Prayer Letters

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past prayer letters

Please pray--

Fruitfulness in raising support

Wisdom of when to return home

Health for all of us

To really sense God’s leading

Praise

The tornadoes were not near where we live

New ministry partners

Being able to stay with family while here

February 6, 2007

Soularium
Visual art is a language that can cross barriers created by gender, economic status, race, or creed. Soularium is an image survey our team helped to create that consists of 50 photos and a few survey questions. A packet of pictures with questions can be a great bridge to getting people to open up about what they believe.

One staff member, Lisa, shared Soularium with a young man and said it was the most exciting survey she had ever done. She initiated the conversation with Ilya while he was smoking a cigarette between classes. She quickly learned that he grew up in Russia, but after living in NYC for eight years, he’s now a freshman majoring in Computer Science.
Ilya responded to Lisa’s survey questions by selecting pictures from the stack of 50, and explaining what those images communicated about his life. For the question about spirituality, he chose an image of a barbed wire fence. Ilya confided that, to him, spirituality is “brutal but satisfying; beautiful in the soul but it hurts— it’s jagged but beautiful.”

When Lisa asked which image best described God, Ilya reached for a picture of a fish hook, explaining that God is a fisherman of life trying to catch us. He recounted how he had attempted suicide two or three times and had no doubt that it was God who had saved him. During that time, Ilya felt God had caught him so tightly it was like he was addicted to or “hooked” on the Divine. Ironically, Ilya went on to express how he feels happy where his life is at right now and doesn’t feel the need for God. Since class time was approaching, Ilya wrapped up the conversation by thanking Lisa for taking the time to go through the survey with him and for actually listening to what he had to say. While Ilya may have not made any giant faith decision that day, he told Lisa he was interested in getting together in the future to talk more about spiritual things.

Family Update
We continue working on finding partners in the Buffalo area, and are often asked how much longer we will be here. We really don’t know—we miss home but are willing to stay here as long as God leads us to others to share with. We’re making good use of all our sweaters and warm clothing as winter has settled in.

Where did the time go? Elijah turns six months old February 8. He’s living up to his nickname of “smiley,” handing out big gummy grins to almost everyone. We’ll introduce him to the world of solid foods soon—we’ll see if he likes bananas as much as his sister does. He recently had a case of pinkeye and we quickly learned that he doesn’t like eye drops.

Mikayla’s language ability continues to amaze and amuse us as she puts together sentences and makes observations about the world around her. She’s memorized some of her little books, so she can “read” them to us.