Please Pray for the Howell Family

As some of you know, I have posted periodically on the Howell family, missionaries out of our church on their way to New Zealand. I received this prayer request through an email and wanted to share it with my praying friends. Please keep this family in your prayers.

The Devil is fighting our getting into New Zealand. Our last lengthy trip away from home, we came home to a defrosted freezer which leaked all over the kitchen; we lost the freezer and all the food in it. Also, on that trip we had a flat tire and a blow out. This trip we came home to some potatoes that rotted and oozed all through the kitchen; smelled as bad as the defrosted meet. This time we also had our washer go up. And, while cutting grass last night the lawn mower front wheel fell off. We just returned to this yesterday and today we found out about our visitor visa being declined. All of this and much more has been happening ever since we purchased our airline tickets a couple months ago.

Our application for a visitor visa for our 6 months in New Zealand came back declined. We are resubmitting with what we hope is all they will need for approval.

They declined due to insufficient funds for our stay. We will have sufficient funds coming to us through our mission board if we are at 70% or more of our support. However, what they require is a specific amount of current funds in a personal bank account or credit card, and this amount for our 6 months is $14,400. When we eventually apply for our work visa we will not need this because our salary will be proof of funds. Besides purchasing our recent airline tickets, we have no credit card debt (this month the Lord has sent in about $1,500 towards our tickets). Because we had no credit card debt when sending in our visa application, the credit card information we sent was over a year old since we have had no purchases or statements, and this card had only $13,200; the credit card statement being a year old and not for at least $14,400 caused the decline. We just activated a credit card for $15,200 but we have no statement except what I can print off the internet. I am sending this information with our application for a visitor visa. Please pray that this will be sufficient. If this is not sufficient, we will need $14,400 in a personal bank account to show proof of funds.

God is good…all the time,
Lewis Howell
Ephesians 6:18-19