Support address: Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church, P.O. Box 1071, Laurel, MS 39441

temporary field address: Keskustie 18, 03850 Pusula, Finland (phone: 358-040-3688035)

For the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake: because it hath pleased the LORD to make you his people. (1 Samuel 12:22)

28 June 2010

Dear praying brethren,

Looking out the open window at the blooming flowers and green grass moving as a gentle breeze blows beneath beautiful blue skies, I am hard pressed to remember the bleak, snow-covered days that marked our first five months in Finland. Going to bed and walking up to sunlit skies, I am amazed as I recall our first days in Finland, when the sun set less than six hours after it rose. Wearing a short-sleeved shirt, I almost cannot imagine “dressing in layers.” Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the seasons that You provide us!

As those of you on our email list have already heard, we finally have been granted our first visa. Because my passport expires in February, the first visa expires in seven months, after which we get to go through the entire process all over again. But God has already gotten us through that process once, and we are confident that He will do so the next time as well. Thank you for praying to that end. It is a great relief to be permitted to stay in Finland.

Six weeks ago Patience returned to the U.S. so that she could work for the summer at Southland Christian Camp (Ringgold, Louisiana) prior to going to school in August. When last I wrote, Patience intended to study at West Coast Baptist College in Lancaster, California, but since then she has become convinced that God would instead have her study at Pensacola Christian College. I know that the primary thing is that she be where God wants her to be, but as her father, I am thankful that Pensacola is within four hours of her grandparents and home church and within six hours of her big brother and her sister-in-law.


As I’ve told you before, one of the things that I keep discovering in this ministry is that God plans my schedule better (and differently) than I do. Victoria and Mary escorted Patience back to the U.S. and intended to stay only long enough to get Patience packed, moved, and settled. God, however, intended that the original two-week trip last six weeks. (Three days after they left Finland, we received word that we had been granted our first visa. Since Victoria and the girls were out of the country, they could not return to Finland until the visas were affixed to their passports. That meant that they had to send their passports to the Finnish embassy in Washington, D.C., and wait for the passports to return before they could schedule their return flight.)

During that extra time Victoria was able to help her parents, our adult children, and my mother (following my mother’s recent cancer surgery and during and after my father’s most recent hospitalization). She also had opportunity to report to our home church, to be at a missions conference in our son’s church, to be at her parent’s church and our oldest daughters’ church, to teach and to give her testimony in two women’s prisons, and to minister to women in our home church. God willing, she and Mary finally return this week.

During their absence the boys and I have tried to survive and minister as we could. In addition to our regular Sunday services and telephone ministry, we were able to travel to Helsinki one Friday to meet with believers there and to “circuit ride” to Hämeenlinna one weekend at Rami’s invitation. Yesterday Rami brought two visitors with him to services. Both visitors live near Tampere, and after hearing Rami talk about what he learns and does on Sunday, both asked if they could accompany him sometime. Sunday was the time. Both men had testimonies of salvation and desire sound doctrinal teaching. Both expressed an interest in coming back, but the fact that they live 3 hours from Pusula will not allow them to come as often as they would might like.

Although the summer bus schedule has opened up additional opportunities for us on weekends, it has hindered our ability to travel on weekdays. (During the school year there were six busses a day from Pusula to Helsinki; now there are only two.) Please pray that we can be more effective in our ministry to others.

An interesting experience since my last report: I recently received a phone call from a woman who immigrated to Australia when her parents moved there 40 years ago. A saved member of a Baptist church there, this dear sister has been burdened about the spiritual needs of the land of her birth. Learning about us from a website, she called to encourage us in the work and to assure us of her prayers and to promise that she would ask others in her church to pray also. Five days after her phone call. I met two Finns who had once lived in Australia—in the same city as the sister who had called me earlier.

Both Finns wanted to meet me so that they could practice their English. They were not to first to express such a desire, but they served as a good reminder of the importance of English in today’s “global community.” We are thankful that even as we struggle to learn Finnish well enough to proclaim the gospel in that tongue, God still provides us opportunities to serve Him with English.

Thank you for your prayers, support, emails, and letters. They all mean very much to us.

“Looking for that blessed hope,”
Bro. Daryl Coats (Titus 2:11-14)

“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,” (Titus 2:11)

Home Page