Louk Newsletter

Dear Prayer Supporters,

Last month we wrote and asked you to pray that

God would be our strength, joy, the lifter of our

heads, and that we would rest in God’s sovereignty

and grow in Christ-likeness. June was a month filled

with challenges, both physical and spiritual. The

physical challenges ranged from the stomach flu to a

repeatedly flooded basement and reactions to the

consequential mold. The spiritual challenges included

the heartbreak of friends so close to the truth, and

yet so far away because they do not yet see themselves

as sinners in need of a savior. And most of the

challenges were a combination of the physical and

the spiritual. Our physical fatigue often led to what

seemed to be nothing less than a spiritual battle

fought to keep our eyes of faith fixed on Jesus and

our hearts remembering and claiming His truths.

And in the midst of all of this you prayed. And God

heard your prayers. If we had to pick the refrain of

our family this month it would be: Praise our Father.

He hears and answers prayer.

God truly proved himself as our strength, joy, and

the lifter of our heads. Over and over we saw clear

answers to prayer that only He could have done. At

home we have seen a softening of our oldest son’s

hard heart toward God. In the field, we have seen

both Shirley and Justin turn to and follow Jesus in

what seems to be genuine belief. Rejoice with us and

with the angels. In our own hearts we have experienced

dependence on God and a grateful abiding in

Christ that can only be expressed in metaphors He

chooses for Himself: the bread of life, our shepherd,

the living water, our father who nourishes and chastises,

the vine, the light, the word… Truly there is

none like God. He and he alone is worthy of praise.

As we look forward to July, there is currently a pool

of water in our basement, we are sleep deprived, and

we truly aren’t sure how to balance all that God has

entrusted to us. And yet we are filled with joy and

peace. This month as you pray through our prayer

calendar will you also pray specifically for:

• Pray we wisely prioritize all our responsibilities.

Pray our will would submit to His will (Matt.

6:10).

• Pray God will save the many unbelievers we love

and spend time with (Romans 10:1).

• Pray we would be bold in proclaiming the gospel

(Acts 4:29; Eph. 6:18-19).

• Pray God would open the eyes of American believers

to the white fields here and will send out

laborers into those fields (Matt. 9:38).

• Pray for biblical unity in the church to point unbelievers

to Christ. (John 17:20-21).

• Pray God would keep us from the evil one and

that we won’t fall into temptation (Matt 26:41;

Matt 6:13).

Above all, in all aspects of our life we want God to

not only have first priority in our thinking, but to be

the first and last and everything in between priority

as we strive to balance home-life, ministry-life, and

Joshua’s new missional opportunities at OSU

through the classes he is taking there this summer.

May God’s peace and joy rest on you,

the Louk family

missionary church planters

&

He Hears and Answers Prayer

2016, Third Quarter

Prayer Letter Joshua & Laurel Louk

Prayer Letter 

Dear Prayer Supporters,

I am writing to ask you to specifically pray for.

• God to be the lifter of Joshua's head (Psalm 3)
• For Joshua to find his strength for today in the joy of the Lord (Psalm 28)
• For Joshua to grow in Christ likeness through today (Rom. 8:27-29)
• For Joshua to rest in the sovereignty and goodness of God's perfect plans (Rom. 8:27-29)

Today is an ordinary day in our week. Joshua is currently meeting with Tian Hun as he does every Wednesday morning and early afternoon. Last Sunday Tian Hun gave a clear testimony of his new faith in Christ Jesus. We are rejoicing in his apparent new birth. (Please continue to pray for this new believer. He is a Communist Party member which will have repercussions for him when he returns to China.)

This evening Joshua will meet with Kevin and Julie, another Chinese couple who want to understand who Jesus is. Tomorrow morning Joshua will spend the morning mentoring James, a young man on pre-field ministry who is learning how to reach immigrants. Friday morning Joshua will meet with Peng, another Chinese who is interested in spiritual things. And then on Friday evening he will administer the Friday night study from about 5:30 PM until 10:00/11:00 PM. And in between the above and on Saturday Joshua and I need to prepare three different preps for three classes on Sunday.

So now onto why Joshua needs some extra prayer. All of the above is exciting stuff, but maintaining it regularly takes preparation time. Usually, Monday and Tuesday are a little less busy with people service and are filled with behind the scenes work like putting our prayer calendar together, phone calls, budgeting, extra personal devotional times.

What wasn't ordinary was yesterday. Yesterday morning went as usual. We did some house and yard maintenance and then Joshua was planning on going to the church/library to put some concentrated time into preparation and office work. That didn't happen because Athan climbed a ladder with a saw in his hand, fell off and sliced his hand deeply. So Joshua rushed him to the ER for stitches. Meanwhile, I continued my day as normal and got Vivian and Gus ready to go and do our once a month grocery shopping trip. Vivian was loaded in the car. I turned around and Gus fell off our front steps and hit the back of his head -hard- on concrete. With a 15 month old we are used to lots of falls, but this time he was bleeding from his nose and acting really sedate so instead of going grocery shopping, the three of us went to the closest urgent care. They rushed us to the front of the line confirming my concerns and kept us there a while to observe him, but thankfully, he seems to be recovering fine from that tumble. After 2 hours in urgent care Gus and Vivian and I finally got to the grocery store. We shopped in record time. But then on the way to the car, while carrying Gus, I stepped in a recessed part of the parking lot, twisted my ankle and took a rather dramatic tumble myself. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to roll instead of dropping Gus. My ankle is quite swollen and obviously sprained, but he's fine. After bringing Athan, freshly bandaged from the ER (he didn't end up getting the stitches he needed because the wait was too long), to me at the grocery store Joshua hightailed it to a required elder's meeting which took the majority of the evening. Last night Gus decided a scary bump on the head wasn't enough and decided to have a tummy bug too, dramatically limiting sleep for his grownups.

The bottom line is, Joshua is dramatically behind on a lot of important stuff for this week, is sleep deprived, and isn't quite sure how he will accomplish it all. Adding to this pressure is the fact that next week, he will begin a few classes at OSU. He wanted/needed to be ahead not behind.

Please continue to pray for the many people needing Jesus with whom we interact with weekly,  but this week and today could you also please pray specifically for Joshua to be filled with God's peace, joy, strength, and wisdom. He's almost done with the calendar, but it may be a tad late. Thank you for your patience.

As you can tell these are exciting, but busy times. We love what we do and are so grateful and more dependent that we probably know for your prayer support.

Your Sister-in-Christ,
Laurel Marie