To say “thank you” seems totally inadequate to express our appreciation and gratitude for the support of so many through donations and prayers. We would love to sit down with each one of you, face-to-face, and tell you how much you mean to us. The last 10 years of LIVING WELL is worth celebrating because of each of you and the faithfulness of our LORD.
Our birthday party was great fun! We enjoyed seeing many of our long-time friends, as well as those who came for the first time. We celebrated God’s work through the ministry of LIVING WELL and looked at our future. We pray that the LORD allows us to have 10 more years of ministry! [see pictures]
November initiates a season of thanksgiving. As we approach that holiday, what if we took time each day to express thankfulness for something or someone or some way that God has blessed our lives? Not the generalized expression of “thank you for all may blessings,” but the enumeration of those specifically - “name them one by one” - as the hymn says. [For more on thanksgiving and gratitude, please see our next blog post.]
We live in an abundant but expectant culture. God has blessed us with much materially but we expect it now, rather than being thankful for it. Someone once said, “The things we take for granted are dreams to many people.” That concept impacts us deeply every time we go to Africa. The people we take with us redefine their needs and their wants.
We have clean water in an abundant supply. We take it for granted. If something happens and interrupts our water supply, we are upset. Yet, the kids of Wisdom Community School dream of having clean water to drink every day. We are not sure that having running water in their homes is even a dream for them. We recently received a donation that will make their dream come true. Lakeview Baptist Church in Guthrie donated the money for a water well for Wisdom Community School. We expect to be able to drill it very soon. The children of the school will have cleaner water from a well that doesn't go dry for 5 months of the year. We are very thankful!
In collaboration with our colleague in Zambia and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we have formulated a master plan for the Wisdom Community School campus. Please visit our website, www.livingwellokc.org, for more details. We are initiating a quarterly newsletter focused only on updates for the school.
We have decided that our time on our June mission trips will be dedicated solely to Wisdom Community School. We will continue to go to Zambia in January too and do our pastor couple conferences at that time. Our next conference is in Kitwe, Zambia, January 21-23, 2014. Our colleague in Zambia has already organized it and the conference is full! Because of the cost of the conference (we pay all of the expenses of the participants), we limit the group to 50 pastor couples. We have now trained over 400 pastor couples since we began this ministry.
Thank you for your continued support! We could not continue this ministry without you! We love and appreciate you and your support of what God is doing!
Our love in Christ,
Donna and Ed Edwards
P.S. Please praise the Lord with us for the 10 years of ministry!
