Newsletter

Dear friends,

Our last newsletter found us recently returned from the Philippines. We traveled through an almost deserted Seoul airport and arrived to find the airports in the U.S. running normally. That changed a week later when international borders began to close. We are glad we returned before that happened, though we would not have minded an extended time in the Philippines. As with all of you, the Coronavirus has affected our lives in many ways. Here are some of them.

Church: We worshiped with our church here in Georgia that Sunday, and then for the next six weeks, we stayed home and watched online. Slowly, the church began to reinstate services. Now, most things are back online. People have overcome their fears of being together in a room, and we even sing! The difference is that Joan and I wear masks. We are not afraid for our own health, but we are concerned for the physically weak in our congregation.

Health: I continue to recover from my stroke. One provider told us that when you hit the one-year anniversary, you will not recover any more abilities. During the last appointment, the neurologist told us that he does not believe that. My verbal abilities were the most affected – speech, writing, spelling, and typing. Since those are activities I do every day, the neurologist expects me to continue to recover for a longer period than one year.

In January, doctors advised Joan to have surgery. Since she was not experiencing much discomfort,  the surgery was postponed until after our Philippines trip. Then the Coronavirus shut the hospitals. When they reopened, the surgery was scheduled and performed. She stayed overnight, but I was not able to be with her. However, I had recovered sufficiently so that I was able to drive her to the hospital and pick her up the next day. We even survived my cooking and washing for a while. She has recovered completely and is glad to have that behind her.

Children’s Ministry: Our church has reinstated its ministry to children, and we are grateful to be part of the children’s church team, but there were no special meetings planned this summer because of Covid. We also heard from neighbors that many of their children’s usual activities were canceled. So Joan sent out letters to the neighbors in our little subdivision of 22 houses to ask if anyone was interested in attending an outside Bible club. One of the neighbors contacted her and agreed to host it in her yard and they set a time. It was just three days because of the hosts’ schedule, but 12 children from the neighborhood attended.

Church Visits:

With churches closed, our visits to churches stopped. Now they are starting back up again. In September we are traveling to Maine to speak in churches there. If you live in Maine (or between Georgia and Maine) and would like to see us or have us share our ministry in your church, please contact us.

Through all these changes, one thing did not change. GOD. We rest in His unchanging character and thank Him for who He is and what He continues to do.

Prayer requests:

• Continue to pray for my healing. I am doing most things now, but I tire easily. The more tired I am, the harder it is to communicate clearly.
• Pray that we would be able to get back to our international ministry soon.
• Pray for our trip to Maine. We will need a Covid test before departing for Maine. Pray that it is negative. Pray for safety along the way and for Joan as she will be doing most of the driving on this trip. Pray that we would fill our calendar for our stay in Maine.

Please keep us in your prayers.

Charles and Joan Farley

Grounded

We have been grounded. Churches have stopped meeting. Planes have stopped flying. Most of our appointments have been canceled. For the unforeseeable future, we will stay put. But we have not been grounded like a naughty child for disobeying the rules. We have been grounded, like all of you, to prevent the spread of a deadly disease

.

A pastor's house in the Philippine countryside

We are grateful that, in the months previous to the pandemic hitting the U.S., we were able to be active. Charlie's recovery from the stroke was sufficient so that we were able to join a team from our church on a mission trip to Jamaica in early January. Although he could only be involved for about half the day, we were confident that his healing was progressing. Based on that trip, we booked tickets to go to the Philippines where Charlie would teach a class on church leadership at the Mindanao Evangelistic Baptist Seminary and Institute. 

Charlie's class

Our trip to the Philippines was a huge blessing. Charlie taught a group of ten pastors and teachers who are working on obtaining a Master of Ministries degree.  The school provided a guest room so we could stay on campus. That allowed him to rest during the lunch hour so that he would have the energy he needed to teach in the afternoon. The seminar format he used was easier for him to manage with his compromised speaking skills.

I prepared the students for their summer ministry of VBS by teaching them a curriculum about Daniel. Due to a bad cold I picked up just before leaving the U.S., I almost lost my voice. God was gracious in allowing me to continue, but it was touch and go for a while. As a result, I gave them more responsibility for teaching each other, and that seemed to work well. 

My class

We returned to the U.S. just in time to avoid the quarantine in the Philippines. Our flight back was almost empty, and we were able to stretch out and sleep. We are planning to return to Mindanao next year for a longer trip with added ministry opportunities to the rural churches.

We are grateful that we still have plenty to do. Charlie has resumed his speech therapy and he's trying to figure out the next step in his doctoral program. I, too, have several projects that need my attention.

Right now, we are thankful to be grounded in the Lord. May you, dear reader, be rooted and grounded in the love of God so that this pandemic and the ensuing economic difficulties will not sway you from the total security that is found in Christ. (See Eph. 3.)

New Things in Jamaica

We have gone on many trips to many countries. Many of the experiences are familiar. Packing, wrestling with suitcases, travel to the airport, checking in, going through security, flying, layovers, customs and immigration are all things that we expect.

Our team

Yet our trip to Jamaica had some things we had not experienced in a long time, and it even had some new experiences for us.

This was the first time to travel with people from our church and to be under the leadership of our pastor. It was a good experience. We enjoyed getting to know each of these people better. It's one thing to show up on Sunday and Wednesday to worship and pray together. It is even better to spend an entire week with them and get to know them on a 24-hour basis. It was especially good to spend more time with the three teenagers who were on our team.

This was also the first time we went to Jamaica on a mission trip. Charlie visited there years ago when he was serving with the Navy, but I had never been there. It was good to get to know the Jamaican people and to experience a little of what it means to be a Jamaican Christian. We were invited by the pastor to return, so maybe we will go back.

Street evangelism

Only once before (in Guatemala) were we invited to speak in a public school. We were given our assignments: the teens would lead in singing and I would give a devotional. I had 12 minutes. That is not enough time to develop a story, so I decided to teach from a verse in Isaiah. Then the day before we found out that we would be divided into four teams. Charlie and I were one team. So I taught and he played along, driving home the various points. Afterward, the lead teacher asked me for the reference so that she could go home and teach it to her children.

There were other firsts:

• We passed out candy packages with tracts in them. The children eagerly grabbed them, but some of the teenagers refused.  
• We approached some men sitting outside a bar playing dominoes to give them tracts and they turned down the music so they could hear what we said. As soon as we walked away, the music blared again.
• We took shelter under a tree, hoping that the rain would pass. It didn't, so we returned soaking wet to the compound after passing out tracts on the street.
• Charlie spent more time resting. His stamina has not yet returned since his stroke, and he needed more time between activities.
• We invited a person who was smoking weed to church.

Every trip has firsts. This was no different. A major difference, however, was that this was the first trip we took after Charlie's stroke. How grateful we are that God still has work for him to do.