January 21, 2007

From: Chris McKinney

1/21/2007 Dear Friends and Family,

Happy New Year! We want to thank all of you who supported us through 2006 with your prayers, communication, and contributions. We were blessed to see many of you when we were in the U.S. in the summer, and treasure our memories of time spent with you. We were not able to visit all of you, which was frustrating, but our trip was short and we hope to see those of you we missed on our next trip, whenever that will be.

Several of you have asked how we are doing, now that both Cormack and Caitlan are living in the U.S., going to college. (Cormack is at Hope International University in California, and Caitlan is at Wheaton College in Illinois.) We are fine. Our family is smaller, and we miss them both, but we are so pleased with where they are, and the kinds of choices we see them making. We did not see them over the holidays this year, but they were with family, so they were okay, too.

Here is an update on what is happening as we start off 2007.

Chris is currently teaching Greco-Roman Religions and the New Testament at Asian Graduate School. I am learning much about this from his discussions at home, and am surprised at how aware the apostle Paul was of the influence of these religions on the culture of the people he preached to, as evidenced by the things he says in the New Testament.

Starting this month I (Carole) am part of the counseling team at the Family Counseling Center at Faith Academy, the school for missionary kids that our children attend. It is a volunteer position, as are all positions held by missionaries there. I will be there part-time.

January is a busy month for us. We need to get tax receipts out to all our supporters, prepare the annual mission financial report (all those peso/dollar conversions are daunting to me), complete our tax forms, and complete lengthy FAFSA applications for our two college kids. The taxes have to be done early because you send in copies of your tax forms with the FAFSA's.

Many of you have been following the amazing story of God's provision for the Philippine College of Ministry (PCM) library. It burned down in November, the fire presumedly started by a dehumidifier. God's been answering prayers in a great way by providing the funds needed for rebuilding, as well as to start buying books again! There has also been a huge response from people all over who are shipping used books. A big thank you to all of you who are helping rebuild the library in any way--with your donations, shipping books, prayers, etc. THANK YOU! (Construction will begin at the end of February.)

Serving with you,

Chris and Carole McKinney