What fun it is to receive and share the “Warm Words of Love” English children’s books many of you have sent!  Tomorrow Jim and I will visit Felicity and Sam and their baby girl, and we will share with them and their three older daughters Curious George, and Garfield, and Laura Ingalls Wilder among others!  I saw personally the need for getting these books in these children’s hands on the Sunday I was with them to do the dedication service for the baby.  While the older girls understand spoken English, they struggled to make sense of the written word “graceful,” which I had used to describe the dancing of one of the girls. 

“Graceful,” they rolled the word around in their mouths. 

“It comes from the word ‘Grace’,” I explained. 

“Grace” they knew.  It’s one of the girls’ names.  “Graceful” was a new thing.  Naturally, I had to throw in “Gracious,” as well.  Being a visual learner, I wrote the words down on the bottom of the last page of my sermon and tore it off for them to take home.  Of course, all three girls clearly wanted to have something tangible to show for these moments we’d shared.  All out of sermon paper to write on, I gave the other two my card.  Tomorrow we will leave a book for each of them! 

Thanks to those of you who are doing the “Warm Words of Love” project.  Please remember to encourage people not only to give a book but to give the $24 support gift that makes it possible for us to serve these children and their parents. 

One dollar a day for a month makes it possible for us to travel to visit this family.  Remember that you can pledge and give directly to “Ongoing Support-Kelseys”, International Ministries, PO Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851 or go online and participate in the 360 Web-based Matching Fund Program in which case your $1 per day becomes $1.50 per day through the matching fund.

We and our IM colleagues need your support!  We have moved from 31.6 to 35% of our total support goal in the last two weeks. 

112 more people giving $1 per day, online or by mail, would get us to our Missionary Partnership Network support goal.  Every gift counts!

One of the books in the “Warm Words of Love” box we got today is I Knew You Could.  There is a little blue train engine on the cover.  Together Serving our Gracious God, We Know We Can!