To help all of the students as they pray for our missionaries this summer, here is the latest newsletter from Jordan and Laura Bracy, serving in Madagascar.

Hello Friends,

First we want to just thank you so much for your prayers! We know that being far away makes it difficult to pray for someone (especially when there are many things at home that demand your attention)! We want you to know that your prayers are a huge encouragement to us! We also want you to know that we thank God for you whenever we think of you.

At the end of this week we will finish the first “unit” in our curriculum. A lot has happened over the past 12 weeks! This week Daniel (Unit Leader of AIM Madagascar) has come to visit our team and to help “debrief” us with one of our team members having returned home. We are pleased to have him here! This past Sunday, June 23, our team leader just found out about a death in her family. Please keep her and her family in your prayers. She has worked very hard for us and has sacrificed a lot for us. She has had a lot on her plate, especially when we arrived, so please pray for God’s strength and peace for her and her family. Pray that she will be able to make it to the funeral, as she really wants to be there with her family.

Our team has a planned outing this weekend to celebrate the end of our first unit! We would appreciate prayers for a time of refreshment and renewal for all of us. After that we begin our second unit, in which we will be focusing on spiritual warfare. This second unit will begin with 2 weeks of “intensive” language learning.

We were recently able to put some pictures on our blog: byhisgrace.aimsites.org/media/photos of us, our house, and our kitty. Check them out!

“Walking” Water:

Upon arriving in our village, we were pleased to find that there is a public fountain that is about a minute walk from our house where we can get water. In the local language we learned the word for “going” is also the word for “walking.” And that term is also used to describe that the fountain is working – or that the fountain is “walking.” While it has been very nice to have this fountain so close to us, it has also proved to be somewhat frustrating as it is not always “walking.” When the fountain is not working we have to find another fountain in town that does work, but on occasion there are days (like the past couple of days) when none of the fountains work. That means that everyone has to go to the well to get water, which happens to be on the exact opposite side of town near a clinic. Well, we have 3 jerry cans which hold 20 Liters (about 5.3 gallons) each and two buckets that we use to hold our water. And that works out really well when the fountain nearby is running, but when it’s not that makes life a little more difficult. There was one day when one of our teammates and I (Jordan) were waiting in line at one of the few fountains that were working (barely working) and we noticed our neighbor going somewhere else to get water. Our neighbor invited us to come along and get water at a different place. We both thought that we would go to a fountain that not many people new about at the time that was running nearby. Well, we walked through the middle of town, past the clinic and the other side of town and continued going for much longer than either of us wanted to trek. We eventually ended up at a fountain that was running really well, which was nice, but hiking 15 minutes with a jerry can and two buckets was a bit further than we had planned. The walk back took us a bit longer.

Prayer Requests:

Pray for our team leader and her family as they work through the death of a family member.

Praise that we have reached the end of our first unit.

Praise that we are starting to feel at home in our new home.

Praise for progress in language learning.

Continue to pray for language learning and relationships to be built.

By His Grace, For His Glory