NTM

To Our Dear Friends, Family, Prayer Partners, and coworkers,

I have been thinking about writing to you and telling you all the things that have been happening in our lives over the last months. Each time I write I struggle with what to put in this letter and what to leave out. One of the things that I know I would like to tell you right from the beginning is how thankful we are for you. I have thought so many times recently about your love and care and prayers for us. The Lord has used it to sustain us through some difficult days, to excite us about being part of something bigger than us, and to help keep us focused on what we are really doing here at NTMA McNeal. You may not fully know until we are all with the Lord just how much your prayers, care and support have kept us serving when all we wanted to do is quit. Thank you for helping to keep us accountable to what the Lord has for us by being a testimony to us by doing your part in this ministry. We appreciate you so much.

As I write this, I’m packed in the backseat of Drew’s little Saturn SL2 like a sardine surrounded by suitcases. Tim & I made a quick trip to MI to bring him home from Bible school. This was an unexpected trip but life is all about the unexpected isn’t it? We are on the third day of this very long trip and I must say that my body doesn’t handle inconvenience very well anymore! But the trip allowed us to be able to spend a couple days with Jessie and Randy and to see my sister and brother and their families. I told Jessie on the way home that I would pack into anything for three days for a couple days with her.  The Lord is good. Please be praying for Drew as he looks for a job and looks into starting paramedics training in the winter semester.

Guess what? NTMA’s first Kodiak is scheduled to be arriving in McNeal at the end of November! We are very excited at how much this airplane is going to help on our fields overseas. It will cost less for the missionaries to use as well as be able to carry more. It also uses jet A fuel which is readily available in the countries we work in. The Lord continues to provide in this project of replacing most of our fleet of aircraft with this airplane over the next ten years. We already have 14 Kodiaks paid for! It has been amazing to see how the Lord is doing this even in the midst of many obstacles. This is a huge project with many millions of dollars involved. Please pray for Tim and the other leaders as they seek the Lords wisdom in this project.

Remember us asking you to pray about a meeting Tim had in FL in August to meet with our Executive board and Foreign ministries committee about the future/direction of NTMA? We feel like those meeting were very profitable in being able to hear the direction the mission is taking and how aviation fits into that plan. NTMA will need to be making some changes in how we access some countries and in some of our philosophies. Please be praying for wisdom for Tim and the leaders here as they look at the changing world and make decisions on how to make NTMA even more effective.

On the home front things are flying along at a normally fast pace. Marie and Ben are nearing the end of the Fall sports seasons. Marie was nominated for homecoming princess this year. It was so fun to see her all dressed up and riding on the top of the silver Corvette. She was more excited about riding in the car than she was about the whole princess thing! She looked so beautiful and it will be a fun memory for her for a long time.

Jessie and Randy are doing well and are still planning on going to Missions training in Durham in the Fall. Jessie is working as a secretary part time at a church in Michigan and Randy is busy working many different jobs.

I also wanted to share something new that is happening with me. I am now an Avon lady! Now before you all groan in disbelief …I want you to know that I have been thinking and praying about it for quite a while now. There are a few reasons why I decided to step out by faith and give it a try. One is, I really like Avon products and feel like they are more affordable than even Wal-mart many times. Second, Tim and I are still in the 50”s percentile in our support and I thought it may be something I can do to help us out some without taking too much time. Third, it may even provide more opportunity for ministry with different ladies, and fourth, it only cost $10 to get started! So, if you like Avon and you would like to help us out in that way, you can order through my online web site and it will be delivered right to your door. The web site is: www.youravon.com/susannesanford. You will need to register by creating a login name and password that you will use each time you want to order.

So, as I wrap this up, I want to thank each of you who took the time to read this and hear a bit of what is happening in our lives. If you ever have any questions about our ministry here or things going on with us, we would love to talk with you anytime. Our home telephone number is 520-642-3870 and Tim’s cell number is 520-266-9025. You can also e-mail either of us at tim_sanford@ntm.org or sue_sanford@ntm.org.

Love in Christ,

Tim & Sue

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 12:06 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.