May/June 2012
Dear Pastor & Praying Friends,
My wife says I always work best while under pressure. Well, this week we will see.
On June 18, we will be leaving to go to Canada to visit with family before we head back to Peru (and hopefully pick up some work to pay for plane tickets). During this same time, our belongings from Western Canada are on their way down to us here in Indiana. We have not seen any of this stuff in three years. I just checked the Yellow/Roadway website; and as I write this, our belongings are in St. Paul,
Minnesota, on their cross docks waiting for their next move toward Chicago Heights. Right now the ETA is this Wednesday. We have four skids of things that we have to go through, separate, and list, because on Thursday we are preparing to finish packing the container.
We also have water-filtration systems coming from Missouri that are going to arrive on Thursday that have to be on the container on—you guessed it—Thursday. It would be great for them to get here Wednesday instead.
Thursday will be pressure time as well. If you do not have Facebook or you did not see the posting, we had some wonderful gifts given to the team. We had 360 folding chairs donated by First Baptist Church. Brother Wayne Holder gave us 90,000 books of Romans in Spanish, with the Romans Road outlined. B.E.A.M.S Bibles gave us 1,000 Spanish Bibles for those we win to the Lord, and a church in Michigan gave us 360,000 Spanish Gospel tracts. Almost all of these things, plus four skids of toys given to us by Brother George Ranft at Reformers Unanimous of First Baptist Church of Hammond, need to be put into the container with our four skids of items.
I may start praying for a 25-hour day to get everything accomplished before we leave!
While we are looking forward to going to Canada to see family (we haven’t been there in a year), we are also sad at saying goodbye to Danica-Lee. She is staying in the Chicago area for the summer and preparing for her senior year at Hyles-Anderson College. We don’t get much opportunity to see her right now, and those few times we do see her at church, her time is limited because she also wants to spend time with
Fred, her fiancé. When we see her next, she will be putting on a graduation cap and gown and then two weeks later putting on a wedding dress and veil. My mind is still trying to wrap itself around the whole “daddy’s little girl” to “she’s graduating college and getting married” space/time continuum thingy.
Josiah has also been coming into his own, both physically and spiritually. I keep checking to see if he is taller than I am yet. We can always tell when he is in a growing spurt because we have to keep restocking the fridge quicker than the national deficit keeps rising. A few weeks ago, I took him to McDonald’s around 1:00 p.m. He had several items off the dollar menu. About 3:30, he was asking to go back because
he was hungry, and once again he got a couple of burgers, some fries, and a Coke. We got home at around 6:00, and the Hopsons had gotten some Papa John’s pizza. Josiah had four pieces. Now we don’t eat like that all the time, but when he is hungry, it’s like feeding coals to a hot fire. It just gets consumed faster than you can blink.
This past month Josiah has had a great time soul winning. He saw 15 people saved, and 12 of those were on one day!
I am working away at my Spanish. My understanding continues, and I look forward to the day when I am as fluent in Spanish as I am in English. At church we had the ordination of the men on the team, as well as the Commissioning Service. A week later we had the Spanish-church send-off. Each of the men was asked to preach for about ten minutes. I started off in Spanish for the first couple of paragraphs. It was so funny, because when I did that, the Spanish people started cheering. This was my first attempt at preaching in Spanish, and while I flubbed some words, I was happy I tried.
We are looking forward to getting back to Peru and back to where home is. We are so thankful for your prayers and support.
Prayer Requests:
Travel mercies here and abroad
Transportation and customs clearance of our container
That our team tax number (RUC) would get approved
That our application for a permanent visa would go smoothly in Peru
Thank-you for all your support, love and prayers on our behalf,
Paul, Andrea & Josiah Szabatin
Ezra 8:21-23
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