Written by Paul J Bucknell on March, 22, 2024
Prayer Letter #391

Zooming Along (STM Update)

Dear Prayer Partners,

Paul has not planned Short-Term Mission (STM) trips for several years. Many places that he usually visits are unstable. Linda’s unstable heart condition also kept him stateside. God used the extra time to develop much-needed Christian training resources. But the Lord has opened several opportunities for him to teach classes via Zoom! He is halfway through The Life Core: The Heart of Great Training with Telugu-speaking Indian pastors. They meet once a week. Paul teaches with a translator there. It has been very helpful to them. The leader there successfully visited other pastors and invited them to attend the Zoom class. It worked!

A 3-day seminar, April 22nd-25th, in Malawi has also been arranged via ZOOM. Paul will not travel, but his former coordinator in Malawi will gather 50-60 pastors. Here is a grand opportunity to support an STM-ZOOM! The pastors will be together and need housing, food, and a little $$ for transportation. The seminar coordinators will prepare translated materials for 50-60 pastors. The Chichewa book translation is almost complete. Please consider how you can help financially with this training opportunity. (Write STM on check.)

Paul records, edits, and uploads the translated sessions so they can repeatedly watch and pass on to others.

Paul just completed the seventh of thirteen Zoom classes with the Indian pastors. His many training days in India have helped him better understand their situations.

Lot’s happening around here! Mostly good.

Praise

Our first expanded Zoom India pastor’s class went well (halfway through the series).
We had a great Pittsburgh trip, visiting the ‘mother’ Pittsburgh Chinese church during a wonderful ordination service.
Praise the Lord that Paul’s migraines stopped, and the head/neck scan came back clean!
We finalized Malawi’s April STM pastor training seminar (translated into Chichewa).

Pray

Pray for STM blessing and funding for Malawi/India training.
Still working through some Malawi seminar details.
May God bring revival and unity to His people, partly through the book, Examination of Theological Conclusions—hopefully published in April.
Paul and Linda are still struggling with allergy congestion and poor sleep at night.
Pray for wisdom: to buy an SUV or invest money in our 2012 faithful blue Dodge Caravan. The transmission failed not far from home. Isaac picked us up.