Dear Friends,
In the last month much has happened. Thank you so much for all your prayers for our family and the ministry here in Australia. In a nutshell:
1. Lived at the Royal Darwin Hospital for 4 days.
2. Set up the flat downstairs (which is now housing some guests for 10 days!)
3. Started a new discipleship course here in Barunga. :)
1. As many of you already knew, I've been a bit under the weather. To be specific, I had a very nasty boil under my arm, which got infected. It hurt so bad I couldn't move without screaming. I went to the Katherine Hospital (80 km from Barunga...about an hour drive) to have it looked at. They saw me, and immediately said I needed to go to Darwin, right away.
I had been to the Darwin Emergency Room before, with Alice when we first moved here. We sat there and waited for about 6 hours to be seen. I was expecting the same treatment for this.
However, that was not to be. We arrived at the Darwin Hospital at 12AM, I handed them the paperwork from Katherine that had a note on it, "semi-urgent". Within one hour, I was in the operating room. As I was walking through the doors to be seen by the triage nurse, I heard the receptionist/nurse say, "Put him on the fast track." LOL They don't mess around.
So, the next 4 days were spent recovering from the infected boil, with an IV antibiotic. When they found the actual antibiotic that would kill my staph infection, I started taking the pill form, and was allowed to go home.
I found out I'm "special". I have MRSA or as they call it "golden staph". Something I found humorous is that it's usually found on the insides of doctor's noses! But, the thing is, this sort of infection is resistant to many kinds of antibiotics.
HOWEVER! I'm finished with the antibiotics now, and my arm seems to be healing quite nicely. Continued prayer is very appreciated. :)
2. God has blessed us with a downstairs which was originally the main house. We have finally got it semi-put together, with beds and a clean bathroom, and rugs(if Cheri were writing this, I'm sure there would be a longer list...). We are currently hosting three folks, 2 of whom are sleeping in the downstairs flat! Praise the Lord!
3. Sabi Mowa Blanga Godwei (Know More About God's Way) Discipleship course is now under way in Barunga. Tonight was the first meeting, and it went fairly well. Our team leader (Margaret) taught on Matthew 7 the foolish and wise builders. At one point the question turned to trials, and hard things in life. One of the ladies has a son who is suffering from cancer.
One of the men who is helping with this workshop just lost his 15 year old daughter to a rare form of cancer. He was able to give encouragement and Scripture verses that had encouraged his daughter in the middle of all the suffering. After talking through some of it, she asked me(Jared) to take her home, that she felt a bit sad, and tired.
When I dropped her off, I was blessed to sit down with her son and talk/pray/ read God's Word with him, and to encourage him. God gave me the opportunity to encourage him. Please pray with me for their family. The man's name(with cancer) is Silas. He is a new believer(as of June) and this is a huge trial.
Tomorrow, SMBG continues, and for another 7 days after that. Please pray for our team, as we study God's Word with the folks in Barunga, that we would be learners and not just teachers. :)
Thank you all so much for your prayers and support of our family as we serve here in Australia. You are all a huge blessing to us, and we could NOT do this without your faithfulness in prayer and support. God bless! -Jared
Jocelyn(L) and Mavis(R) were just 2 of the ladies who came for the course.
Here we are motioning how God made the sun (and the rest) to help the kids remember, and give the ladies ideas for how they can share with their families(children) and communities.
The 1st day was the biggest, and it was a blessing to see so many ladies want to get into God's Word.
