July Ministry Report

 Dear Partners,

Thus far 2024 has been a full year of ministry opportunities.

·         Howard began the year with a trip to Zambia. Please pray for the missionaries there. The drought is having a huge impact. Praise the Lord; we received a report of a number of students at Amano Christian School professing to trust the Lord. Howard spoke at the school’s staff retreat.

·         In March Howard represented LMUSA at the Biola University Missions Conference. He also spent time with LMUSA missionaries George and Prisca Shakwelele.

·         In May Kathy and Howard returned to Guam where we spent extensive time with LMUSA

missionaries and other partners. Kathy spoke to a gathering of ladies. Howard also participated in the Pacific Islands University two-day board meeting. He was appointed as a member of the Board. Howard also spoke at the Founder’s Day event at the mission HQ in NJ.

·         May and June contained graduations and a wedding. Lots of good family time.

·         Howard is involved with several other missionaries in providing leadership to our missionary endeavors. A smaller group is working toward offering local church missionary conference type events, Network Z. Our goal is to help and support churches in having a greater global impact. If you want to find out more, please write.

·         In addition to these mission-related activities, Kathy and Howard continue to minister in an interim role at Woodland Church near Fincastle VA.

Future plans include:

•       Participation in a Member (Missionary) Care conference, next month.
•           Our hope is that Network Z will actually become a reality this Fall.
•       Howard will be representing LMUSA at a missions conference at Columbia International University.

A word about the difficulties that missionaries face:

Many things that we take for granted in the USA are uncertainties where some of our missionaries serve. Our colleagues in Zambia are living in a time of drought. Not only does this impact food production—in particular for the indigenous population—it also limits the availability of electricity. Zambia depends on hydro-power. As water levels go down so does electric generation. It’s just one of the difficulties that these precious servants face. We can’t raise the water level, but we can elevate encouragement.
A number of our missionaries are traveling over the next six weeks or so. Please pray.

We thank you for your support and encouragement. Please keep us in your prayers. If you are in our area. Please stop by. We’d love to see you. Please continue to pray as we seek to minister to those who are reaching.

I’m including two donation links below. One is for our account. The other is for a project that supports the infrastructure of our mission. Your generosity has enabled us to continue our ministry without dipping into the mission’s general fund. Our home office staff is mainly dependent on that general fund to keep serving. Click the link to find out more.

By His Grace,

Howard & Kathy

 

https://lmusa.org/give/general-fund/, https://lmusa.org/give/hk-merrell/

PS: The picture has nothing to do with this letter. It was just too cute to pass up. 😊