March 6th, 2009

Dear Friends,

Greetings from St. Vincent and the Grenadines! We trust you all are encouraged in His faithfulness and reading His word! The Lord has "been there" for mankind throughout all generations (Ps. 90:1). Especially in these troubled times we need to choose to look to Him for wisdom, help, and a right perspective (Ps. 90:12). He has the world and its occupants, both great and small, in His soverign hands- the protests of humanists and atheists not withstanding (see Ps. 2:4 for God's perspective).

As we review the ministries the Lord is allowing us to be apart of, we can only thank Him for the privilege of being a very small part of His world-wide witness. Firstly, our little church here, Choppins Baptist, continues to be such an encouragement to us as we see God work through opportunites to serve there and minister with Pastor Bonadie.

2nd SEMESTER IS WELL UNDER WAY HERE AT BAPTIST BIBLE COLLEGE OF THE CARIBBEAN.

We are in the midst of a full slate of classes, block courses, etc, as well as our annual Choir Tour. You make ask, "What is choir tour?" Well, throughout the entire first semester Debbie has been practicing with the students in preperation for the entire student body's annual ministry in nearly a dozen churches here on the island in March and April. She was able to obtain some good choir pieces and the students have worked hard to memorize the words and music to about 15 different songs. There are about 28 of us traveling each weekend so, please pray for safety on the roads here, as well as for God's blessing as the student's minister in song, and some of the male students provide the preaching.

Many of our students also go out during the week and lead Bible Clubs in various locations. There are five groups of men and women that minister in this way on a weekly basis. For years this has been a very effective ministry, as well as giving the students practical experince. All of our students are also expected to be active in a solid local church, teaching Sunday school. preaching (men, except for freshmen), being youth group leaders, leading song services, teaching children's church, etc. It is our prayer here at BBCC that these young people will mature in the Lord and become humble servants of His.

Academically, we are enjoying our various classes and find it rewarding to play a part in helping train the local students for the future minitries God has for them in this region of the world. Along with our day courses this semester, Mike is also teaching an evening class at BBCC on youth minitry which, like our previous night classes, is open to members from our local churches to attend. This one has been the largest attended evening class yet for our college. Obviously there is a major interest in helping young people. It's a belessing to see churches encouraging members to attend. With the goal of trying to better minister to their youth and help them grow in their christian walk. These are challenging days, but the churches here are sensing an urgent need to disciple and nurture their young people to spiritual maturity, for which we praise God.

Campus Bibile Fellowship: The Friday night CBF meetings have brough various students from the new medical college The Trinity University of Medicine. You will recall that the pervious medical college located here, suspended operations for an indeterminate period of time. But last September this small, new medical college opened, brining about 35 students for the first semester. Mike immediatley went over and started making contacts to begin weekly fellowships, and it has provided another open door to minister. Second semester more students were accepted and the student body has increased. Please pray for an effective witness and for us to be open and helpful to the students God brings into our lives. The students come into our home every Friday night for our CBF Bible study and fellowship and hail from Canada, St. Vincent and the USA.

"Furlough" Update: We try to always be sensitive to God's timing and leading in our plans as a family, and with the mintisries he has given to us. We are rapidly approaching the end of another full, 4 year term of service, after which the vast majority of missionaries, ourselves included, normally return to the States to report to our churches. We weren't sure if that was going to be possible, since we have been quite short-handed at BBCC the past couple of years. However this fall, Lord willing, a young couple from Northland Baptist also anticipationg the arrival of a new BMM career missionary couple, Alan and Beth Hill to teach at BBCC. With these two couples on the way, along with the half-dozen quality West Indian Teaching staff we have presently have, we felt God leading us to take our normal furlough after four years of service here in St. Vincent. Alan and Beth have agreed to live in our rental home here during out furlough. That will help them to quickly get settled and situated into the country and the ministries...as the house is conveniently located just 1/2 mile from the BBCC campus. It will aslo keep us from losing our rental house, which would have necessitated completely moving out, storing our belongings somewhere for the year (who knows where?), and then causing us to have to find a new place to rent upon our return. So we can see God's timing in all of this. In that regard though, please pray for Alan and Beth as they still need to obtain their remaining support (they are at 75% now). Their goal and heart's desire is to arrive here in SVG in July. 09.

As we close on our nearly 25 years of foreign missionary service, we can't even to begin to express our appreciation to so many of you who have encouraged us with your concern and prayers during the past 2 and 1/2 decades! Without the Lord's help and your intercession, we would have fallen flat on our faces or just plain quit, many times. You have stood with us. You have watched our chilrdren grow up through the photos and descriptions in our prayer letters over the years, and have prayed for us through thick and thin. We truely appreciate you caring enough to continue to read and pray for what the Lord is doing through our feeble efforts. And we would echo from our hearts the lords of Luke 17:10 "We are at best unprofitable servants, and have done only that which we ought to have done." We treasure each of you in many different ways, and thank Him for bringing you into our lives.

Final highlights and requests before closing... Please pray for our daughter Grace to have a safe delivery of their daughter, Piper Ruth. Grace's due date is early May and Debbie plans to fly up to be with her and help Isaac as well as little Piper.

Mike and Charity will remain here in St. Vincent for the BBCC graduation on May 15th. In addition, Mike has a week of special meeting scheduled in St. Lucia after that. He and Charity will be going there and he would apprecitate your prayers for that ministry opportunity in the island country directly above us, and that God would bless His word as it's preached and taught from May 24-28. After that they will fly up in early June.

We hope to see many of you during our furlough year and to catch up with what God has been doing in your lives and places of service as well! Please continue to pray for the Bible College here in St. Vincent- it is a tremendous ministry and we pray for God's continued blessings on it while we are gone.

 Your Missionaries to St. Vincent and the Genadines,

Mike, Debbie, and Charity Edwards