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How you can pray for us:

(Scroll down for more background on these requests)

– We are thinking through ways to get Nathaniel, our son in the wheelchair, more independent, especially looking at ways to stop lifting him since we’re repeatedly hurting ourselves and relying on our teens for most lifting. There are many areas that need dealing with.

-Protection – especially over the Bible translation, the technology, and Samir, who is the primary translator. He and his wife have had all sorts of strange health and financial problems. The computer we used to make the videos of the Bible chapters has completely crashed and all efforts have failed so far to restore it (March 2023).

-Wisdom – in all the decisions that are being made with EP, in our discipling relationships, the Bible translation, and in our family and with our kids.

-Encouragement

– Strength, to always see the Lord before us so we walk always in His ways and in His peace and joy

– For the new teaching materials for children in the Romani language to get the seed of God’s word planted into the hearts of the children and their families — These are among the poorest of the poor in the country.

Most Recent Update:

Our first Romani language materials for children has gone out to the church that asked for it. They already had a ministry outreach to the street kids. Their education level is very low and the Macedonian Bible has a lot of words they have never heard before. We’re excited to help reach the kids in their own language and to have a new way for the word of God to go out in the Romani language.

We have a lot of contacts in India. Dave preached twice at churches in India this past month via Zoom.

A man gave his life to Christ in the online church group my husband leads for Romani speakers living in places without Roma churches. They are scattered in several European countries, but all come from this same village in Macedonia. A week later he reported that he had been completed delivered from his gambling addiction since his decision for Christ. That’s always what we want to see: transformed lives!

Previous update:

We spent a week in Macedonia doing lots and lots of visiting and talking with people about the translation. The two things we heard most often were, “I can understand this,” which of course is the point of translating it into their dialect, and when reading or listening to the Psalms, “It’s like a weight lifts and I can breathe.”

One thing that was mentioned was the need for teaching materials for children. Our friends there have a ministry to street kids, all Roma like them, so it would be for unchurched kids. That, of course, is right up my alley, so my husband and I are praying about what format and content we should prepare for them. It gets me excited. I love creating new materials.

Our Ministry:

Our family has been involved in ministry almost always. Lee grew up doing liturgical dance on her own and then creating a group in college. In college she began running a children’s ministry to at-risk youth through a drug rehab and homeless shelter. After Dave and Lee married, they prepared to go to the mission field, while continuing the inner-city work with the children.

In 2002, they went to Macedonia (now known as North Macedonia) as church planters among the Roma (often known as Gypsies). In 2008, they moved to Turkey where they continued living among the Roma and among refugees. It was this year that they walked away from raising support, their missions agency, and such things and stepped out of the boat to just walk hand in hand with Jesus and let Him take care of them. In 2011, Lee started developing Easy Peasy, the all-in-one homeschool curriculum. You can learn more about this time in Turkey and developing EP here and here.

In 2016, having been refused a visa renewal, they eventually accepted the Lord’s hand moving them back to the USA. Dave got his MA in teaching English as a second language and Lee took a coding course and, in time, was able to build the app program My EP Assignments to deliver lessons to the EP homeschool students. The Lord showed them again that He doesn’t want them using the world’s methods of providing for themselves and showed them He still wanted them to just trust Him to provide, so Dave stopped looking for a job. The creation of My EP Assignments increased usage of EP so that donations became enough to become an income. Through Lee’s parents’ decision to move to a retirement community, Lee and her family were able to have her family’s house, where she had grown up since she was a toddler. That enabled them to continue living debt-free, another part of the Lord’s provision for them.

In 2020, Lee started putting some of their miracle stories online to encourage people to not be afraid. She also started creating Bible lessons for EP apart from the regular course lessons. It started as five lessons per week, then included a really big study for the month of September, and now has grown to even more lessons as she has added another series of lessons. The September Studies have continued each year and she’s done a few online group studies through Zoom, which has led to a discipling relationship.

At the same time, Dave started work on a Bible translation for the Roma of Macedonia. Macedonia has the largest Roma settlement in the world. We lived there for a time when we were in Macedonia. Dave is fluent in their Romani language and partners with his best friend, Samir, his Roma language tutor who he’s now known for a couple of decades.

The Bible translation is being written down, which is a feat in itself since the language lacks a standardized written form, and it’s also being recorded on audio and made into videos for YouTube and for our RomaniBiblija.com website.

Beyond that, Dave has been involved in India. Before 2020, he traveled a couple of times for multiple weeks at a time around India, ministering to believers as a guest of a local minister. Now, he preaches through Zoom on occasion. We have partnered with an evangelist there who has been working for years among an unreached group of low-caste tribal people. He wanted to provide them a school since their children don’t have much access to education. While we discussed homeschooling, illiterate parents and no electricity make it not very feasible. We helped him financially to get a school started. They now have around 100 students and minister to their families. In 2023, we also connected with an orphanage run by widows. They even do monthly prison ministry. We are finding more people like them in India, who are truly being the hands and feet of Christ, and who were working anonymously without ministry title or support, just living by faith in the God who blessed them to be a blessing.

We’ve gotten reconnected with some of those kids from Lee’s inner city ministry as a college student. One man, a father of seven now, was just baptized September 2022 after we’d been visiting with him weekly. Lee disciples his older sister, who calls Lee her “sister mama.” They are all from, and some still in, this little city that struggles with unemployment, poor education, poverty, drugs, and violence, having one of the highest violent crime rates in the country.

When you support our family, these are the types of things you are supporting, and not just putting food on our table and keeping the heat on. The Lord meets all our needs, and He uses you and others like you to do it, though He’s not past just miraculously providing. 😉

We pray for you all and truly appreciate you praying for us. We value your prayers!