January 9, 2008

Dear Friends in Christ,

We are into the new year. We have many blessings to count during the year that has passed. We always marvel at His great grace and mercy in our lives. I hope this letter makes the mission sheet. The lightning hit my computer through the telephone line and burned out my modem. I am at an office here in town, using their computer. We hope to be back up and running soon.

We had visitors here in Cuiaba this past month. Ursula's sister and her husband were here for 13 days. We took them along on a mission trip to Primavera do Leste and took them to regular and special services in some of our other works. They were well received here and made friends. They speak no Portuguese, so we had to translate. I'm not very good in German so most of this fell upon Ursula. We had a good time together but were tired by the time they left and they were glad to get out of this extreme heat and chaos and back to quiet, organized Germany. It was a good experience for them and exposed them to the truth of God´s word to a degree.

We are seeing some souls saved and having six awaiting baptism at this time. Our worker at Novo Diamantino needs some surgery to remove a large cyst in his groin. Pray for him. He is on a waiting list that may take a year in the government medical system. We are trying to help him have it done soon if we can come up with the finances. It will cost about $1,800 for this.

We had a wonderful New Year's Eve service at the Boa Esperança Church; Other churches here also had good services, too. This month of January, the kids are out of school and many families travel to see relatives . This hurts some the attendance but is part of the culture here.

We ask that you pray for us as we labor here. The extreme heat takes a lot more out of us at age 65 than it did at 35 years old. Ursula suffers more than I do. I just heard that Sister Betty Creiglow broke her leg. We pray that the Lord will give grace to her and Brother Bobby now. They seem like family to us.

We see on the news the trouble in Kenya. We pray for our missionaries who labor there that this will not hinder their work. We must place all in the Lord´s hands.

We thank all of you who support our work as well as the other missionaries. May God bless you and give you a good year!

Yours in Him,

Harold & Ursula Draper