AFRICA

We were in gone for a total of16 days, from May 11 thru the 27th. It took one full day to get there and a day and a half to get home, leaving us 2 full weeks on the ground in Africa. We flew out of Dulles in Washington, DC. Our Daughter, Lisa, met us in DC and went with us on our trip. Her husband, Brian, volunteered to keep their 4 children ages 12 to 2, so that she could go with us. It is a blessing to have a good son-in-law.

It was a straight flight with only one stop in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa, to refuel and take on some new passengers, but since we didn't get out of the airplane, I don't count it as a country I have been to. In my world, I have to actually get out of the airplane and out of the airport before I count it as a country I have visited.

Dakar was about half way. Like I said it was a VERY long trip getting there and back. We landed in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the evening and were met by George Hammett. Then we set off on a 4 hour car trip up to the city where he and his family live called Tzeneen. Not sure of the spelling of this town. For the next week George and Kristin treated us like kings and were our tour guides, and hosts. We were able to go with George to one of his Studies and to meet several of the people he is working with in his city. It was great.

These folks also took time out of their lives to take us to Krueger Park, which is a very large game reserve, about the size of the state of New Jersey. We took two jeep safaris, one morning and one evening, and one driving tour in our own vehicle. We saw every animal there was, with the exception of the cheetah and rhino. What we did see were scores of elephants, zebras, giraffe, monkeys, one full-mane male lion about 15 feet from our open sided vehicle :O That was a teeny bit hairy! He did not seem surprised to see us and stopped in the middle of the road to look at us. We were all speechless to see him and nobody moved or breathed until he mosied on off the road and into the bush. This was the first safari and it was in the early evening.

More later, hopefully tomorrow. My grandson is trying to eat bugs. Gotta go!!

Almost a Year Ago

My last blog post here was almost 1 year ago. A case of too much to do and too little time to do it. However, several folks have requested that I try harder and get the blog up and running again. No promises will be made, except that I will try in the time I have.

We are in the United States for awhile at the moment, but we are now living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, having moved from Bangkok over a year ago. Tom and I as well as our whole team like this city much better. Although it has 3 and 1/2 million people, compared to Bangkok's over 13 million, it has a small town feel to it. There is nowhere in town that we can't get to in a matter of minutes rather than hours, as it was in Bangkok. We have better housing, amenities, but much more important than all of that, we have access to a large and varied ethnic community of folks who want to help with the translation projects that are always underway.

Right now we have 7 paid staff, and 3 missionaries including Tom and I. In addition to these, we have short term helpers coming and going all of the time, much like it has always been. For all of of you who come to help, we thank you. For those of you who have stayed for the long haul we appreciate all of you more than you know. Many have come at their own expense, to take up the slack, putting their own lives on hold while working with us. God reward all of you according to His riches.

As far as Tom and I are concerned, neither of us are getting any younger and various and sundry health problems keep popping up. Fortunately, health care in Thailand is excellent and inexpensive, so for that we are most thankful.

Our 40th wedding anniversary was June the 4th. We were in Thailand, I sitting in my chair and Tom in the living room, when he told me that he wanted to go somewhere very special for our 40th. He asked me where I wanted to go. I gave it some thought, considering all the wonderful places we had visited over the years that I would love to return to, but I knew the one place that I had waited for 47 years to visit was the only place that would be "IT." I told him that I wanted to go to Africa! It was humorous in the fact of the dead silence that followed that statement. I guess the dollar signs were flashing in his head or he was in shock or something:) Anyway, he said, when his voice returned that is, "Let's start making plans." I said I wanted to go in the African winter, because I can't tolerate the heat well any more. Isn't it amazing that Africa was just heading into winter when our anniversary was rolling around? As I mentioned before, Tom and I both have health issues, but by the Grace of God alone, all of our ailments miraculously just halted for the 16 days that we were in Africa. There is no such thing as "luck." It was all planned and orchestrated by the hand of the One who is in control of it all. In the next few days, I will tell you about Africa and other blessings of the trip. I promise I will not procrastinate on this one.

It's Been Long Time

Hello Friends,

It's been a very long time since I have updated this blog. Basically this should bring you up to date on us on everything that has happened since moving to Chiang Mai. We have lived here a little over 3 months. It has been a time of great progress in many ways.

It took us quite a while to get settled in up here as far as living is concerned. We got the office up and running quickly and then we turned our attention to our living quarters. The office, and Tom and my house share one house. The house is divided perfectly for us to be able to share the one facility. It gives us the added security of living in the same place with all of the expensive computer and video equipment. It also makes going to work in the morning easy. Just walk across to the other side of the house. Hey, it works for me. The only room we share with the office is the kitchen, but it is working out very well. Everybody does their part keeping things put away and keeping it cleaned up.

The ladies' dorm is another house right behind ours. We have steps going over the wall to keep from having to walk around the block to get to the office, so it is just steps away. The men's dorm is in a shop house down the road a little way. Noah, our Burmese translator, lives upstairs and we have literature stored downstairs. Later on, we may have to acquire another house for the men's dorm and turn the shop house into just storage, but for now this is working.

A little over a month ago now, Tom had a major accident when he fell through a plate glass closet door. He cut his arm at the elbow very deeply and had to have two hospitalizations and one surgery to repair the damages to the nerves in his arm. He is still having trouble healing and is still in some pain, but should make a full recovery, but it will take several months to do so. Please continue to pray for him.

Noah has finished re-typesetting the Burmese Bible and it is now ready for printing. This job took the better part of a year and Noah is ecstatic that it is now completed. He has now turned his attention to the many other projects in Burmese that are awaiting him. He is working hard and turning these translation jobs out as fast as he can.

Carolyn and Pook are working on various projects and are both doing well. Carolyn has found a Chinese physician who is treating her for various health related problems and she is responding well to the treatments.

We are looking forward to Jeff and Sarah Evans coming over the middle of August and also April Wilson from our home church in Fort Worth. We know that they will be a great asset as they have all proven themselves to be in the past. April will be working on video projects and the Evans family will be working on various computer related stuff and many other things as well.

The "Good and Evil" project is being worked on in several languages. We are struggling with the Russian translation of the book at the moment. There are many tribulations with the Russian language edition. Over the past many years, the devil has always fought particularly hard against anything in the Russian language and the G&E project is no exception. Please pray.

Please pray for our country this 4th of July! It seems like the news from all over the world points to the Lord's soon return for His own. Amen! Even so come, Lord Jesus!!

Hopefully things will settle down a little now and I will be able to keep up with this blog better and more often. Pray for me also. I am not getting any younger and I am definitely getting more tired by the day. I want to thank all of you who give and pray for this ministry and for Tom and I in particular. We appreciate it very much.

We Got Moved In

Time has flown by and we have been very busy. On Monday, March 1st, Tom, Carolyn and I arrived back in Bangkok from the United States. We immediately began packing up our belongings for the move up to the northern city of Chiang Mai. Once again we were caught off guard by how much stuff and junk we have collected over the last 5 years. Much of it was left to us by other missionaries who came and went, some was purchased by us for some use for which it was no longer needed, and then some of it was stuff that we just really wanted to keep even though it had no real needed purpose. It took us just a little over 2 weeks to get it all packed and ready to ship. The last thing they took out of the house was the air conditioners. They took them out in the morning and that afternoon Carolyn and I flew up to Chiang Mai and checked into a hotel and waited for Tom, Noah and Pook to finish up in Bangkok. Although the landlady told us a price and said everything would be finished by the time we got here, when we arrived, nothing had been done. There was no security bars on the doors, the air conditioners were not all installed, and we will have to replace the toilet in one of the bathrooms because of a leak in the tank. We have been the better part of the last week getting all of these things taken care of. Most of the laundry is caught up and Noah and Tom will start setting up the office tomorrow and as soon as we have more electrical outlets installed, we will set up all the computers. The big server made the trip fine and is up and running as well as all of the laptops. The Internet is running, however it is very slow and we will need to get another plan for faster download time.

Even with all the delays, we are very happy to be up here and are looking forward to living here. By the end of the week, we should be almost up to speed. Thank you for all of the prayers that have gone up on our behalf. We appreciate them all very much.

Found Housing

Tom flew to Chiang Mai on Wednesday and scouted out areas of town for us to live in. On Thursday afternoon I joined him, and we began looking at houses in the areas he had chosen. These places had to be located in accessible areas so that our workers can travel there without problems, so basically they had to be on the main public transportation routes. One area was really nice, but had a problem with flooding. One area was new and looked good, but it was too far off the main roads. Actually there were many places that were suitable for Tom and I because we have a vehicle, but our workers do not. A friend of ours found some houses in an area that is suitable both for us and for everybody else and we were able to rent two houses very close to each other in the same neighborhood. Actually our back walls touch, so we are very close.

Tom and I will live in half of one house and the other half will be our ministry offices. The house is completely divided so that our part will be completely separate from the office area. The ladies will share another house that has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Both houses are single storey, so we won't have to do stairs anymore. And, praise the Lord, both kitchens are actually inside the houses and not out on the back porch. All in all and for the time being, we feel that this set up will work for us well. We are all excited to be moving up to Chiang Mai. It is a much smaller and easier city to live in. It has only 3 and 1/2 million people compared to Bangkok's 13 million. By comparison, it has almost a small town feel to it. It is also cooler up there and the air quality is much better.

We have already hired our first staff member. She is a Burmese lady who will be working with Noah on all things Burmese. She starts to work with us as soon as we get up there and get the office set up.

In Chiang Mai, we will have access to people who speak many regional languages, which is the reason for the move up there in the first place. The fact that it is a much nicer city is a wonderful added blessing.

Headed to Chiang Mai for House Hunting

I am feeling pretty good today so far. I went to bed last night at 6 PM and slept till midnight then was awake from midnight to 4 AM, but went back to sleep and slept till 8 AM, so all in all I got plenty of sleep but just had a gap between. Carolyn is not much better than she was when we got back, so please pray for her. She still is not sleeping more than a few hours a night and that is not good.

I am heading up to Chiang Mai in a couple of hours to join Tom. We will be looking for housing for ourselves, our staff and for an office. Please pray that we are able to find what we need. We need the housing and office space to be fairly close together so that travel will not be too far. Tom, Carolyn and I need single storey places and we need the office to be ground level also. There are a lot of places available, but cost is always an issue. We need something that will meet our needs that we can afford. Finding places that will meet our needs are no problem, but they are not cheap. Chiang Mai is the ex-pat capitol of Thailand and housing prices are higher there.

We were able to get some packing done yesterday and that will pay off soon. It is amazing how much stuff people accumulate in 5 years. There are at least 20 boxes of just books. They really take up a lot of space, but Tom and I aren't able to get a compromise on what we are getting rid of. He won't get rid of any of his and I'm sure not getting rid of any of mine, so up to Chiang Mai they will go. If either one of us did the book pitching, I would throw 50% of his away and he would throw 99% of mine away. Some things even married people don't share. We know better than to try to dispose of each other's books. World War III would ensue. Keep the peace, pack the books, that's our Motto.

You probably won't hear from me till I get back from Chiang Mai. I am not taking my computer. It is too heavy, but I may be able to use Tom's for emergency correspondence. Carolyn and Pook will be here to hold down the fort while we are gone. I do not know when we will be back but it could be a couple of weeks. God bless and thanks for praying.

Jet Lag is Real!!! And I have it.

Today is March 3rd. I am barely functional as I write this at 5:20 P.M. I have been awake since 1:00 A.M. and I am about to crash and burn. Tom woke up at 3 A.M. and we both got up and had breakfast at 4:00 A.M. This is what happens when we fly half-way around the world in one day. We went from winter to summer and from day to night and our bodies are screaming "What day is it? What time is it? The older we get the longer it takes to get our days and nights turned back around. The first day back I slept for 20 hours. I thought that would fix me right up and I would be OK, but voila, it didn't work. So now i AM WRITING THIS blog and pushing wrong keys and spelling things wrong and am in an almost stupor trying to stay awake just a little longer, so I can go to bed and sleep all night and wake up in the morning. It is very hard to type with your nose on the keyboard, so I am not correting any more speling errors. Just raad it and try ti figure it out. I have to go to bed, ever if it isnt dark outsied yet. Good night.