January 2016
Dear Friends in Christ,
During the holidays, we received many cards from you and many of them with personal notes. Due to the expense, we don’t send many cards other than within our family circle, so please don’t feel slighted if you didn’t get one from us. We do try to stay in touch with our monthly letters (e-mail when possible- to avoid postage) but enjoy the annual letters we receive during the holidays so that we can follow the events in various homes and churches. Thank you for each of them.
We also received several extra gifts during the holiday season and tried to acknowledge each one, for we are truly thankful for each one. We received a list of gifts from our office and after sending out thank yous, we discovered that the list was for the entire year and included some that were sent last January for last Christmas. If you got a “Thank You” and are trying to remember what you gave this year, it may be from last year. OOPS! J Thank you for including us in your giving this year.
Another treat during the holidays is phone calls and visits from people that we have had opportunity to minister to over the years. What an encouragement to see God still working in their lives and their growth as they submit to God’s Word!
The weather at this time of the year seems to affect our schedules as people are limited in getting around. You may have heard about the 31” of snow that fell in Flagstaff just a few weeks ago. (At our house, it was only 6-8 “ but in town, it was pretty deep.) It was beautiful, but glad that we didn’t have to travel much in it.
We enjoy this time and use it to catch up and do some “desk work”. Sam has been working on getting an outline for this coming summer’s Navajo Bible Conference here in Flagstaff. This year’s chosen subject was the book of Revelation, beginning with the Rapture of the Church. There are speakers in both Navajo and English and the outline allows both speakers to cover the same material for both groups. We only provide the outline and the speakers still have to study and prepare their own messages.
Classes for the Bible Institute are to begin soon for the spring semester, so studying is also being done for that ministry. We are thankful for each student that continued with the fall semester to completion. God’s Word is powerful and changes lives! We are anticipating another good semester.
Sam is also occupied with an on-line instruction in carpentry to aid in the building of the cabin to house the radio station in Thorne Bay, Alaska. Please continue to pray with us regarding workers and finances to get this project moving along. We do hope to go up this coming summer and make some progress on the building.
This month, we filled in for one of our missionaries that had to be away as his son underwent some serious surgery. We were sorry for the reason, but glad for the opportunity to be a help and serve the Lord with both the preaching and the music. We only had to travel about an hour, but the drop in altitude gave us a distinct drop in temperature which was a treat. (We all smile when we see people from down in the “valley” coming up the interstate and pull off so that they can sled, build snowmen and play in the snow along the highway. Altitude makes a difference!)
Thank you once again for your prayers and gifts to help us stay in the ministry.
II Cor. 2:11 “Ye also helping together by prayer for us.”
In Christ,
Sam & Janet Grammer