September & October, 2006
Dear Pastors and Friends:
We had our first anniversary service on the first Sunday in October. We had a wonderful day in spite of the weather. We had this monstrous tropical depression over us for two weeks before the date of our anniversary and two typhoons had spun off this thing. We prayed for those two weeks for the Lord to give us sunshine on the day of the celebration but the Lord said No. We had a Pastor from one of our supporting churches coming to preach for us and we wanted everything to turn our just right. But we still had a wonderful day. I think the Lord was showing us what He could do in spite of the weather. Our little building was full and running over with people. We can normally seat 125 people and we had over 160. We had tents set up in the yard and I have never seen so much food. All the people from the different Islands who attend the church had set up a table with food from their particular Island. The Palauans had their table with their food. The Ponapeans had their table filled with food. The Chuckese & Yapese, the same and the Chamoros, Carolinians and the Philipinos went all out with their food and the American table was filled with dessert. We had a whole pig cooked and on its own table and we had a chef from one of the hotels visiting and I put him to work carving the pig. I asked Dottie if she tried the pig and she said no she never tasted it. I asked her why and she said the poor thing still had its head on.
The rain "poured" and the people acted like the sun was shining. Brother Franz preached for us in the afternoon and we all went home after having a wonderful day. We were to get up early the next morning and take him to Tinian to do a little sightseeing. A new man in the church is a pilot that flies from Saipan to Tinian everyday and he gave us passes for Monday morning. We had decided to go over by Ferry and fly back with the pilot. Well, on Monday morning we had one disaster after another. It poured the rain all Sunday night and the waves were 15 feet high and the wind was blowing about 35 mph when I got up about 6 AM and heard water running in the house. I went into the kitchen and we had about 4 inches of water in the Living room, Kitchen and Dining room. I could not believe my eyes. Water was pouring in from the light over the Dining room table. I went outside to climb upon the roof and picked up an old heavy wooden ladder and pulled a muscle in my back. I made it up on the roof and found that all the drainage pipes were stopped up. Dottie had come down with the flu the week before the anniversary service and I am not sure if she lost her voice when she saw all that water in the house or if it was from the flu. She has been sick for about 3 weeks now with this and I was in and out of bed for about a week with my back. Half the people in the church now have the flu. Oh, I forgot that Sunday evening one of the vans broke down but everyone had gotten home except 2 little boys who lived near the driver and on Wednesday Morning Brother Franz had to return home because his father-in-law was near death. But overall, it was a good anniversary service and we have had a good year.
We never got to Tinian. Dottie said she really didn't want to go on the Ferry with the waves that high. Brother Franz said he really didn't want to fly in that little plane with the wind that strong, so we stayed home and got all the water out of our house. It took us all day to get the water out and about a week for everything to dry.
The good news is that we have received 97 of the 100 Hymnals we needed. Dottie is better and my back is better and life is back to normal except for one thing. It is still raining.
Thank you for your prayers & support & the Hymn Books. May the Lord bless you all.
David & Dottie McClure
Taking God's Word to the Islands
US ADDRESS: P. O. Box 13459, Arlington. TX 76094 Field Address: P. O. Box 506590 CK, Saipan, MP 96950
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