Jeremy, a servant of God and [one who is sent by] Jesus Christ

To my true brothers and sisters and mothers in a common faith:

Grace and peace from God the father and Christ Jesus our savior

[From Titus 1:1,4]

Preparing for Senegal

In my last update I shared that I will be heading to Senegal in 2027. Plans are starting to come together more solidly now, and I have a rough budget for my living expenses. It looks like my cost of living will be substantially higher in Senegal. It looks like I will need to raise another $3,000 in monthly support (doubling my current level of support), and $10,000 more in up-front expenses in order to reach the target recommended by the EMI staff in Senegal. I’m going to talk with the Senegal office soon, and maybe reduce some of those numbers, but no matter what, I’ll have to raise more support before I go to Senegal in January.

I’ve already started working on that. I trust that God will provide what he knows I need (not necessarily what I think I need), but I don’t know what that will look like yet. I am a little nervous, since I cannot meet with friends in Canada face-to-face like I did when preparing for Cambodia. Please pray with me in this process, and tell me if your church, or someone you know, might be interested in connecting with me.

Evangelism

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been learning more about evangelism, and taking action to share the gospel with non-Christians around me. This isn’t a natural strength of mine so its stretching me in hard ways, but I understand that God wants all of us to boldly be witnesses, and the only way for me to improve is to practice.

I am also preparing a program for our Construction Managers to evangelize to the workers on our active construction sites. This has been a goal at EMI for a while, but no one has taken the lead on pushing it forward before, so I’m stepping into untested waters. Please pray for wisdom for me as I plan how to share the gospel with groups of Buddhist construction workers, and as I train some of our Cambodian staff to boldly evangelize too.

Project Updates

This month we finally finished the biggest design phase for the church I’ve been helping design for the past 10 months. My role is done, and construction should be starting in full soon!

In a few weeks, I’ll be starting a new seminary course about the Apostle’s Creed, learning why the creed says what it says, and what challenges the Church was facing at that time in history.

And in a month or so, I’m probably flying to Kazakhstan and/or Kyrgyzstan to do structural inspections of some school buildings to help their owner, Quality Schools International, decide where to allocate their resources. I’m very excited about this, because rehabilitating existing buildings is something I’m passionate about, for the sake of sustainably caring for God’s creation.

Prayer Requests

Thank you for praying for my sleep, my insomnia has improved a lot.

As I said, please pray for me as I start raising financial support. I know God will provide, but sometimes it’s easy to get distracted by worldly fears.

Pray for guidance in my evangelism efforts, that God would give me the right words to say at the right time, and give me boldness with wisdom.

Pray for Izel, the traveller who’s asking “is it wrong that I want to understand the things I don’t understand” about the spiritual world, who I’m talking to as I write this letter.

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in Edmonton when I come home to visit at Christmas, before going to Senegal. But for the time being, I am very thankful that I still have 3 more months in Cambodia.

Grace and Peace

Jeremy