Hello, praying friends and loved ones, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for praying for us. Please know that your prayers DO NOT go unappreciated! I am sorry that we have not been keeping up to date on the blog. Right now, Alan and I are in Jacksonville, Florida, where we have been at missionary candidate training school since Monday. Unfortunately, we had to leave the children in Pennsylvania, where they are staying with close friends of the family. I do that Mrs. Shaw is keeping them busy and that they are having a terrific time. I also realize that I still have not posted a lot about our trip to Africa. I still plan on doing that, it will just take time, so bear with me.

So, as I stated earlier, Alan and I are in Florida. We left Hamilton on Thursday and arrived in Pennsylvania that evening. We enjoyed a delicious dinner with with their family, and then Alan and I left at 5:00 the next morning for Blairsville, Georgia. There, we were to stay with Bro. Arnold and his wife Denise and their family. Well, on the drive down, Alan and I kept asking ourselves if maybe the Lord didn't want us to take the trip. It was really weird. There were several things that happened on the way down, and I hope I can remember it all.

We were driving on the highway and an aluminum ladder fell off of a truck. So the ladder is in the middle of the road, and an 18-wheeler is going along just in front of us and it runs over the ladder, which flies up toward my window. Just before it hit my window, it seemed to stop mid-air and flew past us and then the two cars behind us ran over it. Thankfully, there was no serious accident and I can only imagine what would have happened if it came through the window. We PRAISE THE LORD for His Protection!! Then, about 10 minutes later, traffic stopped suddenly, because there was a serious accident that had just occurred 10 minutes BEFORE! I don't know how many people were involved, nor if anyone was seriously injured, but a pick-up truck pulling an r.v. type trailer jackknifed and half of it went off the road, and the other other half stayed on the road. So we were stuck there for an hour and a half before the road was cleared. I am not trying to make this about us, but our gas tank was on empty, and we could not move. So the Lord really took care of us by keeping gas in the tank until we could get to a station. Then we started going through the mountains of Georgia, and the brakes got so hot that it effected the rotors and we had to get them turned.

So anyway, now we have made it through a week of training, and are now a part of Baptist Missions to Forgotten Peoples. And tomorrow we get to start towards home and pick up our children on the way. I can hardly wait to see them.

Having said all that, we can not express our thanks enough for praying for us. We love you, and we love the Saviour!!

Have a wonderful day,

Psalm 113:1,2

Love,

Ida