August Update
As many of you know, we returned from South Africa in early July to address some medical issues before heading, God willing, to Thailand. That “tune-up” morphed into a full-scale “overhaul”… something about the hip bone being connected to the knee bone being connected…well, you know the drill! I’m thinking bumpy roads and 17-hour plane trips have taken a toll! Just as we were poised to leave, however, we discovered that while Peter’s heart is functioning perfectly normally, his arteries aren’t…so a new wrinkle will be open-heart surgery, scheduled for September 2nd.
While this is a shock to us, since Peter feels and acts so well, it is no surprise to our Lord. When we may chaff at the time lost, our sweet son and daughter-in-law, who recently moved to the Dallas area and with whom we are staying, assure us this is the season for healing and regeneration; they paint a grim alternative of being incapacitated overseas. Pay up now, our boy says seriously, or pay the price later. When did he get so wise? Anyway, like a rebuilt Toyota, Peter will soon be roadworthy again…good for another 100,000 miles!!!
While we won’t be able to attend our Air Force daughter’s promotion to Major, her wonderful media staff has agreed to videotape and Zoom it for us, which is a huge kindness. We will be cheering her on in spirit!
Meanwhile, in Kingdom advances, we have the following reports from some of the missionaries we support overseas:
1) In northern Thailand, where several of our teams labor in schools and discipling, the monsoon flooding has been the worst in 15 years. The border bridge between MaeSai and Myanmar is normally 30 feet above the river; this week, the river flooded over the bridge, obliterating all the shops and houses on the banks, and surging through the streets of the town. Our missionaries work with Burmese immigrant children, providing food and schooling; many of their refugee parents caught on the Thai side after the COVID border crossings lost what few belongings they’d accumulated. We were able to send extra funds for short-term relief for these families of the children cared for in the immigrant school…one more way to show the parents of the love of our LORD towards the least of them, and to tell them the story of Jesus. Whenever there is flooding, there are problems with potable water. We are blessed to have reserves of Sawyer Water filters which can be placed in key areas such as schools to provide clean drinking water for 100 people at a time.
2) In that country-that-must-not-be-named, one Children’s Rescue Home pastor continues to pray desperately to sell her current compound in the mountains and move closer to town to access government schools. The task of supplying food for, raising, and educating 40-plus children of varying ages has proven to be exhausting and ineffective. The mountain location provided safety, secrecy, low costs, and lots of land for agriculture…but the cities can provide internet, which means online education help. Please pray for a buyer for the mountain compound.
3) In the Dominican Republic, our discipling missionary, Jaime, has completed another six-week Discipleship Training Course with Haitian pastors and leaders. These dedicated workers, who are scorned and exploited by the Dominicans, have hearts burning for evangelism and come long distances after their day of work to hear how to spread the Gospel. Without transportation means, they often hire a taxi to drive a circuit to pick people up, so you never know when the meeting will start…you just wait until they get there! All are deeply grateful for the skills Jaime gives them to make disciples who make disciples and the word continues to spread. Jaime has a new series lined up in another area among the Haitian refugees, even while those he’s trained begin their own training sessions.
4) Last month I told you of the amazing efforts of a VBS group from The Lord’s Table Church in North Carolina whose kids raised an amazing amount of money to help Haitian refugee children with school supplies, many of the same kids our translator, Emily, worked with in the DR. Today, we received wonderful pictures of the backpacks this money purchased, stuffed with notebooks, glue, scissors, and colored markers! It’s thrilling what a group of mission-minded kids could do for the very “least of these” in the Kingdom. We are blessed to have Jackie to coordinate all the purchases and the distribution to the children.
The news on the Thai visa is nothing short of stupendous! As we’d prayed, the Thai government lifted the stringent COVID insurance requirements, perhaps because they were so difficult/expensive to comply with that it dissuaded potential tourists, and now most of the requirements which drove us out have been lifted. Hurrah! When we are ready to go, the visas will be waiting.
So, as we prepare for this surgery, join with us in praise; we are deeply grateful our Heavenly Father arranged for this discovery while we are in the States near excellent doctors, preventing a crisis on a plane or in a third-world country, and that our wonderful family, even before this was discovered, opened their doors and encouraged us to stay, rest, recuperate, and rejuvenate.
I do have one request; if one of you in the Dallas/Fort Worth area has a spare car (automatic) you could loan or affordably rent to us during Peter’s heart surgery rehabilitation, that would be an enormous help. By God’s grace, we hope to be heading to Thailand by mid-December but will need some additional wheels until that time so that our sweet family is not sharing their one car ALL the time.
We are in 21 Days of Prayer with daily reminders of how great and powerful God is and how small and insignificant our issues are. Open our eyes, Lord! (2 Kings 6:17)
Much love,
Joan and Peter
And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:17)