Rachel with her dog, Kilo

Before Lori and I had any children, Lori said that she knew that we would have three sons. We do. Their names are Nate, Ben, and Evan. We are blessed to have them in our family! I felt content with them, but then Lori had a godly vision of us adopting a little Asian girl. I initially shrugged it off, but after a few years, while we were living in Papua New Guinea, she found out about the Philippines Intercountry Adoption Board, and asked me to pray about it. I said I would. I did. And I listened for the Lord’s response. He let me know that I should fill out the application and then just keep doing what I knew to do, one step at a time. Mercifully, I had no idea how costly or how many steps or how many years the adoption and citizenship process would take. I had no idea how much our spiritual enemy would try to interfere. For example, one time arsonists burned down a government office in PNG, along with all of our adoption paperwork. I had backups of that paperwork, but it slowed things down. It took a few years before we got her and about 6 years after we got her to finish the process. Some of you labored in prayer with us during the process, and some helped us raise the funds to cover the costs. God worked miracles. All of the administrative “labor pains” were worth it. The love and nurturing of our daughter along with our sons was and continues to be rewarding. Rachel is a great blessing to our family. She is sweet, talented, loving, kind, and a joy to have around. This February 9th, we celebrate her 21st birthday!

Lori, Rachel, and Michael when Rachel was 5 years old

Rachel holding “Meow,” a gift from her brothers

Nate, Rachel, Evan, Lori, Michael, Naomi, Francis, and Evan

Please Keep Praying

Thank God for:

• Our family, including Rachel!
• Everyone who prays for us, encourages us, and partners with us!
• More than 620 Million Scripture deliveries in 1,536 Bible translations from eBible.org and associated sites!
• YouVersion reports that in 2025, Bibles that we provided to them reached 5,156,057 people in 240 nations and territories through their apps and web site.

Please pray for:

• Bible study software development
• More Bible web site updates
• Wisdom concerning printed Bible projects
• Implementation of a better way to post audio Scriptures
• Our ministry volunteers
• More Scriptures to be translated and released to freely go to more people in more languages