Friday 20 October 2017

prayerletteroct2017

                                                October 19, 2017
Dear Praying Friends,

Thanks so much for your love and support, for Jesus’ sake.  In the past quarter, Ruth and I were able to return to Asia on July 4th, with nearly full strength for Gospel ministry.  Praise God.

Through your prayers to our Father, we had 4 very productive weeks of Gospel ministry in India.  These included my preaching every Sunday, teaching Matthew ch 5 and II Timothy in a Bible Institute, speaking in a day-long conference on the doctrine of salvation, and traveling to ten remote rural areas to teach ten groups of pastors various half-day seminars on the topics which we believe to be the most important and helpful to them, always hoping to exalt our Lord Jesus and His greatness to people.  

Ruth was very busy helping in the Christian school she’s been involved with the past couple of years. 


Thankfully, the several days we had in the school in Philippines, were also very good. There I taught the Book of Psalms and spoke in four daily chapels.  Ruth conducted English sessions each day as well.

For most of the three months our focus was on Singapore.  Besides preaching each Sunday, I was able to conduct a number of training sessions for congregational leaders (on sermon preparation and on worship leading), and otherwise pursue people with the Gospel.




Overall, I feel very grateful that things are getting back to normal for Ruth and me after the very unusual first half of 2017 we had.  Thanks for continuing to pray for us.  We’re hoping to have good health and strength and eager to plan for 8-9 months overseas in 2018, with our Lord Jesus’ help and blessing.

Please Pray:

·  For our travels here in the USA, as we’ve just returned from Asia, and have arranged to visit several supporters to make missionary reports.
· Concerning our next planned overseas trip (India and Singapore), which is to start on December 9th.

Chit-chat:  In Singapore, India and Philippines, it was a real thrill for us to enter into many dozens of personal, one-on-one, times of teaching and Christly fellowship.                     For several weeks in Aug-Sept, during the weeks we had a good bit of our air travels, Ruth needed to see another ENT who put her through examinations and tests.  It was a real stress-reliever to hear him say at the end of all that, that she seemed to be fine.                 Our daughter Elizabeth new baby’s due date has been moved up to mid-November.  May the Lord Jesus bless, protect and preserve her and the newborn.              Mary, our second daughter, and her family completed 4¼ years since first departing the USA for missionary service.  They came back from Togo, West Africa, for their first regular furlough, just last week.


              Hurricane Irma threatened the homes of quite a number of our family members in South Florida, but, at the last moment, it seemed to divert far enough to the west that they really got little more than a minor power outage and a few trees blown over, harmlessly.  May the Lord be very merciful to the families who suffered much more than that.                  

Blessings to you all,
Stephen and Ruth Schaefer
John 14.23

         “Serving with the International Gospel Missions”                               990 Calkins Road,  Rochester, NY  14623                        Phone:  585-334-9048