Prayer Update 10.20.04

Dear prayer partners,

Indeed what a week it has been! We appreciate all your prayers on our
behalf - please keep them up, for without the intercession of others
and God´s help we would surely falter.

God is so good. This has been a very trying week, or at least the past
couple of days have been, and yet He has been gracious to really
impress upon my heart the greatness and marvelousness of His perfect
timing. I want to share with you both my thoughts and the happenings
of this week.

There first is a wonderful praise to report. We now, finally, have in
hand our passports, complete with our visas stamped in them. Praise
the Lord for this. Now, it was the return of our visas, which prompted
me to meditate on God´s perfect timing. You see, when we first began
the process of getting our visas we had several people from the
Portuguese embassy tell us that we would not be able to come to
Portugal to study until we had our student visas in hand. If that had
been the case, then that means at this moment we would still be in the
States and that the 2 months of language learning which we´ve been
doing would not yet have been started. Here are other things that show
God´s perfect timing.

IF WE HAD BEEN FORCED TO WAIT FOR STUDENT VISAS BEFORE COMING TO
PORTUGAL:

· We would have had a very difficult time with Karunia´s
schooling. As schools in the US started long ago we would have been
forced to either put her in a school or begin home-schooling her.
Neither of these options would have been wonderful as we would not have
been able to travel to visit churches if she were in a school, but to
purchase home-schooling materials for only a couple months time would
have been expensive. We then would have faced even greater problems
than we did, in getting her established in school here as things would
have started and probably all slots in the schools would have been full
(no one would have been forced to take her) Not to mention that if we
had found a school for her we would have arrived in Portugal one day
and she´d have needed to start immediately.
· We would have had a difficult time in finding childcare for the
boys. Elsa, a lady from the church here is watching them now, however
she and her family are leaving November 1st for a month in Brazil. (A
friend of hers is taking over watching the children Elsa watches during
the time they are gone), however Elsa probably wouldn´t have wanted to
take the boys for 2 wks only to then leave them.
· We would not have been able to get the apartment we are in as
the previous tenants would have been long out of it and thus the
landlord would have most likely already filled it. We thus would
probably be paying a lot more for rent than we are and might not have
been as conveniently located. Another advantage in our being in this
apartment is that the previous tenant included another American
missionary who still occasionally has things show up for him at our
house – we can pass them on to him, though a stranger might not have
done that.

IF WE HAD COME TO PORTUGAL SEVERAL WEEKS EARLIER THAN WE DID (as had
originally been planned before we made the decision to work the summer
at Blue Grass Christian Camp):

· Then again we would not have gotten the apartment we are in
· We might have had trouble with Karunia´s schooling as the lady
from the church here, Maria Clara, who took us under wing and went
around talking with her contacts to get Karunia in a school would not
have been around. She literally had just started coming to the church
here perhaps 2 wks before our arrival.

Isn´t God good??? His timing is perfect! And perhaps He laid all this
on my heart now b/c as I said at the beginning of this letter, it has
been a frustrating couple of days.

One issue which we´ve been struggling with since our arrival has been
getting e-mail completely running IN OUR HOUSE without fear of
interruption. That finally happened this week and I, for sure, was
overjoyed over this b/c it has been a stressful thing for me to not be
able to communicate as frequently and effectively with our supporters
and friends as I want. Well, low and behold there was a fray in Dan´s
computer cord and yesterday while I was working on the computer the
cord basically caught fire (small glow, I was at least able to unplug
things at the top away from the fire before it damaged anything).
Anyway we no longer have a power cord for his computer. We´ll call
today to see about ordering a new one but until we get that I no longer
have e-mail in my house, not b/c the e-mail isn´t working but because I
can´t keep the computer up and running.

2nd computer issue. There were viruses on the computer that I couldn´t
get removed by myself. I finally, yesterday called England and paid
for tech help with the issue. Well the gentleman I was talking with
helped me get the viruses off however the phone card I was using (much
cheaper rates) ran out of time just after we removed the viruses and
thus I haven´t completed everything. I tried calling back immediately
without using a calling card however it was now after 5pm and so no one
answered. Anyway I had to shut down the computer and today need to try
and call back and figure out who I was talking with so we can continue
the issue. I´m praying I have enough battery power left on the
computer to get things done since I don´t have a power cord.

Issue 3. It has rained here for several days now and we are
desperately behind on laundry since we hang clothes outside to dry.
Well we finally broke down and bought more inside drying racks so we
could get caught up on things. Low and behold, sometime between our
last load of laundry and now the washing machine has broken. It´s not
ours so we have to call the people who do own it (previous tenants) to
see how they want us to proceed. It´s very old and we´ve heard they
had problems with it before so it may just be that we´ll have to buy a
washer. (The good note here is that Dick and Sarah, other missionaries
here are out of town so we´ve gone to their house and are running
laundry through their washer AND dryer – hope they don´t mind. J

Also the blower on our car is in need of repairs, I, Robin, am really
struggling with eczema on one of my hands, and we are stretching to
live within our means as costs here are very high.

God is good, we trust Him on that but please be praying that we can
push through these issues and all will be resolved very quickly.
Please pray that if any of this is resulting from enemy attack that we
would be faithful through this, that Satan would be bound away from us
and we would thus be victorious.

We ask also that you pray for Noemia, our language tutor. She has been
having some health issues for several months now and doctors are not
sure what is wrong. She will shortly begin several rounds of testing
to try and determine exactly what the problem is.

Blessings on each of you. Thanks for standing in the gap on our behalf.

Robin and family

Prayer Update 10.05.04

Dear prayer partners,

Praise the Lord, our e-mail is up and working in our house once again,
however I’ve learned today we may run into another issue towards the
end of this wk and be offline (in our house) again. Pray that that
doesn’t happen please.

Karunia’s surgery went wonderfully. The bump is now off her tongue
and after several days on cold, soft food she has now been given
clearance to eat most anything. The doctor will see her again in
several months but isn’t worried about anything. Praise the Lord that
this issue is now resolved and that Karunia came through the surgery
okay.

Also we’re so excited to report that Karunia loves school! In fact
today (Monday 4th) and tomorrow they’re off for holiday and she’s
rather upset about it. She’s made one very good friend named Sarah
and we’re trusting that she’ll make more as time goes on. Her biggest
challenge, besides the language is going to be forcing herself to do
things she perceives as difficult. Did we tell you that she ended up
in 1st grade and not in Kindergarten as we’d planned? They said that
since she turns 6 before October’s end that she had to be in 1st
grade. Anyway here they learn to write in cursive in 1st grade –
she’s not excited about that and we have to encourage her very much to
practice. They currently are just working on their names but even her
teacher has said, “she’ll do it once but then says it’s too hard.” On
the language front – she still doesn’t understand a lot, but she’s
learning and the other day I overheard her playing with her dolls and
she was speaking in Portuguese (some real words and some not). Yeah
what a large answer to prayer.

Dan and I continue to progress in language though I know Dan has been
feeling somewhat frustrated lately in his progress. Please continue
to pray that we’ll be diligent in studying (something I’m finding hard
to do), and that we’ll continue to push ourselves so that we learn the
language well and quickly.

Asher turned 1 this past Saturday. We had a nice relaxing day as a
family. He’s now trying to walk some on his own and is cutting
another tooth.

Josiah is now even more into wrestling as there’s another little boy,
age 4, at Elsa’s house (the lady from church who watches the boys
while we’re in language school) and they can wrestle together. Elsa
also has a 2 year old who likes to wrestle, however he is just as big
as Josiah and not as controlled so Josiah doesn’t like wrestling with
David. Asher thinks it’s great fun to try and wrestle with Josiah, in
his 1 year old way. Josiah thinks that’s great also, though we have
to encourage him to be gentle with his younger brother.

Otherwise life is good. God is so gracious and we feel so blessed to
be able to serve Him. Adjusting is going well. Dan and I are
enjoying the coffee shop/cafes that are on every corner however we do
miss the large sizes as most drinks here are espresso and while you
can get coffee with milk and such it then becomes a 6 oz size. Still
we aren’t complaining.

Guess that’s all for now. Please write to us – just to keep us
updated on what is happening in your lives or to give us prayer
requests. We’d love to hear from you and I promise to keep up with
the correspondence (though if our in house internet goes down at the
end of the wk be patient - I’ll reply but it will take me longer).

God bless and thanks for being a part of our ministry.

Prayer Update 10.04.04

Dear Prayer Partners,                                                                                                        

Wow, can you believe we have been here an entire month already?  At times it seems like we just arrived and of course at the moments of high stress it seems like we’ve been here for an eternity.  All in all we are good and adjusting.  Thank you for your prayers – they are greatly needed and greatly appreciated!!!     Thanks again so much for your prayers. 

                                                                                                                       Robin, Dan and clan


Indeed God is good!!!  Join with us in praising Him for:

· Our Visas have now been issued.  I realize we mentioned this last month as praise, however probably just after that letter went out we learned that the visas for Dan and Robin had been approved however none of the kids visas had been issued yet.  Now 1 month later we’ve learned theirs have been issued and we are sending passports back to D.C. within a day or two to get the visas stamped into our passports.  Yeah – a long string of paperwork almost completed!!

· Karunia has now settled down at night.  She has now slept many nights completely through the night.  At other times she still wakes perhaps once but we haven’t had the tantrums or problems in getting her back to sleep.  YEAH!!!!!

As of yesterday (Sept 21) we have most of the details of Karunia´s schooling figured out.  She will go to a school in Oeiras (the sub-town in which we live, though it is on the other side of town).  She’ll be in the 1st grade as they said since she’ll turn 6 in October she wasn’t allowed to go to Kindergarten.  Dan has met her teacher however and she’s very much aware of the situation and excited about Karunia coming into class. 

· Karunia will be allowed to eat lunch at school since we can’t pick her up at that time without us having to enroll her in the after school program (that was questioned initially) and she’ll be in school from 9-3:30.  She is very excited about beginning school.  They were supposed to start tomorrow (the 23rd) however not all the teachers have been placed so we think they are starting on Monday the 27th.  We’ll call school on Friday to verify that.  Anyway this is a big praise!!

· We’ve worked out a solution for Dan and Robin’s language.  Both of us are enrolled 3 hrs/wk at the Margarida School that is very well known around Lisbon for helping one to speak the language quickly and well.  We have then found a tutor from the church who works with us for another 6 hrs/wk to supplement and add to what we are studying.  We are excited about this solution as it still allows us plenty of time for personal study without throwing the boys into all day daycare, it’s affordable and should get the task accomplished.

· That we, for the most part, have gotten settled in to our apartment.

That Wilson found a car for us – it cost a bit more than we’d thought but was still very reasonable.  (Please note below 

· this has turned into a prayer request as well).

· That we were able to get some private Portuguese lessons for Karunia to give her head start on her language learning.  She was having some trouble playing with the kids here b/c they “don’t speak English” and while we knew that spending just a bit of time in school would get her speaking Portuguese pretty well it seemed wise to give her a head start on her language learning and perhaps then ease the transition into school.  She has loved her classes (shvery pleased and she understands quite a bit now and can speak some (probably more than we know)e’s had 10), her teacher is very pleased and she understands quite a bit now and can speak some (probably more than we know)

· For good babysitters.  There’s a young lady in the church here that has agreed to watch the kids for us several times – they really like her and it’s allowed Dan and I to re-establish somewhat of a regular “date night” again – something we haven’t had in a couple years!!

· For Asher and the blessing he is.  He’ll turn 1 year old on October 2nd.

· For Karunia and the blessing she is.  She’ll turn 6 years old on October 18th.


· For our car situation.  Indeed it was a praise that Wilson found us a nice car very inexpensively, however as of last Monday (20th) our car has been stolen.  The police and insurance company both have said it happens and usually the cars are just driven around until they run out of gas and then recovered.  Unfortunately we discovered our insurance isn’t what we thought we were getting and if the car is found with minor problems they will be covered but if it isn’t found or if it’s totaled out then we’ve lost out and get nothing.  Please pray for a couple things with this issue:  first of all that our car would turn up soon with little or no damage.  Secondly for wisdom as Dan and I try to decide how to proceed.  With Karunia starting school, potentially on Monday we really need a car.  Otherwise we are facing a 35-40 minute walk each way 2x-day.  So . . do we try to find another inexpensive car and when/if the other turns up we can sell one of them or ?????

Karunia is having/has had surgery to remove a lump from her tongue on Monday Sept 27th (the afternoon of the same day she starts

 

· school).  Pray all would go well and that she would recover quickly.

· For Karunia to adjust quickly to her new school, to make a few good friends and to learn Portuguese quickly.

 

 

· For  Asher to continue to learn to drink from a cup, to grow and develop.  He’s starting to take a few steps on his own which is exciting.

· Continued language learning and adjustment to life in Portugal for all of us.

· For our health – Robin and Asher have both been sick already.  Small, short illnesses but stressful nonetheless.

 

· That we’d get all our internet issues figured out – we’ve had problems left and right getting the connection in the house to work correctly and once again it’s acting up.  Pray we’d find a permanent, satisfactory solution.

· For Josiah – just in general (don’t want him left out of the prayers).


The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a strong hold in times of trouble.  Those who know your name will trust in you, for you Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.

Psalms 9:9,10

 

Please pray for the success of the Been’s ministry: 

“They did not conquer the land with their swords; it was not their own strength that gave them victory.  It was by your mighty power that they succeeded…. Psalm 44:3(NLT)

  Special Points of Pray:

· Return of the Been car safely & undamaged. : The car was found with minor damage.

· Karunia’s surgery: surgery went very well!

· Language learning