Dear Pastors, Supporters, and Praying Friends,

“O, taste and see that Lord is good, blessed is him that trust in Him.” Psalm 34:8. Sometimes we wonder why the Lord has allowed things to happen to us and around us, but He has a plan all along. It was amazing to wait on the Lord and trust Him through recent happenings, and experience His wonderful and perfect plan for us.

In January, at the Deaf Men’s Retreat, I and the other speakers shared God’s Word and I had a wonderful time. I was able to speak with four men one on one. I returned home to my family but then got sick with covid. It took me about two weeks to get better. My daughter was supposed to have a heart procedure the week following the men's retreat but because I was positive with covid, we postponed her heart procedure to February 14.

In February, it was unfortunate that we had to cancel our daughter’s heart procedure appointment on the 14th because our financial assistance was not approved. As the heart procedure kept getting postponed, we decided to start traveling. We joined our home church and their choir for Deaf Day at one of our supporting churches in South Carolina. It was our daughters’ first-time traveling to a church to report on our mission’s work. It was a valuable experience for our daughters. I had the opportunity to preach to adults on Saturday and to the youth on Sunday morning. In the meantime, the Lord had answered prayers to pay for our daughter’s heart procedure with a loan through the partnership of Samaritan’s Ministries. We scheduled the surgery for Monday, March 28. The weekend before the heart procedure, we traveled to Knoxville to a deaf church. On Saturday, we shared our life experiences how the Lord had changed us and now uses us and our mission work for His glory. On Sunday, my family, including our daughters, sang “People need the Lord” and I preached during Sunday school and the morning service. The Lord worked in people’s lives there. It’s always a blessing to see deaf people serve the Lord and desire to follow Him faithfully. They voted to add us as their missionaries for support. The Lord is good.

On Monday, March 28, we went to the hospital early in the morning. The interpreter came and stayed with us all day. She was such a blessing and shared the same faith! God had planned for her to come. She usually only takes night interpreting jobs, but her deaf mother was in town, so she took this job. Michael prayed with the doctor in the room before the procedure with the interpreter voice interpreting! On Tuesday morning, the agency was supposed to send another interpreter, but no one took the job, so the same interpreter came back! It was a blessing to have her there with us all the time we were at the hospital, to help us communicate with doctors and nurses. She even interpreted for Ruth when she shared her faith with doctors and nurses. They listened attentively when she explained about languages and the tower of Babel that God destroyed. A few hours after the surgery, Roniya was up and going! At her one-week follow-up with the doctor, he said that she has about 95% closure in her heart which will close completely as she grows. She will be taking aspirin for one year after the procedure date. She can run and play but she cannot do any activity that may impact her chest for one month. The Lord is gracious to Roniya. She had a good spirit at the hospital and all the nurses loved her. She had one minor emergency the Monday night before the procedure that made her lay still for over 6 hours. She was scared but controlled herself and watched the nurse as she took care of her. Psalm 56:3, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”

God orchestrates our lives the way He knows best and when we go a certain way, sometimes He may close or block it. We need to go another way. The entire time, God already saw the plan where we should go. The most important thing for us is how we respond to His plan! It is waiting on the Lord, trusting him to lead us through and let Him teach us through it all. Psalm 32:8 says, “I (the Lord) will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I (the Lord) will guide thee with mine (the Lord’s) eye.”

In Christ Alone,

Michael, Ruth, Giovanna, and Roniya