Here Comes the Rain
In the natural this last year was a time of drought in our area. When the rains finally came they were a welcomed relief. On the spiritual side the church also went through a drought. With limitations on the number of people that could attend, sick people staying home for a month or more and the social distancing our church family became distracted. There were very few small prayer groups nor was there the opportunity to put your arm around someone to pray with them. In this time of drought the weaker Christians lost their direction and even some of the stronger ones started to stumble. In the last few weeks we have seen a sovereign flow of the Holy Spirit once more in the church. There is a new hunger for God`s presence and a waning of the fear that had held many people captive. The spiritual rain of the Spirit of God is starting to revive His church.
July was a time of of accepting that we live in this world with the same risk factors as everyone else. The major difference is that we have God on our side. Philip travelled to the States for a missions conference and when he returned home he found the house infected with COVID. All our children along with our son and daughter in law came through fine but we missed some weeks of work and ministry. For other of our fellow ministers, God had other plans as He took home with Him one pastor and the wife of another pastor in our fellowship.
August was the start of a new school year in both our Bible school and our Christian schools. The 14th of August was the start of a new semester for our Bible school students as we started with 18 students. This semester we started a second year class. Since we are only holding classes on Saturdays, one year of study takes a 18 months.
The last Monday of the month we started a new school year in our Christian schools. Enrollment was down this year after having classes on line for a year and a half. Now our students are back in the classroom even though they still have some classes on line. The best part of being back in the classroom is that we can once again start each day with a devotional and prayer. With classes on line that just didn’t have the same effectiveness as being with the students face to face.
Just two days before classes started we were hit unexpectedly with the cyclone Nora. The storm was tracked to stay out at sea but it decided to turn inland and we got the backlash of 10 hours of wind and rain. All the damage done was material. Our first day of school was done without electricity and it took 3 people 5 work days just to clean up the front part of our property. Between our banana trees, bamboo and other fruit trees there was a lot to clean up. Our house had to have part of the roof tiles replaced and the school also had roof damage. The main area is now clean and the rest of the property we can clean up at a more leisurely pace.
Thank you, each of you, who have partnered with us in finance and prayers. We bless you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Philip, Lucy, & Vanessa Tolman
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