionaries there. We’re excited about their visit. ALSO, our son Micah will be coming home! You can imagine our anticipation!

Hope you have a Happy New Year and may the Lord bless you as you have been a blessing.

In Christian Love,

Mark and Joan Reichman