All three of our children came home for Christmas break! We enjoyed every minute of time together as a family. We are so proud of these amazing young adults of ours that love God and each other and are diligently pursuing the path God has for each of them. We miss them terribly, especially since it’ll be a year until, Lord willing, we will see them again.
Our hearts are broken as we are grieving the loss of our dear friend, Felipe. He was a faithful friend and neighbor, brother in Christ, and great help to us in our mission. His kind and trustworthy spirit was an incalculable blessing to us. He was part of our family here as we are so far from our own. He has been with us for twenty years and it is hard to imagine what life will be like without him. His biggest prayer request and concern was the salvation of his children. Please pray for them and his precious wife, Juana during this very difficult time of loss.
We have a local church planning to come and use the Petra Camp facilities in February, but we realized that preparations on our own were going to take more time than we had. Our precious New Union Church Family came to the rescue! They called just asking for prayer requests, heard our need, decided they could help, and arrived within the week! In the two weeks they were here, they wired lights, installed screens, buttoned up the chapel, bath houses and cabins, and bush hogged all around the camp and all the pastures - which had been weighing on Vann’s shoulders to be done for quite some time. They worked so hard trimming up the grass around nearly every building on base and around the whole disk golf course. It had rained all the month before and solidly the week before they came, but in His goodness, God held off the rain just long enough for all this work to get done! Camp Petra is finally open!!! Thank you so very much New Union Church Family!
The second week our New Union team was here, we hosted a mission team from south GA of nine hard working men who came to help remodel a neighboring missionary’s kitchen, and a sweet couple from Canada who came for a vision trip and kindly jumped in to help wherever needed. It just so happens that he owns his own framing company in Canada and is helping build the interior walls of “The Little House”! God is so good. We hosted 14 people in our house and garage apartment, and received another missionary family in the Round Robin house for a couple months - Petra Mission Base Camp is full and we absolutely LOVE it!
Please pray for us as we are missing our children and grieving the loss of Felipe. Staying busy in the work is helpful, but our hearts still hurt. Life is so short. If you do not know Him as your Lord and Savior, please, please turn away from your sin, and confess Jesus to be Lord of your life, or you will ultimately loose your life for all eternity. Jesus is the only Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man comes to the Father God, but through Him.
“Rise, O Lord, into thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health, and even my life itself.”― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
We honor Felipe’s memory and send our deepest condolences. Looking forward to meeting him in glory!