Phil Eagling Newsletter   May 2005

Volume 6, Issue 2 May 2005

Greetings in the name of Jesus, I pray that all is well .

Sharon, Savannah and I are ok. Savannah and I have just been through a bout of the flu.

We wanted to once again thank God for your continued prayers and support.

The past two months since we last were in contact have just flown by.

I wanted to ask for your help in the following. Please prayerfully consider.

We are planning to make a trip to you all in May 2006. This is a year away but we felt that we needed to start planning for that trip.

We would like to replace ourselves while on our furlough with you all, so if there was anyone who had experience in ministry, and you would like to have a two month or six week difference please contact us. Please contact us or our forwarding agent Dale Kendle at our American address.

Also we are going to need assistance in getting over to you all. The airfare to come over to you all is roughly $2,300 per person. Please consider the fact that the Australian dollar is going up and that means the value of yours goes down here. Thus our financial status decreases, we no longer receive the same kind of financial benefit that we had when we first came home. We understand what it is like in the world today. The economy has not been the best in most countries. We just want you to understand our need.

We also will need the use of a car if that is possible. If someone has a spare car available for three months while we are over with you that would be great. On our last trip to you all we had the use of someone’s car and it was such a blessing,. The use of this car saved us a financial burden that we may not have been able to fulfill if we had to have rented a car, it saved us quite a bit.

We also are looking to participate in some camps while with you all. Even if there was a VBS that you would like us to be part of that would be great. We would like to start booking out our stay with planned visits to you all. Our first official speaking engagement is May 7th, 2006, God willing. So anything after this time we would like for you to start to consider two possible dates when we could come and visit with you.

Young Mitchell Grob who is searching for answers to what God is calling him to be. He is right now only 17, but he has shown his love for God, and is keen to know where he needs to go. We are encouraging him to get more involved with the Kid’s club and youth. Also we have encouraged him to find a job and get some work experience. We feel that every person who is intending to go into full time ministry needs some practical experience in the work force. I know how that works as I worked for 14 years before attending Bible College at Johnson Bible College in Knoxville Tennessee.

Please also pray for our new elder Stan Wright. He has never taken on such a responsibility and he is certainly asking you all that you pray for him. Please pray for Stan’s father who lives in England. He is the only family member still alive for Stan and being so far away Stan is at times concerned for his dad.

Please also pray for other leaders to emerge so that the work here can grow stronger. We need more willing workers. We need workers in the youth area. We need Sunday School teachers, and leaders to help out with the Kid’s Club Friday nights.

Please also pray for Sharon, Savannah and I in our health. We all have had the flu recently and we are not totally into the winter months yet.

Please also pray that we would have wisdom in the decisions that we need to make. Also pray for the vandals who have partly destroyed our church fence.

Praise God for the progress that has been made in the Kids club. Out of that ministry we have had families attend. We don’t always know exactly how God is going to bring people here but we praise God that it happens.

Please continue to pray us.

God bless,
Phil

Sharon's Desk

Hi again,

I pray that you are all well. Wow this year is just flying by isn’t it? We are already into May. How has your year turned out thus far?

We would sure like to hear from you and how you are all going. Maybe even some of you might want to find a pen pal. Please let us know if that would be the case.

I was thinking about the fact that maybe some of you don’t know us totally because you might be new to the church that you attending. Maybe you might want to know more about us. We are connected to one of our supporting churches website. If you would like to find out more about us and see previous newsletters go the following website http://www.fcctn.org. When you find this site go to the ministries button and press it, then go to the missions button and you will find a section where Philip, Savannah and I are featured. Once there you will be able to scroll down until you find previous newsletters and photos that we have produced in the years that have passed. (or, you could just go to http://dfamily.com/eagling) or (http://www.dfamily.com/fccmissions/australia/photoa.html)

As Philip has mentioned we are planning, God willing to visit with you all next year. This means taking Savannah out of school, and bringing some school work for her to do while with you. Please pray for us and the plans we need to make for this trip to become a reality.

On the subject of prayer, please pray for our ladies group. We are having small victories with this group, but we need more growth. Like any group we want to see the people involved growing spiritually and in number. The specific prayer concern that I have for it is that we become more evangelistic. We want to be a church that reaches out to the lost more than anything.

I wanted to also mention a few personal things. Please pray for Philip’s family, as they are continuing to have problems. He may not say too much about it, but it certainly has taken its toll on him and us.

What is family anyway? It can be very gratifying to be in family, but it also can be very hard. As most of the readers of this newsletter will attest. We have tried to remain faithful and neutral in what we say, but this does not always seem to be the easiest response. I guess the one constant that we have is that we do have a Creator who wants to know our pain and does help us when we ask.

On a more positive note, I have been able to make some more friends through Savannah. One such friend is Kath, she is blind and I have a connection with her because my dad is blind. We are planning to have them over for a meal. Pray for that.

May God richly bless you

love,
Sharon.

Savannah's Learning Page

Savannah’s learning page

G’day to my friends from up over. How are you all. My friends in East Tennessee have told that it is getting a little warmer. That’s great, we have just had some great weather. I have just had two weeks vacation. I was sick for one of those weeks so no much fun in that week.

My daddy told me that we are planning to come over and visit with you next year. How bonzer that is going to be. I will get to meet my mates I hardly get to see.

I have friends at school and they don’t speak like you. Did you know that we have 20 million people in Australia and they all don’t speak the same language? My mummy said that some of them don’t even speak English. My daddy said that some of them have accents like we do when we visit you.

When we come to visit you next year we plan to speak some of our English to you. My mummy said that we sound different to your English. Like the word g’day, that is how we say hello. So when we come to you next year we will teach you how to say g’day. My daddy said that he tried to teach some of you last time we were with you, but he said that it took some time until he heard some one sound like an Aussie. That is short for Australian.

You know how I was talking about friends at the beginning of this letter, well I have made some friends at school and out of that my mum and dad have made friends too. My mum made friends with one of my best friends Chantelle’s mum. They go for coffee and eat cake as well. They said that it is a rule that they get to eat cake and drink coffee while we play together, I guess that means they get to have fun too.

I am not sure if I have told you but we have a dog now, because our cat got ran over by a car. Our dog’s name is Samson. My daddy said that he thought of Samson the first time he saw our dog. Although my mummy said that daddy was just being funny because Samson is a small dog. My daddy said that we saved him from the pound. He was a dog who was in jail, as daddy said, and we saved from an uncertain future. I don’t know what that means, maybe you can ask your parents about that.

Hey kids, did you know that in Australia we have what is known as a "bunyip"? My daddy said that this is much like your "snipe". I don’t know what a "snipe" is either, but my daddy said that some of you would then know what our "bunyip" is. I guess one day when I get older I will know what that means. My mummy tells me that a lot, that when I get older I will understand things better. I am not sure that I want to know everything when we I get older, that seems too much to know. My daddy keeps telling me that I should just be a kid, and not want to grow up too fast.

Well I have to go now, please pray for me as I will you,

your little Aussie mate,
Savannah

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