“Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”
(Psalm 37:5)
We are so thankful for the faithfulness of our God, our supporting churches, and the people who hold us up with prayer and finances, allowing us to stay here in Namibia, Africa.
We weathered the second wave of COVID here and are now starting the third wave. Regular mail started back in February. The vaccine is here but not being given to our age group yet. They started giving it at the end of March to 18 to 59 year olds. The schools of Eunike and Carlos, two children who live with us, have had to be shut down for short periods of time because of COVID cases. Jamie was home-schooled because of his health. Several people in the church also had COVID, and the deaths of people we know and family members of our congregation have increased. They increased the number of people allowed to attend church from 50 to 100 just in time for Easter.
Jamie had the renogram. Thank you for your prayers for the dye to come into the country. Then they placed a suprapubic catheter surgically. There were two hospitalizations for urinary tract infections due to organisms that were not treatable with oral medication, only by IV drip. Over Christmas, Jamie needed to be on the drips again; this time they allowed my wife to do the IVs at home for 14 days (she is a registered nurse). Jamie had surgery in March for a blocked colon. After the surgery, he got rheumatic fever. He is scheduled for a urostomy on the 10th of June. Please pray for him.
Aaron, our foster boy, was hospitalized for his seizures and went through a change of medication from September through April. He has gone from having 30 seizures in August to just 1 in April. Praise the Lord! Some of his seizures were due to his medicines not being available during the COVID lockdown.
I had surgery in October for a strangulated abdominal hernia—not sure what I did to bring it on, but I am thankful to be doing better and able to help set up the church on Sundays again.
The church has stayed faithful through all the ups and downs and the pushing around of regulations for churches here in Namibia because of COVID, and we praise the Lord for that. Our Bible study group for adults is growing. Souls are being saved on a regular basis. Our Teen Brigade Group has given us a few challenges. It went down to 6, and then it went down to 2; however, through prayer it has gone up to 20. We just received the approval of the building plans this week—they had been stuck in the municipality for one year during COVID. We had to make some changes to them because the fire marshal made us add a side door in the sanctuary.
An urgent prayer request is for our communication abilities. Our FRITZ!Box for our WiFi was hacked. We lost both of our e-mails, Skype, and the ability to bank online. We also have lost our home (USA) phone numbers. I use an old-style cell phone because of my big fingers, but we were trying to communicate with my wife’s phone on WhatsApp, but that was stolen on Tuesday, April 20.
In partnership for Christ,
Tom & Margo Dinius