Greetings,



Is truth stranger than fiction? Sometimes I think it must be. Fiction is by nature something that came out of our own heads, but truth is God's. That must be how such fantastic things come into my life. I do things I would never have dreamt of doing. But it all plays a part in the promise of more than we could ask or imagine.


I saw a magic trick show on the roof of my teammates' houses put on by a Bangladeshi TV performer for a group of us westerners and eighty to a hundred Bangladeshi men. It had music and singing and a great performance of several simple tricks. For this even I also went to pick up ten watermelons. I finally was able to get them after they tried to explain more than once that they had no ten kilo watermelons. That is one of the problems with looking the foreigner. Even if you say it right in Kurdish, they think you are saying it wrong and try to come up with something more reasonable.


This magic and music presentation was an extension of the Friday night events that several ministries in the area are working on together. We serve Bangladeshi food to thirty-five men who are working in the city as street sweepers and garbage men. Then they watch the Jesus film in their own language. It is an amazing ministry and God is working among these men.


At the school, things are wrapping up for a couple of the classes. My seventh graders are being teenagers and several ended up in detention this week. That has mellowed the class somewhat, and we are making progress. One of them, N-w, is reading and journaling Romans for me. I hope it will grow his newly professed faith and that he will be able to grow and that his belief is sincere. Please pray that he would grow and learn to walk with God.


And for myself too, I ask you to pray that I would more closely walk with my Lord. There are manifold enough temptations to distract and to confuse and to weary a person. Pray that I would live on God's strength and that I would follow him in every little particular.


Many thanks and blessings to you all,

Colleen