Tooth Tales – July 2019
Dear Friends,
We are having a beautiful summer in New England. It is finally warm and sunny and breezy and we are enjoying it after a cool, wet spring. We were happy to get away though to the mountains of North Carolina the last week of May as we were invited to the GFA mission retreat at the Wilds Christian Camp. A number of the missionaries that we have served with on the field were there and we enjoyed fellowshipping with them so much.
In June we were off to the Denver area to speak at Tri-City Baptist Church in Westminster, CO. Tri-City is one of our supporting churches and it was great to catch up with the gracious believers there. We also attended the FBFI conference at Red Rocks Baptist Church while we were in the area.
The Bible messages were very thought provoking and again we interacted with a number of pastors and ministry colleagues and made some dates to speak and present our ministry. We actually have been asked to come back out to Colorado this month to Red Rocks Baptist Church. It is a new church for us but we feel like we are somewhat familiar with it after being at the conference. Before we are at Red Rocks we will be in Cody, Wyoming at Wapiti Valley Church, updating our supporters there. These folks are always a blessing to us.
In June, Jack had the opportunity to travel to Benin to serve at the Benin Clinic with Dr. Steve and Katrina Boutrus for a week training his dental protégé, Latifou.
Latifou has been in training for a few years now, learning how to be the future resident dentist at the clinic when no other dentists are there. He is doing quite well at expanding his skills in dentistry. Jack enjoyed working with him again and teaching him how, during this visit, to extract upper teeth. Jack is working himself out of a job there but that is a good thing. The day after Jack left for America, Latifou handled a difficult upper extraction on his own and did fine.
Dr. Steve recently has asked prayer regarding several ongoing clinic issues:
- Authorization to practice medicine in Benin. The application was filed some time ago.
- Registration of the health center with the government.
- Permission to buy medicines from the central medicine distributor in the country.
- General difficulties in restocking critical medicines.
- Their residency permit applications.
- A yet-unresolved disagreement about the health center’s ownership of a piece of land purchased for its use.
- In September we will be making another (we were there in March) ministry trip to Lebanon to treat Syrian refugees in collaboration with several local Baptist churches there.
One host pastor has asked a number of times if we could come more than once a year as the needs are so great and the door is wide open for spiritual ministry. We were encouraged by the new believers who were in the church when we were there in March and are hoping there will be even more when we go in September. Also, we just heard that five people, 2 men and 3 women, were recently baptized in this church! This was a huge answer to prayer, but also may bring much persecution to those involved.
Please continue to hold us up in prayer if you would. We feel the need for prayer more than ever as we work in countries where the gospel is not openly shared so easily and in which the spiritual battles seems more intense. We also need prayer for wisdom regarding future ministry opportunities in closed/restricted countries. In some cases we need to find the right avenue through which to enter these countries. It is the prayer support that we have that makes it possible for us to continue to do this ministry which God has called us to.
Sincerely in Christ,
Jack & Jennifer