Ruh Roh.

Corey, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To my prayer partners who are scattered abroad: Greetings.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces patience. And let patience have its full effect, that you may be whole and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Some 1900 odd years later those words from the Letter of James (with changes in the opening greetings) still ring true today. As you probably know (if you've been reading my blog ), Dr. Dalton gave me the news that my left ACL is torn. This means that i won't be in Peru in August. After the surgery, i won't be able to do strenuous activity on my knee for the first 3 months, according to Dr. Dalton. The next Xtreme Team in-Peru-training won't start until February '07. So, it looks like February will be the earliest i'll be in Peru. That means Bobby and i won't be together, at least, until April '07 or so (after my training likely ends). And, even then, we're not guaranteed to be together since we will very likely will be sent to different people groups since Bobby will already have another partner.

As you may have guessed, it's been a stressful time, this week, and pretty confusing. I need to find out whether or not i can have a State-side assignment (job) with the IMB until February.

Jeremy and Susan Taliaferro, the leaders of the Xtreme Team, left to go to spend some time with some friends in California. After that, they'll go back to Peru to continue administrating the XT.

In other new, Bobby Lane has cut off his dreads he started 3 years ago. No, he was not asked to loose them, but he figured they'd be a hindrance to the Gospel in the Andes Mountains where long haired men are thought as sissies and they'd be a hindrance to comfort and hygiene in the Amazon Jungle where heat and bugs like to punish travelers.

Class has been intense this week. We had Church Planting Movements (cool and useful), Doctrines (useful but nothing new), and The Persecuted Church (wow!) classes. The Persecuted Church class was by far the best. We spent 9 hours within 2 days listing to Dr. Ken Perkins give testimony after testimony of his first hand persecution experiences and interviews with others who've experienced persecution. We heard these stories of beatings and imprisonment, torture of families and torture by families. Out of all this, we learned the worst kind of persecution anyone can do is to deny someone from hearing about Jesus. This persecution's ramifications are not just for this life, but it spills over into eternity. I'm humbled how "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." (a quote from Tertullian, 197 A.D.)

Also, the party at Tanglewood is being postponed. Most likely, the commissioning service at Mt. Vernon Church in Boone and this commissioning party at Tanglewood will happen in January or February '07. I'll let yall know when i find out something. However, the commissioning service at the MLC is still on since it's for all the missionaries about to leave this FPO on July 19 @ 1pm.

PrayeRequests:

• Please pray that God would give me His wisdom in all the many decisions i have to make about my next 7 or so months.
• My shoulder has been giving me trouble in my workouts. I don't know what's going on there. One thing at a time.
• Jon's Spanish is going steady but slow still. Pray that he would be encouraged. All 3 of us are currently learning the Creation story in Spanish. Jon is learning 15 other vocabulary nouns and 5 verbs every day.
• Pray for the travel safety of the Taliaferros.
• Praise God that He will glorify Himself in all this!

Love yall bros and sisses,

†il the whole world hears,

corey reid pendergrass

Acts 20:24 "But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. "