Sight.

For we walk by faith, not by sight. - 2 Corinthians 5:7

One of Vann’s beautiful, blue eyes has recently been the object of our concern and prayers. A tiny piece of metal was embedded in his eye while using the grinder on a welding project at the beginning of this month. We found a doctor in town who removed the speck and scraped his eye rather aggressively to remove the “metal dust”. Vann now has a significantly large wound at the center of his eye. The pain has since subsided but not before giving him a continuous migraine, causing a spike in his blood pressure - all while passing a 4mm kidney stone. His vision is still significantly blurred, but we are hopeful it will heal. We greatly appreciate all of you who have prayed for him so fervently and ask that you keep praying with us for complete healing without too much scarring! Both faith and sight seem essential.

In spite of the pain and blurred vision, he has worked diligently on several projects for our base and for our neighboring mission aviation base. He is overseeing the build of a cement slab for SamAir and installed a water filter for one of their houses. He made a well cap on the lathe for our water filter system and installed the new meters for our base. The most exciting project he completed is the install of the transfer switch and fuel supply system to run the generator! He gives a tour of the power sub-station he has built in the video below.

Vann’s ingenuity and capability astound me. I am especially thankful for his ability to persevere through pain and injury with grace. Even when he cannot see well, he walks through his days anchored in his solid faith in the God he loves to hold him fast until He calls him home. God is so good and He is worthy of all our praise!

Some of my days are full of multiple visits which at times overlap and some days are filled with large gatherings for holidays or teams hosted here. Other days are quieter with only our neighbors coming to cool off in the pool, but there is hardly ever a day we are on base alone, which is wonderful. We did however experience a rare handful of days this month when our Petra missionary families were all out working in their respective tribes at the same time, but we are back to the ebb and flow of their comings and goings on base. They make us so proud and thankful we can serve and enable them in their Kingdom work. We love this job and are super grateful for all of you on our support team; your support is multiplied as many times as the people who are served here, which are many! To God be the glory, great things He has done!

“Seeing is never believing: we interpret what we see in the light of what we believe. Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging; therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried.” - Oswald Chambers