Recent Activity
Greetings in the precious Name of our Lord! My prayer is that each of you is well, and enjoying rich blessings of the grace of God. Noma and I are well, although as I write this Noma is at the dentist’s office and I am sure would appreciate your prayers, as would I, that all things will proceed well.
I recently returned from a trip to Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas, giving reports on our work. Whenever I travel to that area, I am blessed to be able to stay with my parents and spend some much needed time with them, since we now live much further away. I was able to be with the brethren of the King Ryder congregation in King Ryder, Arkansas and the Broken Bow congregation in Broken Bow, Oklahoma on Sunday, February 16. On Wednesday, February 19, I attended Bible Study with my mother at the Redland, Oklahoma congregation and while there, I spoke with the men about holding a Gospel Meeting. The date of that meeting will be May 11-14. On Sunday, February 23 I gave reports to the congregations in Bagwell and Blossom, Texas, before starting the long drive home. It was a great trip and I enjoyed seeing many very close and dear friends and brethren.
Coming up in the month of March, I will be traveling to Guatemala to attend the annual ITL Lectureship. I will be traveling with Bob Turner and we would both appreciate your prayers for a safe and productive trip.
Specific Needs
I want to continue this part of our report each time, not as a specific appeal to our supporters to give more (although, if that happened, we would happily and thankfully accept it), but rather to keep everyone informed of the situation and to ask for your help in finding other potential supporters. I will be doing my part to try to raise the additional funds we are lacking.
In the last report I shared that we were operating at approximately $500/month below what we had been receiving, which was itself below what is considered “full support.” However, with the receipt of our W-2 form for 2013 came the realization that the amount of that deficit is more like $1,175/month from what we were receiving just two years ago.
Thankfully, it does not appear that I will have to travel as much this year as in the past several years and that will help our expenses significantly. Please keep this aspect of our work especially in your prayers!
Thank you and God bless!
Donnie Bates