Flying Again

Thank you all for praying for Thomas’ preaching yesterday.  We believe the Lord blessed despite Thomas not feeling 100%.  But often that is the Lord’s way, isn’t it.  When we are weak, He is strong.

Wednesday we are all heading to the airport, though in different directions.  Isaiah and are heading to California to spend a few days with a couple of dear friends of mine from college.  We are so thankful to have this extra time with them!

Thomas is heading to Chicago for Moody Bible College’s missions conference.  He and a colleague from InterAct will have a table with materials from InterAct to give to students for recruitment.  Thomas will also be speaking in a workshop.  Please pray for recruits for Tribe 49, the summer mission trip to Russia, and for recruits for all of InterAct’s fields (Western Canada, Alaska, Russia).

Friday Thomas will be flying to Oregon to attend a fundraising banquet for InterAct.  One aspect of the banquet is really exciting!  Raisa Ivanovna, perhaps the first Tuvan Christian in the history of that region, will be speaking via Skype to the people in attendance.  Originally we were hoping that she could attend in person, but thanks to the wonders of technology we have the next best thing.  Please pray that all said technology will work properly!

Saturday Thomas will meet us in California where we will visit with Central Valley Presbyterian Church for the following week.

Please pray for smooth travels.  We have more equipment then ever before to carry for Isaiah, so please pray for easy connections, helpful airline personnel and patient passengers!

Lastly, thank you for the great response to the mass email that I sent for updated email addresses.  If you didn’t get such an email, that means I don’t have an address for you at all.  If you would like to receive email updates, please click on “email us” in the right sidebar and email us so that we have your address.  Thanks!

Today and the Days Ahead

After much diligent preparation Thomas will be preaching today.  Should you happen to read this before 7 am EST or 6 am CST or 8 pm Saturday PST (did that catch everyone? and correctly?), then please pray for him.  Having not preached in Russian myself, I don’t completely understand the difficulties that Thomas faces as he prepares a sermon, but I can imagine the limitations that he feels when trying to express the beautiful truths of God’s Word in his second language.  God has greatly helped him every time in the past, and we pray for His continued help today.

So that’s today, what about the days ahead?

Tuesday evening Thomas will begin a 2-week trip to Siberia.  He will be meeting our field director Jim Capaldo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia before they start treking all over the place, far east of here.  Please pray for his safety, health, Russian abilities, sleep, and whatever else you might think would be helpful.  And please also pray for Isaiah and me as we stay behind.  I’m sure that we’ll find plenty to do to keep us busy, but we will really miss Thomas!

A couple days after Thomas gets back, we will probably have a guest from Siberia with us for a few days.  She is the director of InterAct Russia (which is actually not part of InterAct Ministries, but its own entity).  She is planning a trip to the States this fall, therefore she must apply in person at an American consulate.  There’s not an American consulate in Tuva where she lives, so she will be traveling to St. Petersburg.  At least, that’s the plan for now.

July 13 we are anticipating a very special treat!  Thomas’ older brother and his family (all 6 of them!) are coming for a 9 day visit!  We could not be more excited!  It really isn’t possible.  Even now, as I think about their arrival, I feel all sorts of happy, fluttery feelings inside.

As I said, they’ll be with us for 9 nine days, during which time we’ll whisk them around the city to see all the beautiful sites and to experience what life is like for us.  But we won’t make them go to a Russian lesson…I think.

After they leave us we’ll begin getting things ready for our own trip back to planet America.  Sometime around August 4 (depending on plane ticket prices) we’ll be flying the friendly skies towards NC and our traveling time around the US.  Look for more details to come soon about that trip.

So that’s what’s going on with us.  How are y’all doing?

Just So You Know…

We are still alive. We survived our own hectic (but greatly enjoyable) Christmas activities and the crazy Russian New Year. On Sunday we’ll be heading out to the family camp that many of you have read about. Thomas will be teaching some lessons and I will be helping with some crafts and a special activity for the girls. We’re looking forward to the 2 days that we’ll be spending with families like us–families with kids who have disabilities. Please pray for us to be an encouragement to the other parents and especially that we will point to Christ.

Tuesday morning we’ll be going to the airport to begin our trek to the States. We’re thankful to have the ability to return again so soon in order for Isaiah to see his doctors. Please pray for safe travels and good reports!

We hope to post again soon, but we also hope that you understand that with our traveling, it might be a while before we have a great big, fill you in on everything going on post. Thanks for your patience! We did recently send out a newsletter (Christmas Day, maybe?). If you didn’t receive this email, and you would like to, please leave us a comment or email us to let us know that you’d like to read our latest.

Happy New Year!

Missionary Isaiah

Several weeks ago Thomas asked me to write about an interaction that I had, so here goes…

We’ve begun visiting some other churches in town in order to broaden our ministry a little bit. One of the churches actually has families with young children. We were really excited to meet some other kids!

For those of you who don’t know, we keep Isaiah in the service with us. This started out as a necessity because most churches here don’t have nurseries; but now it has become our preferred habit. We really like having him sit with us in church. Because we had been taught to sit still in church by our parents, we knew that we could teach Isaiah to do the same. We didn’t know how long it would take, but it has paid off, and he (usually) sits through our church services very well! Not to compare, of course, but the other children at the church that we attended were, well, crazy. They pretty much did whatever they wanted to do during the service. The pastor just kept on preaching, though; I think that the people were fairly accustomed to the way the children acted.

After our first visit there, we started attending a Bible study with this group of believers on a semi-regular basis. At one of the small gatherings, the dad of some of the kids at the church told me that after seeing how Isaiah sat and listened during church and folded his hands for prayer, he and his wife decided that their kids could do that, too. So they started to teach them.

The next time that we were at this church, we noticed a huge difference in their children! They really did sit quietly and obey very well; and the mom and dad were “on top” of their behavior. But don’t worry, they are very loving and affectionate parents.
We were encouraged that without even specifically trying, we had been able to show this family what we had been taught from the Bible by our parents (good job, Mom and Dad x 2!). In some ways, this means that our parents are missionaries, too, you know.

Please pray for the Christian families here, they are few.  They have not had the benefit of Christian parents to teach them for generations and generations as often has happened in America.  But they are teachable, and they want their children to know God.  Please pray that we will have opportunities to help them learn what we have learned.  Please pray for the body of Christ to grow through families.

The Beginning of a Long Day

We’re sitting in the New Orleans International Airport waiting on our plane to arrive so that we can begin our trek back to St. Petersburg.

We’ve been having a great though hectic time while we’ve been in the States.  I’ve been posting about each week on my blog, but I hope to do a summary here after everything has had time to sink in.

Thank you for your prayers while we travel.  We are thankful that God has given us a child who travels really well, but the day is long and we’re all really tired by the end.  Please pray for us to be able to rest at least a little bit on the flights and to adjust to the time change without too much trouble.  We wish that we could have seen everyone we know, but the time went by even faster than we had thought it would.  We love you, though, and hope that we will be able to see you the next visit if we missed you this time.

Thank you for your prayers!

I am glad to report that Thomas and I are doing much better!  Thank you for praying for us.  Isaiah seems to be doing fine as well.  We are getting serious about our packing today.  Excitement is definitely starting to build!

We would appreciate prayer for some of our friends in CA.  Their 7 week old son Joe is seriously ill.  Please read his mom’s blog to know how best to pray!  Also on my blog, I am keeping a link on the top of the left side column so that you can make regular checks on Joe.

Uh-oh!

Well, we are scheduled to fly back to the States a week from today (Monday).  In true Slawson fashion, Thomas and I have come down sick.  Thomas has a chest cold, and I have a head cold.  If any of you have ever flown with any type of cold, then you know why we are asking for your prayer!  Isaiah is also showing signs of some sickness, but we don’t know what it is yet.

Please pray that our colds will get better very fast!  Please also pray that Isaiah will not get any worse or catch either of our colds.

Thank you!