Feb. 5, 2004
Dear Prayer Warriors,

Greetings from Iquitos! Thank you so much for your prayers. The Lord blessed me with a good Christmas and a very happy New Year’s Eve time with our deaf friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. Former pastor Serafin and his family were able to sell their things, including their house, and have moved to Lima. Please continue to pray for them as they settle there, making changes to strengthen marriage and family ties, look for work, etc. May the Lord be the focus of their lives.

Praise the Lord, Pastor Abraham and his wife, Patsy, continue to learn and grow in the deaf ministry. We are working together more closely now, doing visitation and discipleship on Mondays and Tuesdays. Sunday night, a young deaf fellow, Betman, responded to the invitation, though when we dealt with him personally afterwards, he said he wanted to wait before making his decision. Several of the deaf have been coming back to church, who have not come in several years. Please pray for wisdom to continue to minister to the deaf here in Iquitos, and for the deaf themselves to take more of an active role in leadership.

I wrote the above three days ago and want to finish this before any more time goes by. My computer crashed the end o November last year and I recently was able to get it repaired but lost everything on it, including email addresses. The hard drive had to be replaced, memory, etc. It was probably a faulty memory that ruined the hard drive in the first place. Now it is working again, and I need to catch up on annual reports, etc.

Almost everyone is back from their Christmas travels. Andy and Carol Patton arrived with their 6 sweet kids on Jan. 7. I’ve had a good time getting to know Emily, Allison, Kylie, Katie, Linda, and Charlie. The 5 girls even stayed with me for two days while their parents went to Lima to pick up their residence carnets. The Pattons have come to help with the Roni Bowers Memorial Sports Center project and the sports evangelism program that will be done in it. The other new family, the Cassidys, should be returning to Iquitos soon.

A big surprise for this new year is that they are paving two blocks of the street I live on. This means that right now we are all putting up with inconveniences, like having no running water in our homes. We were even cut off from the sewer line for several days, but that is connected again, thankfully. My car is over at Efata deaf church so it is available when I need it. Donaldsons have been gracious in allowing me to come to their home for showers and washing clothes.

Due to furlough schedules and new missionary arrivals on the field, we have decided that my furlough, which would have begun in June this year, will be delayed until after Donaldsons take their 6 month furlough starting in April. I expect to be heading home next October or November, Lord willing, to see you all. It has been over two years since I’ve seen my family, so I am making a quick trip home Feb. 16 – March 19, to see them and to take care of some health needs. Then I will be returning to continue my normal ministries and be available as "senior missionary" on the field until the Donaldsons return. The new missionaries are all about my age, so the term "senior" refers only to the time I’ve spent on the field.

May the Lord continue to bless you. Thank you again for your prayers! Keep looking up!

Your sister in Christ,
Lynn Porter