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Newsletter, May 2005 We have a great group of helpers this term. Sara Beth from Alaska is here for her 3rd term and her first as a helper. Garrett from California is here for his second term. Jasie, who has been here in the past as a helper has returned and is doing a great job with all of our computer needs (which are usually many). We also have Stefan and Louis, a Swedish couple with us. They have been helpers at English L'Abri in the past and have come to spend time with us here as helpers. They are all doing a good job and are great to have around.2005 has been very good so far. Our winter term was an interesting one. Again, we had a good group of students. Many of them were having serious struggles and of those, a lot were not Christians. It was wonderful to see change take place in the lives of a number of these people. God can soften even the most cynical hearts and minds. We had a number of very good guest speakers last term as well. Byrne Power from Alaska came and spent a couple of weeks with us giving some interesting lectures on music and its relationship to history. Byrne has been with us a number of times in the past and always has good things to say. We also had lectures from Bryan Follis who is a pastor in Northern Ireland and has recently written a book on Dr. Schaeffer. He gave 3 lectures on the historical importance of Francis Schaeffer. They were all very interesting. Greg, Lisby and their family are doing well. Greg and Lisby enjoyed their time in America for the Jubilee conference. They were able to see and spend time with many people from the past. The boys, Vincent, Alexander and Lawrence all appear to be keeping busy. Karryn Goldsworthy and Kay are also doing well. Kay returned to the U.S. this past term for the marriage of her son and will be heading off to her daughter's wedding in July. Karen Sandri has also been working with us part-time. She is doing a meal every other week and is tutoring a couple of people. She ran Bellevue 10 years or so ago and it is nice to have her backin the work. Brian Shaw, who has been working with us in Bellevue for the past year but will be leaving after this summer term. He will be returning to the States to pursue further education in psychology. Brian will be missed when he leaves. We have also had Shelby Stewart working with us for the past couple of terms. She has just headed back to California where she will seek the next stage in her life. She was a great help and wonderful to have around. She is missed. Later in this term, Gregg Valariano will be returning to help us with the last part of term. Gregg was a worker here for a couple of years and left in 2000. He has been teaching at Montana State University and is giving up his summer vacation to come and lend us a hand. It will be good to have him back. Our family is doing well. Karen had a skiing accident in February though and tore some knee ligaments. It has been a long slow healing process, much longer than expected, and so it has made things a bit rough on her. It can be frustrating not being able to do the things you normally can do. She will be seeing a specialist this next coming week and so hopefully things will change soon. Please pray that the healing process will continue. Our children, Alexis and Simon, are enjoying life. Alexis is in 2nd grade and Simon is in his first year of kindergarten. Both like school and are happy that the warm weather is here so that they can spend time outside playing soccer and doing the things kids do. Mrs. Schaeffer was hospitalized recently and things looked fairly bleak for a number of days. Since then she is doing much better and is out of hospital. It was discovered that she has a stomach ulcer. Pray for her continued recovery. Jane, a nurse from Minnesota, came over to be with Mrs. Schaeffer and to aid in her care. She has been an incredible help and her time here has been a real gift. After some 20 years or so the Ingrams will be moving out of Chalet Melezes. They resigned from full-time L'Abri work over a year ago now and have just bought a house down in Ollon, which is only about a 10 minute drive down the hill from Huemoz. They will be moving towards the end of May and are very excited. They all either work or go to school down in the valley and so living in Ollon will make a big difference in their lives. They will be missed in Huemoz though. We do have a few pretty significant needs around the various properties. Last fall we mentioned that Chalet Bellevue was in need of a lot of electrical work. Much of that work was done by a work team from Burlington, Ontario. We were very grateful for all of those who donated money to help in this project. This electrical upkeep is required by Swiss law. The same work will need to be done in Melezes once the Ingrams move out. We are currently waiting for an estimate on the cost but we expect that it will be a fairly significant amount. The electrical hasn't been updated for as long as anyone can remember. The chalet that Karryn Goldsworthy lives in, Chalet Chesalet, is also in need of some work. There is a water line running from her front door to the road that has become blocked up by roots. We just had an estimate of 5000 CHF to dig it up and replace it. We are looking into all of our options right now but we are fully aware that something will have to be done soon. All of these chalets, while very old and very beautiful, do require a lot of upkeep. Please pray with us that we will be able to manage this.This past month has been a very difficult one financially. We were significantly short of money to pay our bills, let alone salaries. We are still in the midst of trying to figure out how we will manage. It has been some time since our financial situation has been this bad. Please pray with us for this situation to improve. In order to cut down on future costs we are asking that anyone who has an e-mail address to drop us a line at swissmailings@labri.org so that we can send all future newsletters to that address. If you don't have an e-mail address or if you would rather receive a hard copy do nothing and we will continue to send it to you via the post. We would also like to remind everyone that if you want to receive monthly prayer requests you can e-mail us at the above address or write to us. Again, most of these are sent to e-mail addresses but we will be happy to send them out manually if this means isn't possible. Thanks for your help in this. The work here continues to go well. Each of us are thankful for the opportunity to be here and to watch God work in the lives of the people that come through our doors. Because of the nature of the work we are never sure who God will bring or how long our doors will continue to stay open but God continues to act and for that we give Him praise. Richard Bradford ***All address changes and requests for the Swiss Newsletter and Prayerletter should be sent to our Swiss address or to by email to swissmailings. Tax-free receipts for gifts meant specifically for the work of the Swiss branch are available from Switzerland when the gifts are sent either to Huemoz or to the Rochester address with with a note specifying its designation. *** Swiss Address: L'Abri Fellowship, Chalet Bellevue, 1884 Huemoz, Switzerland. Tel: Int-41-24 495-21-39 Fax: E-Mail: Swiss@labri.org Web: http://www.labri.org *** U.S. Address: L'Abri Fellowship, 1465 12th Avenue N.E., Rochester, MN. 55906, USA. Tel: 507-282-3292. |
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