Newsletters

March 2004

The True God Moves in Western Asia

I couldn’t help but think of Andrew and me as I observed this father and son come into the mosque for prayer. It was a poignant reminder of the graciousness of God in bringing me to Himself and of the deception of the false god of Islam.

What a city! People, people everywhere. No one could agree on whether the city was home to 14 million or 17 million (it’s growing all the time. All we knew is that wherever you went it looked a little like this. While it was crowded, we had so much fun in this great city, taking busses, ferries, taxis, taxi minivans and trams to get around and eating lots of bread, lamb and Tutku (chocolate cream filled cookies).

My best conversations of the week came on our last day on campus. Luke (far right) and I met Mahmut, Dogan, and Alper (L to R) who were American Culture and Literature majors. Needless to say they were excited to talk to us! We talked about many subjects including our faith in Jesus Christ. At the end of our conversation we gave each of them New Testaments in their language. Mahmut said that he wanted very much to learn more about Jesus and Dogan stopped me before we left and thanked me emphatically for giving him a New Testament. They will be followed up by one of the short-term Campus Crusade workers in the city.

This is a picture of one of the gates we had to pass through, without drawing attention to ourselves, to get on campus. We visited 7 campuses all together including 3 campuses that our short term workers had never been to. Some of our students had amazing conversations with the students, even finding some who seemed very close to coming to Christ. Also, five random students showed up to the weekly “New Life” outreach meeting on Friday simply because one of our students had handed them a flier (this never happens!).

I was really proud of our group! They really trusted God to go to this city in spite of the appearance of danger (which there was no sense of when we were actually in the city). God used them greatly in the lives of the national college students through the week and allowed them to have a great time together. Already some of these students have changed their summer plans to go back to the city this summer. Prayerfully some of them will also choose to take a year after graduation to do a STINT (Short Term International) with Campus Crusade in this city. Thank you for your prayers and support that made my trip possible!

Kids' Corner

I spend a lot of my day playing trains now. My Papa made me a train table and I got it while Daddy was in that country overseas. It’s fun to make lots of different tracks and run the trains around. Sometimes I even let Daddy play with me!

-Andrew

No more diapers for me! I like to be big and wear my Dora underwear. And so far I’ve only shown one close friend! Daddy brought me back a bunny rabbit from the country he visited and I like to sleep with it. Andrew got a leather camel.

-Lauren

I have hands! That is my latest discovery. It is so much fun to reach up and play with the toys that are hanging down from my activity gym.  And I have started sucking on my fingers instead of my thumb. Much easier to get to! I am sleeping 10 hours a night and it feels so great to get so much sleep that I don’t like to wake up!

-Lindsey

Dr. Lauren Ardle and Dr. Andrew Ardle prepare to examine their patient.

Andrew Update

For two years now Andrew has been taking medication three times a day for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Last week we went to the rheumatologist and she is pretty sure he is in remission. Praise the Lord! We are weaning him off of the medication and will continue to watch for indications of a flare-up. He will still need to see an eye doctor 4 times a year for 2 more years, then twice a year for 6 years to monitor for a condition associated with his form of arthritis. The doctor said that only 10-20% of children who go into remission have another flare-up of the arthritis. We appreciate all of the prayers you have lifted to the Lord on Andrew’s behalf over the past two years. He is very active at this point and his only limitation is that he has extra bone growth in his left knee and can’t bend it completely.

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