The End of One Season...

Today marks the end of a very busy summer for Almando and me--along with the other PPM staffers who serve along side us.  Almando has officially crashed for the afternoon and I actually took a really wonderful long shower and used a hair dryer for the first time since the beginning of May.  (Oh, the little things.)  The last week, Al was in Jacmel with team, while I stayed at home working on end of summer stuff--mostly financial stuff.  It's good to have him home and have almost all the financial stuff done.

We still have a couple of trips to facilitate this year, but--God willing--they will be close to home and Al won't have to be far away from the family.  That's right.  Family.  Next month, Al and I will be parents.  Those nine months really do fly by!  Even now, the little coconut is moving around a lot and getting ready to make a grand entrance into this world.  I keep explaining to the little one that patience is a good thing and he or she should wait just a few more weeks before arriving.  I think he or she will.  In the meantime, Al and I have much to do in preparation for our growing family and in ministry.

We get the question a lot:  "When you aren't leading trips, what do you do for ministry work?"  Well, this will help you be able to pray for us in the coming weeks and months.

• We are hosting our end of summer staff reuinion/meeting next weekend.  What goes into that is much planning--where to have it, what to cover, etc.  Then we host the meeting and cover all those things.  Please be praying that God would give us wisdom to know how to best debrief our staff as they go back to "normalcy" after a summer of intense ministry, wisdom to know what to cover in general, and for our staff as the end of the summer is often hard on all of us.
• We are following up with pastors.  With well over 1,000 people serving in several communities all over Haiti, we have our work cut out for us.  We will be asking them how it went this summer and if they truly were encouraged in their ministry.  We will be asking them how we can better encourage them in the future.  I love this aspect of the ministry we do.  We may be holding a Pastor's Conference this fall to get them all together to share ideas and thoughts.  Pray that God will lead us in all of this as well!
• We are setting up for future trips.  Like I said, we have a couple more trips yet this year and those have some set up to do.  We will make sure our teams will have a good partnership church, lodging, food, transportation, etc.  We have so many pastors asking us to bring them a partnership team, so this is a great time to start meeting and setting up with them.  Pray that God will prepare pastors and churches in Haiti as well as in the states to serve Him well.
• I am transferring a lot of my responsibility--especially financial responsibilities--to one of our dear friends down here.  I will be spending a lot of time training and prepping him for the work he will be doing.

There is always much to do!  A couple of personal things you can pray for as well in the coming weeks and months:

• My continued health and the baby's health as the pregnancy is coming to an end.
• We are finishing up house preparations for the baby's arrival.  Pray that God would continue to give Almando the strength and wisdom to complete the projects ahead of us.
• The vehicle.  I know this has been a prayer request for months now, but we are really feeling the pressure to have a reliable vehicle for when the baby arrives.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions regarding the vehicle and please continue to pray that God would provide for us in this way.
• Rest.  After the long summer, we are needing to rest.  Pray that in the midst of the busyness we would find time to do just that.  Rest.

I will continue to keep you posted as much as possible on how we are doing, things that are going on, and how you can be praying for us!  Thank you again for your prayers, friends!