Life in BIG-D City

Partners in ministry, we wanted to write a brief update to let you guys know what has been going on in our lives as we are embracing some of the transitions that overseas life can bring. April finished out as a busy month that had many positive things happen as you can read here, but it also brought some disappointments. Due to some unforeseen circumstances the team from our sending church had to cancel their trip to work with us. We decided to push forward with a training we had planned the team to assist us with anyway and the day of the training it also got cancelled. Both were big disappointments to us, but we have learned by now that things rarely go as planned overseas and you just have to trust God in all of it.

At the end of April we travelled to the BIG D-City where we are waiting the arrival of baby Boyd #2. Our travel here went smooth and we were able to catch up with three different set of friends during our first two days here. A bittersweet moment was spending the afternoon with our good friends from our church that were leaving the country because of a potential heart condition with their baby that is due sometime in July. We love these dear friends and were blessed to be able to spend a short amount of time with them and pray for them as they headed back to the US. The wife tends to go into early labor, which is not good, especially for this pregnancy, so please join us in praying that she will make it to at least 37 weeks and for the health of this baby boy.

We have transitioned well and gotten settled into our temporary place, which we are extremely blessed to have. The first couple of weeks have been full of medical appointments for Andrea and getting dental and vision checked here as we do not have a place we feel comfortable going to in our city.

Although it is difficult to be away from our direct work for six to eight weeks, we are thankful that we have good national partners that are continuing the work in our absence. The time away has allowed us to reflect and remember that the work does not rely on us as the outsiders anyway, which is encouraging as this was one of our goals from the beginning. And as you can see in the pictures we are taken advantage of what this city has to offer that we cannot find in our home city.

We want to thank all of you for praying for our long-term volunteer Gloria who is coming out as she has purchased her ticket and will arrive on the 15th. She will be a big help in both serving our family and our ministry.

Thank you all for remembering us this past month. God is moving here even when we don't see it and as a partner in ministry you play a bigger role in that then you will ever realize.

In the next month please lift us up in the following ways:

• Arrival of Baby #2 (Name will be revealed after the birth)
• Transitions as a family (Especially Elliot as he becomes a big brother)
• The work in our area as we are away.
• For our good friends that had to transition back to the US for an unknown amount of time.

*Andrea requested no big belly pictures of her be posted.