We are quickly approaching a summer visit to Rakai, Uganda. Executive Director Kyle Douglass and his wife, Nicole, along with Ted Manning and Austin Nelson from The Prairie Chapel will be flying out July 17, 2009. Nicole will only be staying for one week, while Kyle, Ted, and Austin will be returning August 9th. We would truly love your prayer support for this trip! Our primary objectives are to continue our partnership training to smooth the project proposal process and to gather information related to a few specific projects, most notably clean water and business opportunities.

It's been a quiet couple of weeks for OJM as we patiently wait on several initiatives to develop. Our grant application deadline has been moved back a few months until mid-summer, giving us more time to work with Glory of Christ Community Development Initiative (or GCCDI, our Rakai, Uganda partner) on developing Rescue Phase projects. GCCDI is still developing its various sub-committees, which will oversee the work in the different development areas. We are also in our last week of our PenPal drive with our Southwest Michigan churches and will be sending a batch to Rakai shortly.

Celebrate with us about the recent series at The Prairie Chapel! OJM's partner church in Schoolcraft, MI, had three eye-opening and inspirational services concerning the global orphan crisis and their role in addressing it. The Rakai Team at TPC did a great job brainstorming and putting on the series which included multimedia, special music, and teaching. We'll be posting some of the videos from the series soon, so keep an eye out for those.

So, to pray:

• Thank God for the efforts of those involved in The Prairie Chapel series.

A lot is happening around here and, as always, any time you can squeeze out to pray for us is greatly appreciated!

• We are working on a significant grant proposal and would love your prayer support. This grant would help us accomplish the "Rescue Phase" of the partnership with Glory of Christ Community Development Initiative.
• We are planning our summer traveling. We have one church sending 8 members and another sending 2. Pray that the time spent in Africa would open people's minds and hearts.

Thanks for taking a few moments to pray for us. Here are the current issues we'd love to have you talk to God about:

• The Glory of Christ Community Development Initiative (GCCDI) of Uganda as they work on finalizing their Constitution.
• The Prairie Chapel as the Rakai Team presents a three week series on their partnership with GCCDI starting March 22, 2009.
• Identification of additional OJM board members.
• The successful acquisition of a grant we've been made aware of.

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