Greetings Family and Friends,

Much has happened since our last writing. I trust you were able to rejoice in the celebration of our risen Saviour this past week. Through His temptation and suffering he identified with us, through death He redeemed us and rising He was victorious over all that can bind us. Living and victorious, we can have confidence in His power to help us overcome and have confidence in Him.

Many of you know that not long after our last writing, we received the distressing news that, our grandaughter had been taken to glory suddenly in spite of her 7 months of miraculous life. We rushed home for a few weeks to be with Jessica, Rory and the rest of the family during this very difficult time. These situations are some of the most difficult things serving the Lord, distant from family and your prayers for us and the family have not been in vain. Though difficult, the presence of the Holy Spirit has been our strength.
We would also appreciate prayer for Daniel and Christine as they look for God’s direction for the next steps in their life and ministry as he was recently released from his pastoral contract. If it requires a move they will need to find a suitable buyer for their property in Kirkland Lake.
Stephen and Lisette continue to grow as a family with him continuing his position at Shopify.

This term has seen several highs and lows as a family with us returning twice for very difficult and important family situations. We look forward to our scheduled furlough, to reconnect with family and many of you as well. Our ministry has also seen many ups and downs. While continuing to be very busy we were sad to see our long-time coworkers, the Snyders, reach retirement and return home to family. On the positive side, we saw God’s answer to many years of prayers in the person of Andreas, a German fellow with many years of printing experience return here to Chad, full-time to take over the management of the Print Shop. We also welcomed the Vilhelmsson family, who have not been able to return to the lake region due to ongoing security issues. Martin Vilhelmsson with his mechanical training background from the Swedish army as well as his experience growing up on a farm has been a huge help to me. With some guidance and help from me, he has begun a maintenance training program with 4 young fellows; something I wished but never have had the time to commit to on a regular basis. Martin will also manage the station during our absence.
We recently had a request from some missionaries in Sarh (300km) who had 3 separate solar projects that needed doing.

Translation centre

I was able to take Martin and the guys with me, making what would have taken me the most part of a week, a 2 day project. We left on a Friday a 6am to begin work at 10ish and wrapped it up by 4pm Saturday, making it home in time for bed.

The following Monday, Kathryn and I were off to Bébalem for their 3rd trimester training on the use of biblical curriculum for the elementary schools in the area. With Cari Robertson (AIM missionary) at her side, they tag-taught 40 teachers from 9 schools, from 8am, to 5pm. It was a very encouraging day to see the teacher’s enthusiasm and feedback from previous workshops.

Bebalem teachers’ workshop, presentation

Bebalem teachers’ workshop crafts

We have some 20 christian elementary schools in the Moundou area and while a few are enthusiastic about what it means to bring God’s word into the classroom and teaching from a biblical world view, the participation has been very discouraging this past year. With the exception of the teacher’s club. When offering trainings or trying to schedule things we are confronted with a multitude of excuses or conflicts. It is very reminiscent of the rich man who prepared a feast who then had to resort to inviting the lame, the poor and whoever would come. Please pray that the local schools would engage in the huge opportunity to reach the students for Christ.
Kathryn also continues to teach EFL, 4 days a week in 2 levels. The intermediate class is a bit of a struggle this year as they are considerably below the expected level for intermediate students. The advanced class which in years past has been 5 or less now has 16 students, 2 which are middle aged ladies. They have many challenging discussions about beliefs, both cultural and biblical.
Kathryn also continues to tutor 2 of the least capable students from the reading intervention class. She just came in from her class all excited and interrupted my effort to grasp for just the right word. The girl who she has been tutoring the longest, started unable to read any letters or even write (copy/form) her own name after 6 years of school, just successfully read the first story out of a children’s story Bible.

For me Easter weekend, unfortunately, was spent, “getting someone’s donkey out of the ditch”, well Tuesday afternoon through Good Friday. Breakdowns and schedules do not always cooperate with each other. Our field leader recently snapped a timing belt while going over an overpass;This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG-20190427-broken-cam-1024x768.jpg yes, we have a couple of those in the capital. He subsequently had it repaired by a local mechanic who replaced a couple of bent valves, but was sure that was the only damage. Upon arriving home after the repair, it worked as well as a mosquito chaser as it did a truck. The mechanic told him the oil would burn off, however after several weeks and over 1000km nothing had changed much and there was also a persistent ticking in the engine that had not been there before.After another 450km and 1litre of oil he arrived to let me have a go at it. Upon disassembly I discovered 5 cracked valve guides which were feeding the mosquito chaser; parts which are not available in town. While working on this, a couple of men arrived saying that they needed an emergency medical evacuation This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG-20190418_104946-1024x576.jpgfor a friend who had been in a serious accident, a bus or car ride would be too long and rough and there were no scheduled incoming flights at the airport. Was there any way we could help. We immediately called MAF in the capital and they have a special financial program for these kinds of situations and could make it, but the plane was in the middle of an inspection which would take a couple of hours to finish. We told the men to go and make arrangements for transport and we immediately called a supplier in the capital to see if he could find parts for our current predicament. He soon called back saying the last of the new ones had just been sold to fix an NGO vehicle, but he could get “frozen parts” (good parts removed from accident vehicles). I was somewhat dubious of this, especially for a vital internal engine part, but gave him the go-ahead having him get a few extra. In the meantime,This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG-20190421-WA0003-1024x576.jpg I inspected the engine for further damage and it seemed mostly within spec. By God’s grace he got them to the plane shortly before takeoff and in less than 3hrs we had parts in hand. I inspected the parts and chose the best 5 out of 8. The parts seem to be working fine. Rich returned to NDj being able to see the road behind and used no perceivable amount of oil. Sorry, we have no follow up on the accident victim, but we trust him to God’s sovereignty and are simply grateful for the reminder of His ability to arrange things in our lives however small or big.

Looking forward, we have scheduled our return to Canada for mid July. This will allow Kathryn to finish up a few remaining workshops before the school year ends. Cari, who helped in Bebalem will try and recruit some assistance and carry on the second year of the Bible curriculum training there. We will try and re-kickoff the workshops in Moundou when we return after furlough. I have a solar/computer installation to finish up at one of the church’s new theological training centres and will try and leave the station is as good repair as possible before our departure. We also covet your prayers for the EET (church denomination with whom we work). There has been a major divide and the details are even beyond the scope of any one’s understanding. Suffice as to say that there has been several concerted efforts at reconciliation, but each has resulted in naught. Pray that the people will not become disheartened and fall away and that we would have wisdom and discernment on how to function in what is becoming a very messy and difficult situation.
Coming home, we also have several financial concerns for the coming years. We would like to continue to raise funds for the portable classroom libraries that we began for the Christian schools. They are about $1000 each. Our water needs on our station, since the Print Shop is running mostly on solar, have become more difficult to manage as the generator has less run time. It would be most advantageous to all to put the pump also on solar which would cost about $5000. Finally, our support base, has been reduced as some of our faithful ones have moved on to glory and our ministry with the teaching workshops has increased our expenses. We are looking to raise a minimum of an additional $500/mo. Please pray that the Lord would provide and lead us to those who would partner with us.

We thank each of you for your faithfulness and prayers and look forward to seeing many of you soon. May God continue to bless each of you for your part in His work.
Paul and Kathryn Weber

If you wish to give towards Christ’s work in Chad through us, online Click Here and enter our name in the box.