20 December

Dear Friends,

We are glad to report that we made it safely to Australia. There were a number of delays due to blizzards and ice storms, but we made all of our connections. We are now in Tasmania getting over jetlag and getting ready for Christmas. It’s good to be together again as a family. It’s summer here and cricket is in full swing. We’re glad to have left the minus 30 degree weather behind in Canada for a while. Thanks for your prayers.

For Jesus,

Andrew and Anne Marie

9 December

Dear Friends,

I’m sorry that this email comes incredibly late and behind schedule, but I am pleased to say, we have made it to Canada. For the past three weeks we have been on the go 24/7 and so finally I have some time to email.

Our last two weeks in Lajas were very busy with the first week being taken up with a dental clinic. Jim Boyd the dentist flew in from Pennsylvania and along with John, they saw close to 90 Tepehuan patients in four days. It was great to see so many Tepehuan getting help for their dental needs.

Our last week with our Tepehuan friends in Lajas was a good time, but also sad having to say goodbye. One friend said that with us leaving, it was like we were dying and they would never see us again. We assured them that Lord willing we would be back in a year. It is hard leaving in that we are very close to being ready in the language to share the Gospel, but we also need a break from the constant travelling and all that is involved in the ministry in Lajas. We’re ready for a year away from Lajas! Our last days in the village were spent packing up and loading valuable items for storing in Durango. Amazingly we were able to achieve this along with having a constant stream of visitors and well-wishers. The Tepehuan are not being left alone as we are leaving them in the capable hands of our coworkers Barry and Candy Wingo. For the next year they will be in Lajas on their own. Pray for their safety especially with all the violence that is taking place across Mexico in these days. Pray that in these next twelve months that God would prepare the Tepehuan hearts to hear the Gospel. Pray that they would see the fear that dominates and permeates their lives. Pray that they would begin to see the sin and wickedness that is in their hearts and reveals itself in the ways they live and act. Pray that in the years to come, a great harvest would be reaped in Lajas. Not for our sakes nor to make us feel like it was worth it, but most of all because Jesus is worth it, and that He would begin to hear His praises in the language of the Tepehuan. We love the Tepehuan and know that many of you do as well. I’m thankful the God is not willing that any of them should perish, and so let’s continue to pray for their salvation.

Joseph and Madeline stayed in Durango and for the first week were looked after in our house by Linda (John’s wife). The second week they stayed with a Mexican family, our good friends Ruben and Adriana, and their two daughters Natalia and Salma. They had a great time and really enjoyed their stay. It was hard for them saying goodbye to all the new friends they had made at school. The Lord has really answered our prayers concerning our kid’s schooling. Not only did they quickly make friends and settle into a totally new environment, they really improved in their Spanish and actually did better than expected in their grades.

We arrived back in Durango from Lajas with less than a week to pack up our whole house and get ready for travelling to Canada, not to mention speak at a missions conference in our church, and say “goodbye” to all our friends. Thankfully the owner of our house is allowing us to store all our things in one room for the year without charging us rent. We managed to get packed and finally drove out of Durango on Monday the 24th of November. We spent a couple of days in Chihuahua and crossed the border into Texas on Wednesday. We rested a day in El Paso and then drove to Amarillo to spend a couple days with friends and former Durango missionaries Jim and Kristy Kendall. The next leg took us to Missouri where we presented the work in a supporting church, the Calvary Chapel of Osage Beach. From there it was a two day drive up to Canada where Anne Marie’s family lives. We’re thankful for safe travels, good border crossings, a faithful truck, cheaper gas (half of what it was two months ago), and finally snow. There wasn’t much snow on the ground when we arrived, and Julian had his heart set on seeing a lot of it. Thankfully it has snowed and he can now play outside where it is currently -20. Big jump from Durango!

We’ll be spending an early Christmas with the Thiessen family here in Mitchell, Manitoba and then fly out to Sydney on the 15th of December. We’ll be flying Qantas and so Lord willing we should arrive in Tasmania on the 17th barring any technical hitches. It has been over five and a half years since we were in Australia. It has been six years since the Ferguson family was all together for Christmas. We’re looking forward to it. Our plan is to spend close to twelve months in Australia. Our kids will be able to attend school, I’m hoping to find work, and we will be spending time in our home church and also visiting others to present the Tepehuan work. We would like to continue studying Tepehuan, working on the dictionary and grammar and also beginning to map out lesson preparations for teaching the Gospel in Tepehuan on our return from furlough.

Wow, it’s hard to believe that we’re actually heading home. We look forwarding to seeing as many of you as we can in our travels. We’re so thankful to the Lord for each one of you who pray so faithfully for us and give so generously to see the gospel reach the once unreachable Tepehuan. May you have a very Merry Christmas where Jesus has an opportunity to speak and reveal more of Himself to you, and may you have a happy new year.

For Jesus and His glory,

Andrew, Anne Marie, Joseph, Madeline, Julian, and finally Sophia (who, by the way, is not a bad little ice skater)

11 October

Dear Friends,

It has been a while since we last wrote. We are currently out in the village and there has been quite a lot going on. October 4th is the Saint day for Lajas and so there was a big fiesta. It is also during this time that the new leaders are selected for the following year, and so we were able to witness how this is done culturally. The police presence in the village kept drinking to a minimum and so for the most part there were very few incidents of fighting and such.

Today a helicopter flies in with a politician that represents the area, and they will be giving out food and blankets, hence there is an atmosphere of anticipation in the village as everyone awaits the arrival of the helicopter. A couple of hurricanes are moving up the west coast. Thankfully one has passed and will make landfall further north, the other looks like it could come close to threatening this area. The first mountain range would most likely break the storm up, but we could get some heavy rains and winds.

There have been a number of intense moments here. There hasn’t been a doctor or nurse present in the village and last week we had a family whose little boy had apparently been bitten by a scorpion. We were able to get into the clinic and it was looking like I might have to inject him with the anti-venom. The problem is that if you inject someone with scorpion anti-venom and it really wasn’t a scorpion that bit them, the anti-venom can kill them. Unfortunately the little boy was too little to know what bit him, but after a bunch of phone calls to a doctor in Durango and after much waiting and praying, it was decided to just wait and see if his symptoms would subside or grow worse. The family returned to their house with our assurances that if he got worse, we’d inject him or transport to a clinic two hours drive away. They returned at 12:30 at night worried that he was getting worse, but he quickly ate two bananas that Anne Marie gave him. We assured them that now most likely the worst of the affects of the venom have passed, and most likely he would be fine. Barry checked on the family the next morning and the little boy was running around like nothing had happened. We praise the Lord for his recovery and that we didn’t have to make the dangerous trip in the middle of the night. Heaven knows what counseling and psychiatric help he might’ve needed had I been the one to have to give him an intra-venous injection!

Another lady is lying in the clinic with bleeding on the brain and is in a serious condition. The family has asked our teams help, but she is too critical to move by land to Durango. The airstrip in Lajas is unusable, and we just found out that our plan cannot use the Milpillas airstrip as it is no longer registered. (To use it could risk the plane being confiscated.) The doctor has just arrived in the village and our prayer is that he can coordinate for the helicopter that comes, to fly her to Durango. Pray also for the doctor, he doesn’t have a good rapport with the people and seems to disdain them and look down on them. They complain that he gets angry with them for their style of living, and many are afraid to go to him. We would love for this guy to get saved and begin to value people as God does. Pray that his heart would soften towards the Tepehuan people. Often the doctor is the last person they will go to, much preferring the witchdoctors. The doctor being the way he is now makes matters worse and people wait till the last moment to get his help.

Joseph and Madeline are doing well in Durango in school, and are being well cared for by Wolfgang and Kelly. They have been doing some hiking and cliff scaling and are enjoying being able to be more involved in their sporting activities.

Sadly there has been no further news on Elsa and her whereabouts. Continue to pray for her release and safety. Pray also for Durango, violence has soared in the past year due to the drug war. Violence is reported daily in the news, but we are thankful for the Lord’s protection and haven’t personally witnessed nor been in the proximity of any of these sort of happenings. Out here in the mountains things are quite peaceful and we are enjoying our time with the people here.

We praise the Lord that our children’s passports have arrived and now we are waiting for Anne Marie’s “landed immigrant” visa to be granted and her passport returned. Pray also for a miracle to happen with our flight tickets. With the current economic situation, things are quite uncertain and prices are quite high. We’re trusting the Lord to be able to get a good deal on our family's flights to Australia for furlough.

THE BIG PRAYER REQUEST IS FOR THE NEXT DENTAL CLINIC IN NOVEMBER. WITH THE MILPILLAS AIRSTRIP NO LONGER OPEN FOR OUR USE, IT WILL MEAN THAT ONE OF US HAS TO NOT ONLY DRIVE OUT TO LAJAS WITH THE DENTISTS, BUT ALSO RETURN THEM TO DURANGO BY ROAD, AND THEN DRIVE BACK OT TO LAJAS. THIS IS QUITE A LOT OF DRIVING AND VERY VERY TIRING AND SO WE ARE PRAYING THAT EITHER THE MILPILLAS AIRSTRIP WILL BE A POSSIBILITY AGAIN, OR EVEN BETTER, THAT THE LAJAS AIRSTRIP WOULD BE ABLE TO BE USED.

We thank you for your care for us and the work through your prayers and gifts.

For Jesus,

Andrew and Anne Marie