What's Up

Hallo! (Dutch for 'hello')

I hope this first post finds you all well and ready for the Christmas season.  I apologize for not communicating to all of you sooner, for life has been very busy for us Foundations guys.  At the end of Novemeber we just came back from the B.C coast for three weeks.  We were first at Pender Island learning to listen to God, followed by a week with the B.C. Mission Boat Society half way up the coast in a First Nation community called Klemtu, and ending off with a week in downtown Vancouver helping out with different urban ministries while sharing the love of God.  It was incredible!

The transition from Foundations to CLBI involved more work than we thought possible.  However, all is well and preparations for our departure date (Tuesday, January 3, 2012) seem to be complete.  We have our vaccinations finally taken care of as well as received our travel visas from the Republic of Suriname at the end of Novemeber.  Both were huge blessings as well as answers to prayer.  Since being back at CLBI we've been able to share with our second year class about the country of Suriname as well as the official language, Dutch (which was a surprise to us as well).  We've even prepared Vacation Bible School (VBS) lessons, testimonies, Bible studies, and sermons just in case the opportunity arises.  Our schedule for our time in Suriname is almost unexistent.  We know of a few things we will be doing, like being involved with youth ministries, but in general we're very unaware of what will happen when we're there.  I guess only God knows what's in store for us.

Andrew Chell is our Team Leader as well as Medical Manager.  Tim Hesje is our Chaplain and I, Steven Belau, am the Team Treasurer and took initiative in making sure our travel visa applications got out in the mail.  I'm personally very excited to go, however my mind tries to tell me that I'm absolutely insane for doing this.  Please pray for boldness for us all, that we will step out even when it's extremely uncomfortable.  Pray also for the church in Suriname, from our research we've been able to see that it's a rather confused place.  It's hard to distinguish one religion from another because some religions just take bits and pieces and combined it into one.  And pray for God's will to be done, first and foremost.  Thanks for all the support and please never stop praying!  God bless.

Zalig Kerstfeest! (Merry Christmas!)