March 2012 

            Hello from Antigua! It has been two months since our move to the mission field, and February has been filled with visiting government offices, preparing our house, and anticipating the arrival of our container of belongings. The Waites were already in Antigua when we arrived, moving and sorting the remainder of their personal belongings in order for our move into the house. Curt Waite was able to show us procedures and take us to the many offices: immigration, driver’s license, vehicle registration, bank, etc. We’re so thankful for his guidance! Please keep the Waites in your prayers as they have been transitioning to the new position of station representatives in the Western States. This will entail contacting churches and much traveling to raise support for the station.

            While waiting for our belongings to clear customs, we were able, with the help of Renee’s mother and friend, Robin Roberson, to clean and paint the entire interior of our home. Our container arrived in Antigua on February 15^th, but because the many government offices were discussing the amount of our duty taxes, we were not able to have our container until March 22^nd! In our moving preparations, we estimated that we would have to pay $10,000 in duty taxes. Praise the Lord, in those many discussions (that we thought lasted forever) the Lord saw fit to reduce our duty taxes to $1,000! What a reminder of Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will.”

            In between preparing the house to move in and the arrival of our container, we are also getting settled into our work at the radio station. Renee has jumped right into managing the finances since the Kirklands went back to the States for furlough. Nathan has begun rotating morning shifts at the radio station, cleaning, organizing, and preventing pests at the AM transmitter site, and attending to other long-awaited projects such as installing an alarm system that calls us if the station goes off the air.

            We failed to mention an answer to a prayer request from our July 2011 prayer letter. Last fall, the station hired a new Spanish programmer, Maggie Young Romero. Please pray for Maggie as she continues to learn the station’s processes. Please continue to pray for us, too, as we settle in and learn as well! 

                                                                        Nathan & Renee Owens