Issue #18
April 25, 1999

Dear Friends and Family,
I hope this has been a good week for all of you. It was a good week, but for some reason it seemed like a rather long week. I think everyone is still trying to get started into the trimester. I'm just going to include mostly prayer items in this newsletter.

* Praise God for His Protection.

We see God's protection in so many ways around here each week. Recently there have been two ways we have really seen it. On arrival day when all of the kids were returning to school, the kids from Mali were arriving on two Missionary Aviation Fellowship planes. The first plane landed in Bouake with no problems. The second one couldn't get its landing gear to come out. All of the kids from the first plane were on the ground watching what was going on, and the other plane was full of kids. The plane kept trying to get the landing gear to come out. After some time using a last resort method the landing gear finally came out and the plane was able to land. The pilot flew the plane back to Mali with the landing gear out. All of the kids and adults on the plane were fine, just a little shaken up.

On Friday evening of this week some of the men and high school guys were at a local church helping to put on a roof. Two of the high school boys fell of the roof and boards came tumbling down after them hitting them and one other boy. The only injury was a gash on one of the guy's head that didn't require stitches. It was only by God's protection.

* Spiritual Emphasis Week

Tomorrow begins Spiritual Emphasis Week for the elementary. Please pray for the kids and for those who will be helping out. Miss Inman, the principal, will be telling African Folktales, and Pastor Brad, the chaplain, will be tying in the Spiritual side. I will be telling a 5 part Child Evangelism Fellowship Missionary Story. Uncle Keith, dorm dad, will be leading in the music. The other teachers will be helping when we work in groups.

* Staff for Next Year

This is still a great concern. We still have many opening and no one to fill them at this time. We do have one praise though. We do have a high school principal confirmed for next year.

* Outreach Weekend

A large group of high school students and staff will be leaving on Friday afternoon to go to Abengorou for Outreach Weekend. They will be going around witnessing and inviting people to come to the nightly meetings. At the nightly meetings they will be showing a video, telling stories, and singing. Please pray for God to open hearts, for safety, and for all of the details to work out with a group this large. (I think it is around 60 who are going.) Also pray for the two missionary families who will be hosting this group.

Have a great week!
In Christ,
Traci