Prayer Points

Neville’s trip to the Philippines
International meeting results

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Our international meeting is over. It seems like a dream now, so much achieved in so little time but it took its toll as we have been out of it for a while now. I am barely functional again! We had a wonderful week though meeting from 9 to 5 every day around our dining room table thrashing out a structure for DMI which we hope, under the leading of God, will continue after we are well and truly gone and out of the scene. I mean I hope DMI will continue after we are gone, not the meeting around the table!

Visitors from the US, Japan and Norway who came for the international meeting.

Heidi, with her daughter, and Pablo came all the way from Norway. Peter from the US, Alayne from Japan, Jack and Keiko from the US and Japan via Brisbane where they now live, Jeff from Adelaide and with the rest of us coming from Melbourne. From now until the conference in Uganda in 2005 we will be working putting the flesh onto the structure mapped out at the meeting so from then we hope to have our international board set up consisting of representatives, both deaf and hearing from all our boards and fields with a network-like structure put in place. For most of you I guess you couldn’t care two hoots how we set up but for us now at this stage of the ministry we see the need for some structure without killing the spirit and drive of DMI. We want to thank the Lord for the inspiration and leading during these past weeks and our thanks to all who came so far and gave so much of their time and effort for this ministry.

Thank you to all who have ordered and purchased Peter’s book, which we advertised in our last newsletter. We have been encouraged by the response. If you are interested in purchasing a copy or more please let us know. The proceeds of the book go to the support of DMI.

By the time this reaches you I will be in the Philippines. A heavy schedule awaits me there. After an overnight stop in Manila I go to Davao. I am looking forward to a baptismal service in Digos straight after flying in Sunday morning. [Ed: 27 young deaf people were baptised!] Digos is one of the outreaches from the Davao work and where missionary Kim Min Sim from Korea is working. I hope also to visit the college in the mountains of Laguna where some of our kids are studying. I am not sure how to get up the mountain. The road is unpassable at the best of times and just impossible after rains. If the TV reports are to be relied on I think that there has been a lot of rain. Last time a tractor was sent down to pick us up so I am hoping for the same service again. After this it is then down to Legaspi and meetings with staff and workers there for about a week. I am thankful that Young Jun can go with me to help with driving and a lot of other duties that need to be performed. He was introduced to you in the last letter.

God willing, I hope to be back in Australia on September 13th. Please keep praying.

Colin Lynch, our accountant who has been such a marvellous help to us for the past couple of years, announced that he will conclude his ministry and work with us next month. We were kind of devastated as he has become an indispensable part of this ministry. God has however made provision for our need even before we really had time to pray fervently for another solution. We thank Colin so much for all his hard work in getting our books in order and all his wise counsel to us,

God Bless,

Neville, Lill and family