Like cold water to a weary soul
is good news from a distant land.
(Proverbs 25:25)

Greetings from Ohio! Our family has settled in on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean for the summer. It’s been a whirlwind couple of months since we finally succeeded in securing a way for Elliot to get out of school and pull together the final logistical details for our home service leave—but here we are! Over the next couple of months, we’ve got a lot of people to see and a lot of support to raise, but we’re really looking forward to the rest of the summer. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, we’ll get the chance to connect with you on a more personal level (so don’t be surprised if the phone rings one of these days, and it’s me on the other end of the line!)...

One of the members of our staff team in Amsterdam calls her monthly ministry correspondence (i.e. prayer letter) the “Cold Water News,” referencing the above verse from Proverbs. So to borrow from her terminology (even as she borrows from King Solomon), you could say that our goal for this summer is to serve as “The Cold Water Express,” chugging like a train from church to church, home to home, person to person, throughout the United States, bringing good news from the distant shores of the Netherlands and celebrating everything that God has been doing through our ministry over the last several years. Yes, yes... I realize how that word picture might be a little bit cliché and cheesy—but so be it. I like the train motif. :-)

In keeping with this analogy, I wanted to provide you with a bit of a train schedule, or time-table, listing out our plans for the coming couple of months, again in hopes that it might help to facilitate opportunities for personal connection. Plans are still solidifying, even as this prayer letter is going to “press,” but here are a few of the dates currently on our (tentative) schedule:

• May 20 – June 10: Mansfield, Ohio
• June 11 – June 17: Cleveland, Ohio
  • Information Table at Grace Church in Middleburg Heights on Sunday morning, June 15, followed by an open house in the Grace Church Chapel on Monday evening, June 16
• June 18 – June 22: Mansfield, Ohio
• June 23 – July 3: Upper Midwest Road trip
  • Includes stops in Illinois, Minnesota, and the Dakotas
  • Speaking at First Presbyterian Church in Rapid City, South Dakota, on Sunday, June 29
• July 4 – July 17: Mansfield, Ohio
  • Speaking at the GCC Columbus-area Pastors Gathering on Wednesday, July 9
  • Tentatively scheduled to speak at Berean Baptist Church in Mansfield on Sunday, July 13
• July 17: Bowling Green, Ohio
• July 18: Detroit, Michigan
• July 19 – July 20: Lansing, Michigan
  • Speaking at Riverview Church on Saturday evening, July 19 and Sunday morning, July 20
• July 21 – July 28: Mansfield, Ohio
• July 29 – August 3: Dallas, Texas
• August 5: Fly back to Amsterdam

Of course, if there are any other stops that you’d like for us to plan into our schedule for the summer, please let me know as soon as possible. Even if it’s only a “potential” opportunity to talk with a particular individual or group who might be interested in hearing more about our ministry in Amsterdam, please contact me. I’m available either by e-mail (eric.asp@amsterdam50.nl) or by borrowed mobile telephone (419-353-5313). I would be very excited to hear from you—if you don’t hear from me first, that is!

In the meantime, please pray with us for God’s protection and provision this summer—both for our family traveling here in America and for the church in Amsterdam in our absence. To this end, I’ve copied below a recent “prayer card” that we’ve developed. As we travel on the Cold Water Express over the next couple of months, we’ll be handing out photo-quality printed copies of these prayer cards like candy. But at least now you’ve got one in case we don’t get to see you, or in case you just can’t wait to have one of these on your refrigerator! Thanks as always for your support of our family and our ministry! We hope to be seeing you soon!

Eric