Burglarized

This past Thursday afternoon, March 25, about 4:30 in the afternoon our family left home to go to a missions meeting with our coworkers in the mission. When we arrived home between ten and ten thirty we found that someone had forced open a window, searched the whole house, and located and stole the money that they found. We handle finances for three different organizations so only about $275 of personal money was taken.  The rest of the money was from our local church, the school, our mission, and from a Bible fund.

We are thankful that nothing was damaged and that nothing much besides the money was taken. (The individual also took some bread and a backpack.)  We are also thankful that God in His mercy allowed it to happen when we were not at home.

We have naturally been struggling with some fear and uncertainty, but God is helping us to place our trust in Him. Since moving out here to the country we have known that this type of thing could happen as there is no security at all. We are thankful that God in His faithfulness has been speaking to us and teaching us to trust Him in the difficult times. Actually when we left the house on Thursday and on our way home in the evening we were listening to a message about "bad days". The Scripture that was read was the first chapter of Job. So right up till a few minutes before we found out about the burglary God was speaking to us about His love to us even when we don't understand what is going on. He was telling us to trust Him even in the dark times. Praise the Lord! God is so faithful!

Since that time God has been speaking to us through Isaiah 41:10. We don't need to fear. God is with us! Also concerning peace of heart and mind God has used Isaiah 26:3 and Philippians 4:6-7 to encourage and strengthen us. We understand that really this is a small thing. There are many others who are facing real tragedy in their lives.

There are several times each week when Gwen and the boys stay here at home by themselves for a number of hours. We appreciate your prayers that God will give us wisdom to make the proper decisions in the coming weeks and months. We don't want to be foolish and welcome problems. Pray that God will show us what to do in this particular situation. Thank you for your prayer support.

Life

Life is now in a busy routine of home, church, and school.  I, Steve, am the treasurer for HCA, which provides lots of headaches.  The school recently purchased a new financial program so I am struggling to figure out how to operate it.  (I'm not trained to do this kind of thing!)  They didn't tell me in college that I would be a preacher, teacher, counselor, finance manager, carpenter, maintenance man, painter, plumber, landscaper, electrician, secretary, father, husband, gardener, and run a boarding house for an unwanted dog! (Well maybe they did warn me....)  Anyway that's what we are involved in at the moment.  I'm not complaining!  I just thought I would let you know why I haven't posted much recently.....................