January 28, 2014
Greetings in Christ,
It has been a busy five months since Mary and I arrived back in the states last September. We enjoyed so much visiting our family, friends and churches. We were thrilled to meet our grandson Luke, who had been born while we were in the Philippines and then getting re-acquainted with our first grandson, Caleb Smith. It was so hard to tell them good bye this week as well as to our kids again.
We are presently in Colorado visiting Mary’s sister, Sharon Boyd, and her husband. Sharon has been under three different treatments for cancer and now must have supplemental oxygen. We are glad to spend two days with them before leaving tomorrow for the Philippines. She began a new treatment pill that we are praying will help her. We have an 8 hour layover in Los Angeles, then fly to Manila and have a 6 hour layover there before flying to Bacolod City. From the time that we arrive at the airport in Grand Junction until the time we get home to Bacolod City, will be 40 hours! We are hoping that many people will be praying for us!
We are anxious to get back to Negros to see first hand the damage done by Typhoon Yolanda. We hope to visit the Island of Panay next week and later to the Island of Leyte. We have sent funds again this week to help some of the homes in reconstruction efforts. We hope to start soon making plans to rebuild the several churches that were destroyed. It will be a busy term for us with a major part of our time spent in rebuilding churches destroyed by the typhoon.
We are so thankful that several of you have helped us with our project to buy another vehicle for our ministry. We are hoping to get a 4 wheel drive vehicle as soon as possible. We already sold the vehicle that we had used for the last six years and need to purchase something else quickly. Please pray that God will give us wisdom in getting our next vehicle. We are still a few $420 payments short of our goal of sixty, so hoping others can help us for this need.
We were thankful that once again we were able to send a 40 foot container of items to the Philippines. We had 19 large pallets of books, computers, and materials for the churches. In addition, we were able to put over 10,000 packets of food on this shipment for typhoon relief. It is on the way now and expected to arrive at the Cebu port on March 7th. We urgently request that you keep in prayer this shipment as it must clear customs. Customs can be very difficult, unknown and expensive in the Philippines sometimes. Pray that we can easily clear customs and get the container transferred between two islands to our home at Bacolod City by March 15th.
We are ready to return to the Philippines for the VFM ministry there. The work there should not be called ours, it is the Lord’s, and we are thankful that He is using you to make it possible. Thank you for your financial support and your prayers for us!
In His service,
Paul and Mary Wilson
