DOWNLOAD PDF - SEPTEMBER 2011 DAHLFREDS PRAYER LETTER

Dear Friends & Family,

Thank you for your continued prayers for us as we spend this year in the U.S. on home assignment.

In July, we enjoyed a ten day trip to Colorado for some training at OMF International’s U.S. headquarters, and visits with friends and supporters.  It was great to connect with other missionaries, and to hear their stories, at the OMF training week.  We were also reminded of all the hard work that the support staff do there, processing finances, sending out prayer letters, and helping prospective missionaries get to the field.  So-called administrative “overhead” is not wasted money, but essential for getting missionaries to the field and helping them stay there.

Returning to California at the beginning of August, Karl sat in the local Starbucks from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, writing his Master of Theology (Th.M) thesis.  It was a tough push to meet the Sept. 1st deadline for the first draft, but 38,000 words and 132 pages later, it finally got done!  It will probably need some revisions and corrections after his thesis advisor finishes reading it, but the bulk of the work is done.  For those who are interested, the thesis title is: “Theology Drives Methodology: A Comparative Study of the Nature and Means of Conversion in the Theology of Charles Grandison Finney and John Williamson Nevin.”  I choose this topic for my thesis because it helps me prepare for teaching church history at Bangkok Bible Seminary, and also because the connection between theology and methods in evangelism is highly relevant for how we go about modern missions.  If anyone is interested in reading it, let me know and I can email you a copy.

With the first draft of the thesis out of the way, we hope to spend some more time this fall in visiting churches, developing support, and taking some family trips. With only four months until we return to Thailand, we want to make the most of the time, visiting with people and churches.  If you want to get together, please let us know.  If you know of a church or church group that would like hear about missions in Thailand, please pass on our contact info or help us get in touch with them.

We never solicit money or make direct appeals for support when we talk with people or visit churches, but a related prayer request is that our financial support level will be high enough for us to go back to Thailand in January 2012.  Our extended time in the U.S. for Karl to finish his Th.M has stretched our finances rather thin.  Also, when we return to Thailand, we will be living in downtown Bangkok where the expenses are higher.  Our housing, for example, will be about five times more than we were paying in small town PhraBaht in Central Thailand.  At the current time, we are not exactly sure how much more support we need, but that should become clear over the next few months as we go through the OMF International budgeting process for the 2012 calendar year.  Please pray with us that the Lord will provide sufficient financial support for an on-time departure in January 2012.

In family news, the kids are happy and healthy and Sun has successfully potty-trained Caitlin - difficult but gratifying.  Please also pray for us as we restart family devotional times after dinner each evening.

by Christ’s grace,
Karl & Sun Dahlfred

PRAYER POINTS

• Karl to finish Th.M studies for Dec. 2011 graduation
• More financial support so we can return to Thailand in January 2012
• Discipline and joy as we restart family worship times
  

PRAISES

• productive & encouraging time in Colorado for training, & visiting friends and supporters
• Karl submitted thesis first draft by Sept. 1st deadline

CALENDAR

9/14   Providence Christian College - chapel speaker
9/17   OMF prayer meeting
9/24   Karl at Presbtery meeting, Yorba Linda

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