Friday, October 16, 2009

A Brief Update


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www.youtube.com/user/colombiacarters#p/a





Where we've been

We have been all over...and had a wonderful summer! We are so thankful for the time we had with Scott's family in New Jersey. We enjoyed helping with a garage sale, watching a baseball game (Scott and Jackson even got to go see the Phillies-Go Fightin Phils!), playing at parks, and just being together with our cousins, aunts, uncles and grandpop and grandmom.

We were also able to to get down to Washington D.C. to visit some monuments and museums but especially to spend some wonderful time with Laura's brother Mark and his lovely wife Jennifer.

As we left New Jersey towards the middle of September, we spend a week and a half in Ohio with our friends, Dan and Julie Ogg. They were kind enough to let us stay with them during that entire time and they still invited us back afterwards! We enjoyed being with our friends at Grace Community Church (gracecommunity.net) and also our sending church, Faircreek Church (faircreek.org). As always, we were deeply encouraged by our many friends and supporters in the Dayton, Ohio area. At the end of September we continued on to Iowa.


What we need
Please pray with us earnestly in regards to our shortage of monthly support. We desperately desire to return to Colombia in January and we trust that God can bring in the $583.70 of committed monthly support that we still need. We've seen God bring in over $400 in pledged monthly support in the past month and he has reminded us of his faithfulness and has continued to confirm our calling to plant churches on the coast of Colombia.

However, our mission agency, ABWE (abwe.org) requires that we be at 100% before returning to the field (a wise policy btw!). If you desire to partner with us financially, through a tax deductable donation (monthly, quarterly, annual or a one-time gift) send us an email and we will tell you how to do so, or see the right sidebar of this page. Please pray, God is working!

Where we're headed
  • We will be in Iowa until Nov. 13
  • Scott will be in the Philippines (Bacolod City area) speaking at a Bible Conference for Campus Bible Fellowship. Please pray as he will be preaching/teaching many times during a 9 day trip.
  • We will be at our sending church, Faircreek Church (faircreek.org) in Fairborn, OH speaking at the mission's conference on Nov. 15.
  • We will be spending a week in the Dayton area, Nov. 16-20.
  • Scott will be leading a Good Soil Evangelism & Discipleship Seminar (goodsoil.com) at one of our supporting churches, Immanuel Baptist Church in Arcanum, Ohio, Nov.20-21.
  • We will be attending another supporting church, Grace Community Church (gracecommunity.net) on Nov. 22.
  • We will be enjoying Thanksgiving in New Jersey with Scott's family during the week of Nov. 23-28.
  • We will be at North Valley Baptist Church, Carbondale, PA with college friends James and Andrea Schmidt, who started the church there after graduating from BBC (bbc.edu)
  • From there we will be heading back to Iowa, where we will remain until our departure for Colombia, Lord willing at the end of January. (Add or subtract a quick trip by Scott to Colombia to keep visas valid and whatever else God throws our way!)
Santiago Update

As were writing this, we got a phone call from Juana Medina, Santiago's mom. Juana told Laura that he will be going through tests on Friday and Saturday (Oct.16-17) to determine the next steps of treatment. Santiago is doing very well after finishing around 7 months of chemotherapy. He is eating enough food now to make up for his lack of appetite during chemo his mom says. Please continue to pray for them as they try to work through and process all of the emotions and stress that come from having a child battling cancer.

We will post more when we get another update from Alfredo and Juana.

Some Random Pics of our recent travels