May, 2011 Prayer Letter

Kasalehlia! I know most of you are enjoying some warmer weather. As for Pohnpei, it’s just as hot as ever!

We have had about the best spring we’ve ever had here on Pohnpei, ministry-wise. Every year we have been faced with a lower attendance around Easter as so many are pulled back into their former denominations by very persistent priests. This year, we were excited to see our regular attendance and even higher! Easter Sunday we had over 100 in attendance for our main service and around 50 at our early morning Sunrise Service. It was a blessed Easter for us as in addition to the Sunrise Service and main service, we also were able to see 4 baptized!

Thank you for your prayers for our revival week! We had a great week with Evangelist Randy Chovan and saw 22 saved that week and several more in the weeks to follow! Brother Chovan also preached at the Christian school on the island and 17 came forward for salvation after the chapel services! The following week, Bro. Chovan also preached in several of the other Baptist churches around the island and there were many decisions made there as well. We are praising God for His blessings on this week of revival and ask for prayer for continued growth in these new converts. In recent weeks we’ve seen quite a few more salvation decisions and had another baptismal service just this past Sunday! God is really working on Pohnpei and we thank you for praying with us for this revival we’ve seen!

The Baptist Bible Institute of Pohnpei has gone well its first semester. We are still learning (and have a long way to go!) but we’re off to a great start. Thirty-nine students finished out the first semester and just this past Monday were given their final exams. We are off for the summer but will begin again on August 8th.

Summer is just around the corner and with it many summer ministries. Our family will be taking a two week trip to Guam at the end of June. We’ve been planning a trip with the kids for some time and found we had enough frequent flyer miles to get tickets for the whole family with just having to purchase one ticket at the child’s fare! Pray that we have a good time of rest and relaxation and uninterrupted family time!

In July we have our two major summer events, Youth Camp and Vacation Bible School! We are still looking into our options for this summer’s camp location but anticipating a great week with the young people on the island. And we are hoping to make this year’s VBS the best we’ve ever done with an extra emphasis on reaching the parents. We have some ideas for doing so and ask for you to pray with us that we will see many come to know Christ this summer. If you are interested in donating funds to either the camp or VBS, you may send your monetary gift to our mission board (address in the right hand column) designated to either Pohnpei Youth Camp or Pohnpei VBS.

As you may remember from our last letter, we are fervently praying that 2011 will see the project for our new church building move forward! We continue with these prayers and ask that you do as well. It is something that God is laying on our hearts all the time now and we know it’s time to move forward with the plans and preparations. We will let you know more in upcoming letters how YOU can help with this project!

On the family side of life here, we are working hard to finish out the school year! Kyler will be graduating from Kindergarten on June 6th. He’s excited about the graduation but more excited about the cake we told him we’ll have afterwards! Kaleo will be finishing 6th grade and Kestra 1st.

We are so thankful to finally have hi-speed internet here on our side of the island! We’ve been waiting for this for a long time and it was just hooked up out here about a week ago. Now, Susan is trying to update our blog better and hopefully keep it more up to date with photos and video. So check back there from time to time to see what she has added. The address is www.kihlengfamily.blogspot.com.

We hope that you are all having a blessed Spring! We thank you for your continued prayers and financial support. Please continue to pray for us and our ministry here on Pohnpei.

Because of Calvary,

Rickson, Susan,

Kaleo, Kestra, Kyler, Katrianne, & Kaylinn