february 2024 - Matt & Julie Walsh
Matt & Julie and their family serve with Friends in Action, International in West Africa. The Walshes are involved in technical work which includes: well drilling, building construction, bridge building, water distribution, road construction, water filtering and mobilization.
Current prayer requests:
- Please pray for the return of the Effler family from home assignment at the end of January. We will all be together as a team again and increasing our ministry activities and outreach.
- Please pray for the teams that are scheduled to come this spring. We are planning on 4-5 teams in the next few months. The first team is scheduled to come for the last two weeks of February and will be focusing on the fabrication of the second half of the work hangar.
- Please pray as our family has begun to focus on Wolof language studies. Matt, Julie, Thomas and Stephanie are meeting weekly with a language tutor. It’s a mix of French, English and Wolof as we work first towards the ability to introduce ourselves and understand the basics. Eventually we will work towards a deeper understanding and the ability to share the gospel in Wolof.
- Please pray for Thomas as he is going through the college application process for this fall. He has been accepted at 4 schools and is trying to figure out the financial aid packages and narrow down the best fit from afar.
- New ministry opportunities have begun to open up. Thomas is going with our language helper once a week to participate in a house church ministry in a village about 30 an hour away. Julie and Thomas just visited a woman who has terminal cancer near our area. She was receiving treatment from a missionary doctor and we are looking at providing some follow up services for her and her family.
- Please pray for partners for well drilling. Once the well is completed on our land and we are able to move the drilling rig after Jeremy Effler gets back, we will be looking for places to drill wells in partnership with churches and ministries. We have a few possibilities lined up but we need to go through the vetting process and need to find more potential partners.
- Please pray for our family as we try to figure out what our home assignment will look like this summer/fall. We are expecting to return to the US in June after three years here. The first two months will likely be full of traveling and visits but then Thomas will be heading off to college and Tessa may return to the boarding school. The following few months will be more church visits but the remaining four kids will need to spend a lot of time on school with Julie so we will likely be more settled somewhere and do trips on the weekend. We have to figure out housing, travel and how long we need to be back to help Thomas transition but also wanting to get back here for Tessa.
