Dear Friends,
Spring greetings from the tropics! I hope this letter finds you enjoying nice weather and blooming trees. While some of you may prefer four seasons, as a “son of the south” I’ll gladly take four seasons of heat in the tropics over even an ounce of snow!
Change is in the air for the Kilgo family too, mostly surrounding our middle two children. As I write this, our oldest daughter will graduate from college this weekend. She has earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science with a minor in Geology.
I praise the Lord that she will graduate debt free (our second child to do so), mostly due to a service scholarship that covered 93% of her tuition, room and board. She worked hard with a heavy service load in addition to her coursework to maintain this scholarship. Additionally, she served in a leadership position within the scholarship program that competed for even more of her time. We are so proud of her accomplishment!
We are also very excited about her upcoming wedding. While I will attend her wedding in July, unfortunately I won’t be able to attend her graduation. Our youngest son is graduating from high school on June 8th. Thus, we had a difficult decision to make about attending these graduations. In the end, we decided that Michelle would fly home for our daughter’s graduation, and I would stay here for our son’s graduation. It’s not ideal, but it’s one of the sacrifices of this ministry.
Thankfully, both ceremonies will be live-streamed so we can watch them from afar. Later in June, all of us will reunite in America for the wedding and to help our son get settled into his new life. He wants to be a commercial pilot and will likely receive his training in TX. We are praying for a debt-free course of study for him too; perhaps you can join us in prayer for that!
As Michelle helps our daughter prepare for the wedding, I am continuing the ministry for a short period without my partner and best friend. Our church has seen an increase in attendance in recent months, and we’re now averaging 80-85 people on Sunday morning.
Earlier this year, Michelle had the idea to start a teens class where we teach them counseling/life issues. This class has been a huge success; we average about 13 kids and are growing in our relationships. One family has been added to the church as a result.
Also, our Bible school has two sets of students at present – a Year 1 Class of 6 students and Year 3 class of 8 students. Among the Year 3 class there are several men who could be effective pastors but haven’t yet realized that and made the commitment (though there is definitely progress is that direction). This is our main ministry prayer request!
Recently, we were glad to have a visit from our International Director Ben Anderson. On May 24th, I and three others from our country will join Ben and hundreds of others from the region at the Southeast Asia Grace Conference (SEAGC).
The purpose of the conference is to foster encouragement and good communication among our TCM workers in the hopes of working together more efficiently for the cause of Christ. I will give the opening sermon at the conference, where I will challenge the audience to “redeem the time” by adopting the Apostle Paul’s work ethic. It’s easy to lose our sense of urgency as we get bogged down with the mundane tasks of life, but the apostle encourages us to not let up as we serve the Master.
So, as you can see, we have a lot going on the next few months. We very much covet your prayers! As always, our family is grateful beyond what words can express for your support and encouragement. May the Lord add the harvest to your account according to His word (Philippians 4:17). Thank you!
In His Service,
Pat Kilgo
