June 2018
Dear Friends in Christ,
As you are receiving this letter, Sam and Steve DeFord, our mission director, are traveling. They are driving up with a pickup loaded with building supplies for this summer’s volunteer workers from North Carolina that are planning on coming in August. Some of these supplies have been donated by individuals. They will be stopping in Washington to add some donated electrical supplies before catching the ferry to Ketchikan and then another ferry to the Prince of Wales Island and then driving to Thorne Bay. They plan to spend 2 days unloading and then flying home , leaving the pickup to be available for use this summer. Please continue to pray for their travel safety.
One Kids’ club from a supporting church wanted to help supply the installation kit for the wood stove. At each of their weekly meetings, they brought their gifts. Some even collected cans to recycle so that they could have something to give. The check that they were able to send was twice what they had hoped ! The cards that they sent with the gift makes it hard to tell who got the greater blessing in this effort. Thank you, “Son-Shine Club”
Soon after returning to Flagstaff, Sam is scheduled to be the English speaker at the Western Navajo Bible Fellowship family camp here in Flagstaff. This is always a good time of fellowshipping with other Believers and we are looking forward to it. They have both morning and evening classes-so you can see that a lot of preparation is needed for the 8 day camp. Pray for him (as well as the Navajo speakers and those working with the youth) to be clear as God’s Word is taught and that hearts will be challenged and encouraged with all of the sessions.
Thank you for your prayers for Helen, Janet’s visitation partner and interpreter in the local nursing home. She is now waiting for more tests and a hip replacement and recuperating at home. Pray also for Mary who has been filling in for Helen during this time. She seems to be enjoying the ministry and seeing how God can use her. These elderly ladies are excited whenever we show up and appreciate having someone sing the old hymns in Navajo with them. That-Janet can do. But conversation definitely needs an interpretation.
III John 4 “No greater joy have I that to hear that my children walk in truth.”
Earlier this month, we received a visit from a Navajo lady who stopped to spend the night in Flagstaff on her way to Phoenix, 150 miles south of us. Lorena was one of our former Bible School students. After graduation, she taught in a small Christian School on the Reservation and later joined the local mission where she has been serving the Lord for over 20 years now. We haven’t had contact with her for many years now and she wanted to stop and tell us thank you for the time spent in teaching and training her. What an encouragement to us to hear how God has used her and of her faithfulness over the years!
I Cor. 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
We trust you also find this encouraging. Your financial gifts have made it possible for us
to serve here in the Southwest. Thank you for your prayers and gifts in this ministry that God has allowed us to have part in.
II Cor. 2:11 “Ye also helping together by prayer for us.”
In Christ,
Sam & Janet Grammer