April 14, 2008

Dear Friends,

May our God, in His covenant love meet you today. We are blessed and so grateful for the love and prayers that you have made on our behalf, and we know for sure His covenant love has been with us. We do want to thank all of you who have been supporting us, especially with your prayers.

By His grace and will, we are all returning to the States on June 4 for our furlough, which may last through June 2009. We will first go to a family wedding (Walt’s sister Mary’s son Frank) on June 7, and then we will be flying out to California for a wedding and meeting with old friends and supporters both in Orange County and in San Louis Obispo. Walt will attend General Assembly from June 20 to 28 in San Jose, and the rest of us will travel back to New Orleans and then Greenville, South Carolina.

Our daughter Christiana, who was divorced last fall, has been staying with us and enjoying teaching and helping out at the school where Theo and Sarah attend. She also joined our church choir and loves singing with the mostly Congolese members, as well as playing her flute often for the services. Twice a month we have a prayer and praise meeting at the church, and she’s a big help with the music for that. She has been offered a job for the fall here also, so after going with us on our trips, she will attend a teacher’s workshop at Princeton, and by August 3 will be flying back here. We have been so thankful to have this time with her, and we ask for your prayers for her to discern what she should do about getting a master’s degree or a teaching certificate, as well as what she will do after December 2008.

We do not know yet where we will live, but we’d prefer northeastern Massachusetts, where my mother lives, and where Evangeline goes to school. However, with the cost of living so high there, we are considering living with Walt’s mother in Baton Rouge. We’re also hoping that our daughter Elisabeth and her husband Mat, with their two little ones, could live near us until they move to England in December. Mat will be planting a church possibly in the north of England sometime during 2009. We pray for the Lord’s clear leading for the housing and for the schooling of Theo and Sarah.

Our lives here have been richly blessed by people in our church, both the international ex-pats and the Congolese. It is a huge privilege to have people for supper often, when we can share with the folks in a relaxed, informal way about what the Lord is doing here in Kinshasa and our own lives.

The month of April is full with that, and then for May, we’ll be focusing on packing, sorting, and thinking through what we want to store here as well as what we need to take to the States.

We have high hopes of seeing many of you who have “been there” for us. Thank you all so much for the kindness shown us these very few years while afar in the DR Congo. Pray with us that the Lord will arrange opportunities to meet with you and let us thank you face to face. We would be delighted to meet with small groups over coffee—we do not need to have the formal setting of a worship service. So, if the calendar is already full at your church, know how grateful we would be for the “informal occasion” to meet with anyone who is interested in what the Lord is doing in this particular mission field. We are terribly eager to see you, so have some newspapers spread out! (Remember, Walt is part Labrador retriever!)  

It’s you that the Lord has used to keep us out here and to keep us faithfully on task. It’s you the Lord has used to keep us from running the wrong direction when challenged with some of the many obstacles this developing world can throw at us. We want to thank you all, as you have prayed us through some adventures, and then helped us with the constantly rising cost of living issues day to day.

Very gratefully, in Christ,

Val and Walt Shepard

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 17

Our email address we’ll use in the states is: walt.shepard@gmail.com and our “home address,” until we’re sure of where we’ll stay is:

Mrs. Walt Shepard
3001 Du Soleil Ct.,
Baton Rouge, La. 70810
(225) 769-8413