Urgent Manila Trip

By Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb and Josiah -
Dear Praying Friends,

We have a urgent prayer request that we would like to share with you.

If you have been reading our updates you know of the problems that we have been having with Gilmer's paperwork to get back to the States. Things right now continue to look grim. We spoke to an Immigration Officer last Friday and, according to her, there is no hope that the re-entry permit will be reissued. This comes as a shock to us considering we have spoken to 3 other Immigration Officers that said to just wait. They did not say that there was no chance. She also told us that the only thing we could do is ask the Embassy to give us a Transportation Letter. We had not heard about this letter before even though we asked them repeatedly to let us know if there was anything else we could do.

So feeling like we need to exhaust all our options, and at least find out if there is anything the Embassy can do, we are headed for Manila in the morning. We could not send this out earlier due to a typhoon that passed close to us and caused us to be stuck in the house for 2 days with no power for half that time. Thankfully there was no damage, just a lot of clean-up.

Nhaya will stay here with one of the girls from the church since her ballet recital is on Saturday and she can't miss her practices!

Please pray for us, (and Nhaya) as we travel (6 hours)
- that we can talk to the right people at the Embassy, we will go on Wednesday morning but for most of you that's Tuesday night.
- that they would look favorably on our situation and help us find a solution
- and for us to have wisdom to know how to proceed if the Embassy can not help us.

We are not sure why we are still here, not being able to get back to the States as we had planned- but God does-and we trust that there is a purpose for all of this. Even during this time of waiting we are encouraged at how God has been using us here. Gilmer is doing some great things with the youth, and excited about working with them, as well as being involved in some weekly Bible Studies for new believers. I was able to help start our first ever Women's Fellowship this last Saturday. It went very well, and I am excited to see these women encouraging each other, learning, and growing together. So we also praise God for all that He has done while we wait and just pray that somehow this situation will bring about glory to Him.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and for partnering with us to reach the Filipino's for Christ.

Serving Him,
The Paden's
Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah
I Cor. 15:58

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