Dear Ministry Partners,

 March has surely come in like a lion for us!  I left Nebraska for a missions conference in Birmingham, AL on February 20 with a stop in Memphis.  I was actually to have had a stop in Springfield, MO too but due to a snow storm moving through I had to cancel that stop. The conference was great and had a wonderful time reconnecting with many friends and missionaries there.  On my way home I came through Dallas, TX and ended up getting hung up for this whole past week end to another major winter storm passing through.  I left Dallas Monday morning and still had solid ice to drive on in many places for about 60 miles as they don’t salt roads down there. 

 Jeanne and I are now feeling  in a bit of a rush as we try and get me prepared to depart for Asia Pacific next Tuesday – actually flying out of Lincoln early Wednesday morning.  We have to get our income tax prepared on Friday before I leave as I won’t be arriving home till after April 15.  We are also preparing for a missions conference in our home church here which is this coming weekend, so no dull moments in our life this week!  We will appreciate your prayers as we are in the middle of all these preparations.  We want to thank you for your prayers too as in our last letter I mentioned that we still needed to trust the Lord for $2500 for my Indonesia trip.  As of today a total of $1900 has come in so down to $600 now – PTL!

 We have much planned for this next trip which includes a Wana Bible conference, visiting Wana churches, making consultant visits to some of our other tribal teams, working on Bible lessons, and also a literacy seminar for our Indonesian speaking missionaries.  We will appreciate your prayers for all of this and the helicopter travel that will be involved.  Pray too that we would be a blessing in each place we visit, and that the Lord would give the health and strength that we need.  Pray too for Jeanne as she will be holding down the fort here and pray that the Lord will keep both our parents healthy in my absence.

 A special prayer request we have this month is for our Wana co-workers, Miyanto & Rone Kaku.  Rone’s dad came down with a bad case of hepatitis and after 5 days in the hospital went to be with the Lord last week.  We know they will appreciate your prayers for them during this time of sorrow.

 We also want to take this opportunity to thank you so much for your prayers this past month. We appreciate the opportunity to serve together with you to see the gospel go forth in Asia Pacific.

 Blessings,

 Ed & Jeanne Casteel

 

Our good friend “Yodi”  –  A faithful pastor and tremendous evangelist