Summer Safari Club! 🙂

Wow! What a summer it has been! We began a Summer Reading (aka “Safari”) Club in a new (to us) apartment complex in Clarkston. It was exciting, challenging, difficult, and rewarding. We are sooo thankful for the awesome summer interns that GenSend sent us and for the apartment that the Envision Atlanta ministry allowed us to use. The goal of our club was to increase literacy among our refugee students and to share the love and hope of Jesus during our Bible story time as well as when we interacted with the kids. We hope you enjoy the slideshow below. 🙂 The last four slides are of our final party. (Yes, school begins again here on August 2nd!)

Clarkston Bible Institute

Congratulations to the 4th class of CBI graduates! All of them were able to finish the school year – seven attending in person and two online. These students from Burma, Thailand, Iraq, and the U.S. now have a better understanding of the Bible and some tools to help them in their various ministries.

Sha Ko is a young man from Burma whom Patrick mentored this school year. Sha Ko’s family moved to a refugee camp in Thailand when he was 4 months old and he lived there for 20 years before coming to the U.S. in 2014. He became a Christian in 2017 through two Burmese friends who explained the gospel to him. Sha Ko will be helping his church with preaching and through music.

Together Again

As COVID concerns began to lessen this past spring our church was able to hold an outdoor combined worship service with the congregations who share the building. It was great to hear Pastor Gorashi (from the Sudanese fellowship) preach a solid Biblical sermon, and we enjoyed a variety of music – including some special songs by the youth choir of the Swahili Evangelical Refugee Church.

Zooming

Technically, Jan “Microsoft Teamed” (not Zoomed) her students for the entire school year. They were finally allowed to attend school in person beginning in March. At that point Jan began teaching virtually and in-person at the same time. Not easy, but she was DELIGHTED to be able to teach again from her classroom (instead of from home) and to have some real live students to interact with each day.

Meanwhile, Patrick was busy Zooming across the world. In addition to teaching at CBI he was asked to teach a class for CLTC during March – June. So, he supervised a study of Revelation for 7 students via Zoom.

Patrick is continuing to teach via Zoom for the 3rd term of the school year (July – September). His courses are Eschatology and Bible Exegesis & Exposition (using the book of Galatians). “Zoom teaching” is definitely not his favorite, but he is thankful that he is still able be part of the program at CLTC.

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As COVID infections have decreased in some parts of the world they have increased in others – including PNG. In March there was a COVID outbreak at CLTC. About 80 (out of 500) had symptoms. 5 had to be hospitalized but thank the Lord, they all recovered. Because of the increase in cases, travel restrictions have tightened even more. The PNG government is requiring arriving international travelers to self isolate for 21 days in a hotel room in Port Moresby at their own expense. So, we continue to wait for the door to open…

Family…

We enjoyed seeing both sides of the family this summer. See slideshow below.

The Young Halls…

Praise:

• Summer Safari Club – great interns and good connections with the kids
• CBI’s 9 graduates
• Jan able to teach in person again
• Patrick able to teach at CLTC via Zoom
• Zoom working well across the world (10,000 miles!)
• Safe travels and time with friends and family
• Preaching opportunities for Patrick

Pray:

• CBI students for next year. There are not many applicants so pray for the leadership as they consider how to move forward.
• CLTC depends on rain for its water supply and it has been dry for about 8 weeks and the dry season is only just beginning. Please pray for rain for them.
• COVID will decrease in PNG so that Patrick and others can return for in-person teaching
• Kristin. She will begin working on a Master’s degree in Christian counseling in early August. She has taken a job with Capital One so she can pay for school as she goes. She will be very busy working full-time and schooling full-time!
• Good communication and connection with the students in PNG, despite having to teach remotely.