As we close out the year of 2024, we are amazed at all that the Lord has done in our lives. Let’s begin on the personal level by sharing that we were able to mark one of the major entrees of Delron’s “bucket list” – the Aurora Borealis. During our family Thanksgiving dinner last year, Delron brought up the fact that he was hoping to mark off at least one of the items on my “bucket list” during the coming year. When he mentioned that the next item was to see the Aurora Borealis, the whole family got excited and, before the end of the day, we had booked a family trip to Alaska for January – intending to brave the sub-zero weather with determination to go during the best season for possible sightings. Soon, we had all arranged our schedules for the trip and had invested in appropriate gear for the arctic adventure. But, two days before our departure, there was a major incident with one of the Alaskan Airline planes – a portion of the fuselage fell off during flight! Of course, this malfunction resulted in the grounding of the entire fleet, canceling all our plans. In what seemed almost like a compensation, Colorado was hit with an arctic storm that same weekend, giving me a chance to try out my subzero-weather-rated clothing, and the AV department at our church chose scenes of the Aurora Borealis as the background for the projection of the words to the songs during praise and worship that Sunday. Even though we were all extremely disappointed, there was a lesson to be learned. We had been praying for clear weather so that we would be able to see the aroura when we got to Alaska, but we had never prayed that we would actually be able to get there! After all, who would ever have dreamed that our plane might fall apart? The lesson – be specific in your prayers and let the Holy Spirit direct your prayers when you don’t know exactly how you should be praying. (Romans 8:26-28) In a funny twist, a couple months later, I found an error in the Readers Digest explanation of one of the words in its “Word Power” list. The sentence that they used to
illustrate the usage of "lucently" stated that people who live near the North and South Pole can see the aurora borealis lucently. Actually, the people at the South Pole can only see the Aurora Australis. This mistake reiterated the fatality of assuming rather than knowing the truth. Later in the year, we decided to change plans and go to Iceland on a family trip in hopes of seeing the Northern Lights from there. The Lord granted us favor by allowing us to see the celestial display three nights in a row – something that the locals say is extremely rare. In addition, they also told us that they had not seen the lights for weeks prior to our arrival!
In the ministry of Teach All Nations, we were also able to mark off a number of accomplishments. When we were in Nepal in 2023, Delron felt impressed to expand the dorms of the Bible college Teach All Nations built and the commercial spaces which help support the school, to reprint several of his out-of-print books, and to initiate a project of installing church-libraries to serve believers who cannot afford to purchase their own books and study materials. We are excited to announce that all the necessary funds for these projects came in and the libraries are now in place, the new editions of the books have been released, and construction on the expansion at the Bible college is nearing completion. When in the Congo in 2023, we were able to help an underfunded hospital by supplying an ultrasound machine to enable the doctor to examine the pregnant ladies. When Peggy had the opportunity to witness the inaugural use of the instrument which resulted in an emergency C-section that saved the baby’s life, she felt impressed that we should find a way to provide all the life-saving equipment needed for the hospital. In conjunction with Redeeming Love Ministries, Teach All Nations was able to supply a forty-foot shipping container filled with medical supplies to fully equip the hospital. We were also able to fully equip a hospital in Liberia that Teach All Nations helped construct. Smaller, but no less significant, accomplishments include helping reconstruct homes in Myanmar that were destroyed in the civil war and a major typhoon, replacing the ministry vehicle of our ministry partner in Niger after terrorists abducted him, held him hostage for three months, and torched his vehicle in an attempt to destroy evidence that could lead back to them, supplying audio Bibles in the local languages for Honduras and a Muslim-majority country, and providing our books free of charge in all the nations we ministered throughout the year.
Our ministry travel took us literally to the “ends of the earth”: behind the Quran Curtain, Albania, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Honduras, and the United Kingdom, plus locations in the US –Florida, Maryland, Indiana, and our home state of Colorado. In each of these foreign countries and domestic locations, we were privileged to lead training conferences for pastors and business leaders as well as women’s meetings. Through those local believers who were trained, equipped, and empowered through the ministry of Teach All Nations, what is being accomplished in their local communities is immeasurable!
