April 6, 2006

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are in the middle of our furlough and are on the road quite a lot right now. We are thankful for the many opportunities we are having to visit churches and attend conferences. I will not attempt to name everywhere we have been, but we were in five states in March. We will plan to return to Brazil in July. We still have a few openings if any church would like us to come. Ursula sometimes is able to travel and sometimes not. We are now getting ready to go to the Spring Mission Conference at the Thompson Road Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. We will be in two other churches while there. Ursula is packing to go even though she is in a lot of pain with her arthritis.

The news from Brazil is generally good. One of our preaches is terminally ill with cancer. He is in much pain but secure in the Lord. The rainfall has been much more than normal this year in Central Brazil. It has caused many farm workers to be unemployed. We have two churches that are in these communities and it causes many people to move away. Pray for these works and for the workers.

On Sunday evening at 9 p.m., Ursula's sister and brother-in-law are to arrive at the airport in St. Louis. As you know, Ursula was able to be reunited with her family in Germany last year after 45 years without having seen them. Now some of her family is actually coming to see her. To us it is a miracle! We had lost all hope of seeing her family again. The Lord is so good. We appreciate all who made that trip to Germany possible. We also thank all of you who support our mission work in Brazil as well as the other missionaries. God bless you all.

Harold & Ursula Draper