This week has been for the most part uneventful, but good! Sunday we spent most of the day at the Koonce house, suffering through the power outage together :) It means so much to me how the families here include us teachers and really welcome us spending time with them. It is just another example of their generosity and selflessness, and I am so grateful, as apart from them we are without family here!

We also had a birthday party for Brenda and Christine this weekend, which was a blast. I simply love team gatherings like that, and have requested one every weekend!

Monday I was able to watch Josiah test for his blue belt in karate, which was really neat. I love being a part of the extra-curricular activities of my students; it makes me feel more a part of their life than ‘just’ being their teacher :) School is great, so thank you for you continued prayers for its success! I love you all and praise God because of you!

We love living among and ministering to the Watchi. It's so exciting to be used by God to change lives for all eternity. Know that your prayers are a powerful part of our ministry here and that they are changing lives!

I'm excited to tell you that the Kpeve church's evangelism in Kpokede is bearing fruit and a small group of believers is forming there. Each week they are consistently having around eight adults plus sixteen children at the meetings. Christine and I are going tomorrow to encourage them to believe and put their faith in our Creator God.

Kossi's wife is still resistent to confess all of her sins. She has admitted that some of her actions were wrong but is still claiming that the rest of the things that she "did" are lies spread by her enemies (even though there are many witnesses). Pray that the Lord would crush her pride and that the Holy Spirit would convict her of her sin bringing her to repentance and an abundant life in Jesus!

Tonn, although he started out well, has had three lapses in the past month. Pray that the Lord will give him divine strength to let go of this habitual sin of drunkenness and find freedom to live by God's Spirit and not by his flesh.

This afternoon we had the honor of attending Late's wedding (our agricultural ministry teammate). We praise God for his ministry and for providing him with such a wonderful, Godly wife. May the Lord bless their marriage and use them as a team to bless many lives!

Our Texas Criminal History and Child Abuse Registry check reports are finished. We're clean! Now that our home visit for our Home Study is finished our next big step is to apply and receive approval from the USCIS (U.S. Citizen Immigration Services) to bring an orphan into the United States. Our hope is to complete this application by the end of March. Pray that this approval will come through. We're getting excited!

Thank you for praying for my father-in-law. God healed his leg and he was able to begin his journey to Lesoutho, southern Africa to encourage churches and Christians that he worked with many years ago.

Becca "walking"

Our family has also had a lot of changes. Josiah progressed to another belt level in karate. Rebecca got an African walker and started cruising around. Elli constantly wants to play with our new hedgehog named Mo (short for Mohawk). And Brenda had a good birthday (thanks for sending so many birthday wishes), and her hip is pretty much back to normal.

We have a new pet in the house. Thanks to Josiah Holland, who shared his pet's babies, Thaddeus the hedgehog has joined the family. For some reason though, Trevor insists on calling him Randy. As with all of us, he can be a bit prickly at times. He has fared well under the care of the four T's who have built plenty of Lego structures for him to climb and investigate.

Louise has kept a usual routine this week of house-running, with the minor interruption of playing nurse to Marty. He is now recovering from a bout of malaria. It may seem that we treat it so casually, but please do pray for us as it is a constant threat even with the extensive preventative measures we take.

We do ask you to continue in prayer for the following churches on the "weak" list: Afakomi Kope, Amouzouglita Kope, Atitogon, Togbonou Kope, Hompou, and Ahepe. Tabligbo has graduated from this list mainly because their leaders have begun to lead. Their elders seem to finally be understanding their roles for the church there and are "stepping up". Please pray for the Vogan leadership and Hammer. They are fasting today and hoping that God will not only give them some much needed unity but also some direction. Ahepe is beginning to make their decisions to grow. They have begun weekly bible studies for the members again and are looking to add a prayer meeting as well. Please pray for the men's conference that we'll have next week for it to be well attended and a time of growth and encouragement. We love you and thank you so much for your faithfulness. The Koonces

We’ve had a pretty quiet week at home. The exciting news around here is that our oven is working—after Maureen had gotten by for about two months without one. Our contact family in the States had helped us find the right part, but the repairman I had called earlier was not available to install it. I decided to have a try and eventually got it installed and the oven working normally—at least for this week. We are very thankful for this. There is a bigger story here that you can read about on Maureen’s blog.

We were able to strengthen our relationship with a family in our neighborhood this week when their sixteen year old son broke two bones in his lower leg in a soccer match. We took him to a hospital that was forty-five minutes away where he spent most of the week, and were able to help with some of the expenses. X-rays, setting the leg, providing a cast and the hospital stay cost around $100 and the father, a school teacher, said that he had not been paid since November.

In addition to working on Train and Multiply, Anthony has been preparing a farewell sermon, which he’ll begin delivering this Sunday as we start our round of goodbyes to the different churches and clusters. He’s also been preparing his charge and farewell to the leaders, which he’ll give at the annual men’s meeting, which will be held in Tabligbo this week. Please pray for this meeting, that many people will be able to safely arrive and encourage one another.