Faith & Patience Rewarded (at Last!)

June 3, 2009 will go down as a LANDMARK day! After months and months of hard work and waiting, Kent was finally issued the BUILDING PERMIT for our new national office today.

Our hearts rejoice over and over! We stand at the edge of the "Red Sea" with plans to dip our "toes" into the waters asking God to "part the sea" and provide the funds from heaven to begin construction.

This is the ideal time of year in Fiji to begin construction as we are now in our "dry season" until December. They estimate that it will take six months to construct the new office and training facility. We had 26 teachers in our training classes yesterday!

PRAY that God will miraculously PROVIDE the funds from amongst His riches to begin the construction soon. Our financial goal is USD$330,00.00 of which we currently have approximately $10,000.00 on hand.

BUT... we are READY... and WAITING on GOD. The NEXT "move" is HIS!

PLANTING SEEDS...Back to Basics!

We're trying something new that we've never done before! We're planting a small vegetable garden!

Fiji is just now being affected by the reality of the global financial crisis. Rising prices and job losses within the country are beginning to hit close to home for many families.

In that we tend to have extra people around our family dining table on a regular basis, Jeremy, Katelyn and one of our "Fijian sons", Kuki, are taking on the task of planting and caring for a small garden. We've planted tomatoes, okra, chinese cabbage (bok choy), english cabbage and local lettuce in the garden. Rain and sunshine are plentiful, so we're asking the Lord to bless the harvest of this little garden. It's a brand new experience for Jeremy and Katelyn!

Good News! Email's Up!

Good news (we think)! We have good reason to think that our regular email address is now working properly again (thank the Lord)! Several of you wrote saying that you were praying with us about this important matter. So, we thank you immensely. You may now resume use of

the.bryants@cefworld.com

to contact us via email. We apologize for the bounced emails if you wrote to us during our month-long "trial" when this address was down.

Thanks for being our friends. Drop us a line when you can! We'd love to hear from you.

E-MAIL WOES CONTINUE!

These pictures have absolutely nothing to do with email problems, but I thought they might brighten up your day to see a picture or two of Fiji.

The email problems with our permanent email address (the.bryants@cefworld.com) continue, much to our dismay. It has been so disheartening to know that we've lost several hundred email messages during the past four weeks...most of which we'll never see again!

Anyway, try reaching us at either one of these two email addresses until our permanent one is up and running again:

ceffiji@connect.com.fj or kbcef@connect.com.fj


Thanks for keeping this situation in your prayers!

E-MAIL WOES!

Our personal e-mail address (the.bryants@cefworld.com) has been "down" for almost three weeks now. You can only imagine how frustrating that has been for us. If you've written to us and had your message "bounce" back to you, then please try to reach us at this address:

ceffiji@connect.com.fj

We will let you know when our permanent email address is up and running again. There has been a substantial problem on one of the servers used by CEF Headquarters which hosts our email address. Anyway, we apologize for being "out of touch" and we appreciate your patience and prayers for us!

Please pray for a quick resolution to these technical problems!

Standing at the Brink of Something Great

City Council officials have given us every indication that, after 2 years of hard work and lots of "running around", our application for a building permit for the new CEF National Office and Training Center is entering its final days! We are elated and have been told to expect the issue of the building permit by Wednesday of this week!

We take great comfort in knowing that our mighty God is not affected by the global financial situation. He is able to provide abundantly and above all that we ask or think.

Will you join us in trusting the Lord for His provision? How thrilling it would be to begin construction this June should the Lord provide the necessary funds. Early estimates indicate that the new building will cost approximately USD $330,000.00 given the current exchange rates. That's not too much for our Heavenly Father. So, with expectant hearts and great faith, we are asking Him to provide miraculously and almost immediately so that we can begin to make plans for construction to begin in June which is the start of our dry season in Fiji.

Many Teachers Trained in Weekly Classes

We have been so blessed and encouraged by the incredible turnout for our weekly teacher training classes. In addition to conducting a Tuesday morning class for SS teachers and Good News Club teachers, we've added an evening class this year. The response has been wonderful! We've had as many as 17 adults for the morning class and as many as 25 adults in the evening training class during the past two weeks.

Obviously, it is meeting a felt need and our hearts rejoice! Pictured here is our "training bure" (boor-ay means "house" in Fijian). It's simply a temporary shed that we've put up in the backyard of the CEF property to utilize while we wait upon God's provision of a new office and training hall (which will seat 100). Interest is growing and new faces appear each week. We have recently purchased 50 folding chairs and hope to fill every one of them soon! Please pray for God's continued blessings on our training ministries!