timo, laura, janey, and richard harkonen

May 2016
TIMO, LAURA, JANEY, AND RICHARD HARKONEN
Dear Friends,
We pray you are all doing well. The past few months have been
challenging. Our time has mostly been spent taking Laura to doctors and
Janey to counseling. Janey’s issues have all been related to the traumas she
suffered as a young child in Brazil. Thankfully, she is doing much better
now, and has been cleared to return to Congo. Both kids have other
ongoing therapies, but they can all be done remotely. :-)
Laura’s health is fairly stable, and she has started slowly back to work
here at MAF headquarters.
Return Home:
At this point it looks like we are about a
month behind schedule for our return,
because… we are moving! Ok, well, not
far, just up the hillside. As we are getting
more MAF families, it is better for less
experienced folks to live closer together.
So we get to move into the heart of the
village! Our team will move our stuff to
our new house to open up our current
one for the new family. They are also
working hard on getting our new house
ready. As you can see from the recent
pictures shown above and below...they
might need a little time!
As we have been away from our Congo home, we have been amazed at
the people God has put in our lives, to help in ways we couldn’t have
even imagined! Somehow in the middle of all the busyness, suffering,
sickness, stress, and dying we have experienced in the past few years, it
had become really hard to make sense of the world around us. Through
this and other things going on, we have come face to face with spiritual
warfare at levels most Westerners try to believe don’t exist. We have
learned to trust the Lord more than ever and we are excited to return
home to Congo!
James 1:2-4: Consider it pure joy, m y brothers, whenever you face
trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith
develops perseverance. Perseverance
must finish its work so that you may
be mature and complete, not lacking
anything.
After the months of doctors and
counseling, we decided to take a few
days off and go find some big trees!
We praise God for the wonderful team of ministry partners He has
given us! Thank you so much for all your prayers and support! Because
this is a furlough for medical reasons, we will not be traveling and
visiting with everyone. We will do that in mid or late 2017. However,
we are currently at 87% of our required support level. We would like to
be able to head back home fully supported again. Would you
prayerfully consider partnering with us through regular giving? And
don’t forget to tell your friends, family, and churches!
1. You can give online at: www.maf.org/harkonen
2. You can call MAF donor services at 1-800-359-7623
3. Or you can send a check payable MAF including a note stating
“Harkonen support.”
Thank you for your partnership!
Meanwhile back home in the Congo
Three New Testament translations in the Logoti, Mayogo and Ndruna languages have been completed in the
northeastern region of Congo through SIL (Wycliffe) teams. The dedication celebrations took place on three
consecutive weekends during March. These have been projects MAF has played a major support role in since the
1980’s. Our planes brought in many invited guests including the past and present missionaries involved. It was
an awesome highlight and encouragement for our MAF Congo team, and we had representatives at each of the
celebrations in Todro, Isiro and Gety. We hear the joy was amazing!
From one of our team members who
traveled to a Bible dedication inaccessible
by airplane:
Did you get to see
NBC’s Today
Show called
“Love in the Time
of Malaria, and
Chimpanzees,”
that tells the story
of primate
researchers who
Source: htts://www.awf.org
saved baby chimps
from the cooking pot? Laura had the privilege of
working with the AWF, flying them in and out
of the strip shown. Way, way out in the Congo
jungle! You will get to see our planes briefly in
the video.
Watch or read it
here: www.tinyurl.com/MAFchimps
CONTACT US:
Home Address:
MAF EDRC
PO Box 1
Kampala, Uganda
Support Address:
Mission Aviation Fellowship
P.O. Box 47
Nampa, ID 83653
www.maf.org/harkonen
Our family attended two of the Bible
dedications. As the Gety airstrip had
been destroyed during the war, we
drove 6 hours over rough roads
coming and going into mountains
behind Nyankunde to the village of
Gety. Part of the journey required a
UN armed escort through an
insecure “red zone,” where there is
still active rebel militia. This was
again a sobering reminder of our
uncertain reality here and the vital
need that MAF fills, and it
underscores our need for your
faithful prayers and God’s
protection.
Skype:
tharkonen99
423-218-2617
PRAISE & PRAYER
 That Laura returns to full
health quickly and we will be
able to return to Congo in
July/August
 Praise that the EMDR
therapy went well for Janey,
and we are seeing a lot of
improvement
 Health and safety for our
team back in Congo
 Acclamation of the newest
family that will be arriving in
July!
 Our house in the village will
be ready for our arrival.
E-mail:
lharkonen@maf.org
tharkonen@maf.org
Blog: http://harkonensindrcwithmaf.wordpress.com/