We want to take this opportunity to share with you some of the superlative things God has done in our lives during this, our most encouraging furlough. Linda and I came home from our hardest 4 year term in the 23 years of missionary endeavors in West Africa. We were worn out from grappling with the hostilities that accompanied our ministering in Bamako, Mali, a 97% Muslim land on the edge of the Sahara desert. Yet, both of you, pastors and saints alike, have ministered to us with compassion, encouragement, prayer, vision, insight, and support. How can we thank you enough! We feel so refreshed, refocused and ready to again tackle spiritual warfare, soul winning, discipling, teaching, training, and the sending out of young harvesters.

Additional Furlough News....

Present Activities: We officially finished “deputation” this Spring. We are now concentrating on our graduate studies, on training others in strategic evangelism to Muslims, and on preparing to ship ministry equipment overseas.

We Owe You Thanks.... We are deeply grateful to the now closed New Life Christian Community Church (San Carlos, CA) for a very generous offering that will enable us to carry on our regional ministry in West Africa. The Lord has also graciously provided us with a generator (from Seaside Assembly of God in California) to use in very hot Mali where we have been averaging for months now only 4 hours of electricity a day. The Rueck Company (Portland Christian Center) is donating an invaluable water pump and generator combination for the Mali Bible School. Bethany Church (Wyckoff, New Jersey) has supplied us with computer equipment. Praise the Lord!

4 Weddings: This has been a most remarkable furlough for weddings. Our son was married on Dec. 27, 1998, and our daughter married David Salter on April 3, 1999. Added to our own two children’s weddings, Linda was a bridesmaid in her sister, Judy’s, wedding in March, and we also helped tie the knot for Jenice & Tamer Sabra, a converted Egyptian-American Muslim, discipled by another missionary and myself.

3 Surgeries: Medically, this is the furlough with the most surgeries, first for Linda’s shoulder, torn in a fall in Mali before coming home, then for a knee injury I incurred while hunting, and finally for my heart surgery after two “small” heart attacks in May. We are praising God for the superior quality of doctors and facilities available to us in America for such crises. We are also uncomfortably reminded of the fragility and shortness of life.

Philippines Trip 2 Overseas Trips: In April I traveled to Manila and Baguio City in the Philippines for a two week, graduate level, intensive training course offered to Asian pastors and missionaries from more than 20 countries. I was one of five professors sharing the annual Institute of Islamic Studies session with the purpose of teaching Asian leaders how to penetrate and reach Muslim societies. This will have a tremendous Missions impact, because we’re talking about key leaders who will be going to heavily Islamic countries such as China, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Just 12 days after my angioplasty, I headed out for Bamako, Mali for church business meetings.

During this time, I spent a weekend in Dakar, Senegal, with four of my Muslim brothers, prayerfully witnessing and challenging them to meet the Christ. I was very conscious of the battle for their souls, maybe no more so than when I was hit by a car on one of Dakar’s busy streets, bounced forward, and one foot run over! Praise God that no permanent damage was done!

1 Graduation and 1 Baptism: We are proud of our son and his wife who graduated from Evangel University, Springfield, Missouri, in May of this year. They’re finishing up a couple of additional courses, then they hope to relocate right here in our home in Roseville, California, just 15 miles from our daughter and her husband in Auburn.

To top off our joy, I had the privilege of water baptizing my new son-in-law on Father’s Day this year.

Our Schooling: In and around a busy itineration schedule, weddings, overseas trips, surgeries, graduations and baptisms, Linda and I have been studying for our respective degrees in Biblical Counseling (Masters and Doctorate levels), attending stimulating seminars across the country, reading books, and doing research.

Also, for those of you who know my sister, Rada, we praise the Lord for her excellent progress in her studies at Trinity Life Bible College, Sacramento, California. She is the fifth of thirteen siblings in my Muslim family to serve Christ.

Our future plans: We leave for Africa shortly after Christmas. Our new work profile is regional, meaning that first, we’ll be available to all the West African Bible schools for block courses. Second, we’ll help to plant new missionary couples in our predominantly Muslim Northern Tier countries. Third, we’ll be teaching Muslim converts either in their respective countries (if safe enough) or by pulling them out for short periods of time. Fourth, we’ll be encouraging a Missions vision in our better developed African churches, teaching them to send their own missionaries into the neighboring countries. Fifth, we will continue to be based in Bamako and work with Mali’s new Bible School, which we pioneered last term.

Malians Interceding for West African Muslims

We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: These plans will only become realities as we are covered by your prayers, which we need now as never before, as we penetrate more deeply Islam and its strongholds. Thank you for upholding us in prayer.

In the grip of His grace,

David (Faouzi) & Linda Arzouni