DeckerUpdate July 15

Dear family and friends,
Time has been going so quickly these days, more than a month has passed since the last update on our family. It doesn't seem that long! We have had a good summer so far. We spent five days at a little beach house, with Jacob and two of his friends to keep him company. It was a restful, peaceful, relaxing time. Just what we needed!

Since then: Dave's been working in the office daily, on all the background details that are so critical to supporting our ministry teams in Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal. This "slower" season (i.e. no crises, no travel, and an adequate office staff) is allowing him to tackle some significant yet less-urgent projects that have been on his list for literally fifteen years! I've been working at home, reading and writing as required for the class I am completing this month. We have also been hosting one of Jacob's friends here since July 1, while his parents are out of the country with medical business.

We received word yesterday and asked people to pray about the 20 year old son of missionaries who had become very ill while visiting his family in Kenya. Our friends were his dorm parents in Kenya, and he graduated the same year Joey graduated. We were saddened to read today about his death. These stories challenge us in our hearts and in our thinking, and stretch our faith. We really do believe that this young man is at home with the Lord in Heaven, and that his family and friends will be with him again. And we really believe that God does all things for good. Still, we are saddened and grieve at this family's loss of their son's life on earth. We need the Lord to continually renew our minds in His Truth-- otherwise these things are more than we can bear. This kind of story hits close to home as we look at our own sons so close to his age. If you would like to read any follow up on this family, a website has been set-up at here

Please continue to pray for Joey and his eyes. His vision has not yet corrected to 20/20, though it has improved from where it was. He will see a specialist in the next few weeks. He is NOT a candidate for surgery as his cornea is not misshapen. We'll keep you updated.

We are looking forward to time away with our Senegal SIMers for our Spiritual Life Conference in a few weeks. Please pray for the preparations, and that it will be a rich time of refreshment and growth in the Lord.

Please be in prayer for our team in Liberia. It continues to be a difficult and unsettled time there, and they have had another armed robbery (of two houses) in very recent days on the ELWA campus. Please pray for each one there, that the Lord will continue to give them peace and wisdom as they serve Him in that needy country.

We are posting photos and occasional notes on this blog, and we hope you'll enjoy getting those glimpses into our life through that medium. (We've found that adding blogs to our google reader keeps us updated on blogs that we may not check every day... if you don't know how to do that, you could read this helpful article by a friend from our home church, and see if you can't get it figured out!)

With thankfulness for your partnership, as we seek to trust the Lord more fully each day here in West Africa,
Mary
for the DakarDeckers