Update on Life

Here are some cool things happening with the Straw's:

-Joey, Megan, and Sam are meeting with children from a city orphanage and helping prepare "sponsorship profiles".
-Alace has begun meeting with a language partner. A young lady who is the cousin of my (Steve's) language partner.
-My language partner, Romaric, has told me of his dissappointments with church experiences in the past, but has now said that he would like to go to church with our family!
-In the past two weeks I have been blessed with over 12 hours of flight time. It is crucial that I gain experience in this new environment and the Lord has provided this through the avenue of an agricultural company that needs a backup/vacation pilot.
-A church in California recently took an offering of over $4000 for the airplane!
-While facing a delay at immigration in Nigeria, the CEO of the agricultural company started quizing me about our program and then offered to make a generous donation! Praise God for delays!!!
-We praise God for these signs of HIS faithfulness as we nervously wonder how the "economic crisis" will effect a project such as ours. There are many people (work teams, medical pro's, etc.) re-thinking their trips to Gabon as a result of this fear.
- We praise the Lord for a sense of peace regarding decisions about whether to send Joe to boarding school next year or not. God has shown us how families have great success with homeschooling as well as with boarding school experiences. We are confident that any choice is viable and have a peace from the Lord that we can continue on our present home-schooling track until HE clearly directs otherwise.

PRAY:

-Pray that the "financial crisis" worldwide will not result in cancellations of teams from the US that are important for our work.
-Pray for continued outreach to our neighbors and new friends.
-Pray for new avenues of fund-raising
-Pray for wisdom as we consider the Cessna 207 tubine powered aircraft in Washington.
-Pray for a developing idea of an English-speaking, ex-patriot, Bible study with possiblities of growth to a faith community.
-Pray for the home-school and the education of our children.
-Pray for the possibility of an assistant teacher from the US. She has had difficulty in her arrangements coming here, but will be a great asset for Alace to have time to learn to run the guest house.


Thanks so much for praying for us!