News

In the past few months, we have been trying to arrange for the birth of the baby, including where we will deliver and how to work out our visa situations, etc. In the process of all of this, we have become a bit more concerned with how things are going for my parents back in Missouri with my Dad’s health issues. Origianally we thought we would try to go to Australia to have the baby, being there a few months, coming back to Indonesia for 2 months of language study and then a possible 2 month trip home for a wedding. As we considered the pros and cons of this plan with the situation with my Dad, we (Joel and I, our field leadership and Pastor at our sending church) decided it would be better to just go home to the states for a 6 month medical furlough, deliver the baby there, be with my family for awhile and be able to be there for the wedding. It looks like our target date to leave Indonesia will be March 1 and we will need to be back in the country in late August.
There are many details involved in the whole process, but one that I will mention is this… Joel will need to return to Indonesia in early April to renew his visa. Now for those of you with good memories, my due date with the baby is April 25. Joel will likely be able to make it back by the 20th of April or so but whether the baby will be on time or not, we don’t know! We would love for you to pray with us that things would work out for him to be there for the baby’s birth. If not, I already have a great Mom and best friend who were also there with me for Jack’s birth and will be great coaches once again!
A few other items of prayer we would like to share with you are this:
When we return home, we will need a place to live for 6 months.
We will also need a vehicle for that time so that we aren’t dependant on others to drive us around.
My Dad’s health continues to baffle us. He has a great doctor who is working hard to figure out how to help Dad.
That we would continue to thrive in our language study over the next 4 ½ months.
For Joel’s sister Bekah as she has had some health issues as well over the last few weeks.
We are excited to be going home for awhile and look forward to seeing many of you again. But we also realize that this was not our original plan. God has gone before us in all of this and we believe this is the wisest thing to do at this point. When we return here to Indonesia, we will have 3 more months of language study before we can head to Papua to do our full time ministry.
Thank you for your prayers for us in all of this. And please keep keeping in touch! WE love hearing from you!

Bethany for us all!