July/August 2007
Dear Praying Friends,
The days seem to slip away so quickly these days that you don’t even remember when the month started and when it ends. I can’t believe August is here and nearly gone. All the kids in the states will be starting back to school and to college. Nathan will be with us for a few more weeks before he flies back to the states for college. He will fly out of Mackay on the 27th of August. Please pray for him as he travels alone on this long journey. He has stayed quite busy working and going to the gym and to church and all the church activities. The time has gone by so quickly. He ended up making a 3.65 GPA this past semester. He will be a sophomore this year as he returns to PCC in September.
The weather in Mackay has been wonderful. We actually had a very cold winter, which is unusual for Mackay. We had heaps of rain, which is unusual, and then a very cold winter, which is unusual. What is all this I hear about global warming? It is indeed a joke. The only One that I know that can control weather is the Lord and He saw fit to give us a lot of rain and a nice winter season. We have enjoyed it but I do believe it is over even though the season isn’t actually over until the end of August.
The church family here in Mackay have been going through lots of sicknesses. I believe a couple of our families with children passed a virus around a couple of times. We had several people miss church services because of sickness. I believe everyone is on the mend now. We are having a missions Sunday this coming Sunday. One of our current missionaries, Philip Pinero, to Vanuatu has a son that is on deputation raising support to go help his dad on the many islands of Vanuatu. We are having a poster contest and a dinner after morning service. The missionary Jeremy Pinero will be the judge of all the missions’ posters. I believe most of the church is involved and some are doing individual posters as well as family posters. It should be interesting to see who wins.
We have also increased our church number by one because the Davies family just had another baby girl. Her name is Cherry-Anne Charity Davies and she was born on July 19, 2007. She is the 5th child for the Davies and they are very happy to have her. We have also had several visitors these past few weeks. We had one man from Africa saved after receiving a tract on Thursday night. Pray for these people and the families that they will continue to come and be a part of our church family. Remember we had asked everyone to pray about the new principal coming into the Northview Primary School where we teach RE. The laws have changed in Australia and having RE classes is a decision that the principal can allow or not allow. We have prayed and God has answered. The positive comments from the teachers, the students, the good testimony of Brother Bernie and myself and two other ladies from our church has totally persuaded the new principal that it would be a very bad decision to stop the RE classes from going on. What an answer to prayer and we give God the glory for it all!!
The Minister of Urban Development announced that our city Mackay is the 2nd most unaffordable place to live in Queensland. As you probably already know the Australian dollar is getting stronger and stronger and it now buys like .88 US cents so that means our American dollar does not give us as much in the Australian dollar. Our $3000 USD did bring us $6000 AUD. Now it only gets us $3,400. Financially, that is significant for us but God is good and He is still providing all of our needs. Please pray that God will add some new families to our church and that the tracts that are handed out will allow us to see more people saved. Thank you for your faithfulness in prayer and financial support.
In Christ,
Bob and Shelia McGee