Greetings All

We wanted to send you all a letter letting you know how our summer is going. We arrived back in MN June 16 and it was nice to be home. Betsy went out first thing to smell her cow and I watched a Twins Game on TV. We spent the July 4 holiday with my family up north and got out to Chicago and Port Huron MI for business and to see family. Other than that, we have been running around seeing people and getting things done. We picked a lot of rock in the bean fields and painted the chicken house at the farm.

We managed to save about $400 by scoping the Internet for discount airline tickets to Korea. Our passports with our fancy visas from the Korean Consulate in Chicago just came back UPS today so we should be all set. We are getting things ready to pack today deciding what clothes to bring and all that. Gwangju gets chilly in the winter so we have to bring jackets and sweatshirts and more long pants. With the new baggage restrictions for int'l flights we have to really think ahead.

We know that a lot of you have been asking how we finished with our fundraising. We were fortunate to have many new supporters this past year and we appreciate it very much. This year we knew what to expect in terms of how things go but what we did not expect is a huge rise in living expenses mainly food prices. Combine that with the falling US dollar and we were stretched pretty thin. The exchange rate when we arrived was around 500 cfa to a $ and in May 08 it was under 400 cfa so we were living on 20% less income. We finished better than we thought we would in terms of our fundraising ending about $7,000 short. Many of you have been giving generously for some time now and we thank you for that. We are obligated to balance our account so we are asking you if you would prayerfully consider continuing to partner with us. We have around 100 supporters and 2 months worth at $30 a month each would get us very close to our final goal. If you would like to contribute financially t!
o our ministry please make checks payable to "Department of World Mission" and "Brian & Betsy – Cameroon" in the memo.

The Evangelical Covenant Church
World Mission Dept. STM Support
5101 N Francisco Ave
Chicago, IL 60625

We fly this Sunday out of MPLS through Chicago – Seoul and on to Gwangju. The 2nd leg is a real treat. We take off at noon local in Chicago and land around 4pm Monday in Seoul after a 14 hour flight. I hope the movies are good. Korean Air would not let us pay for our commuter flight to Gwangju until we got to Seoul so our reservations had better hold up.

That's about it from here. We will send another update when we settle in over there next week sometime. If you are in the area and want to see us off, come to the Trimont Covenant Church at 7pm on Friday for a fun night of stories and sharing. Dessert will be served and gifts for the kids.

Thank you all. Take Care and God Bless

Brian & Betsy