another update on Calvin's eye

Calvin had his second follow up appointment today regarding his eye. The tearing is getting less but it's still happening. The doc informed us today that it could take up to 3 months to completely stop! So, please keep praying for healing and for patience for us and for Calvin. He deals with the massaging of his eye pretty well, but I am sure it gets old! (We have to massage it 1-2 times every two hours.) Today the doc did a little test today to see if things are working normally. He put some orange dye in Calvin's eye and then the dye ran down into his mouth and nose. He then saw the ENT and the ENT saw the dye in his nose...so this is great news and encouraging, thank you to all of you who are praying for Calvin and his eye.

Update on Calvin

Dear Friends,
Yesterday went so well. Thank you for praying. It was quite evident that God was with us and listening to your prayers for our little guy. Calvin was quite fascinated with the whole experience much like Curious George when he goes to the hospital! The anesthesiologist was great (we take our kids to a children's hospital here so they are really kid friendly). The eye procedure took about 20 minutes but Calvin coming out of being anesthetized took about two hours! We give God praise for His protection over Calvin and a good report from the eye doctor. He is hopeful that Calvin's eye will drain naturally now though we do have to continue to massage it for a couple weeks. Please continue to pray that this procedure was a success and we won't have to do it again. Thanks to all of you who are praying. Please continue to do so. =)

On a side note, I would request one more item of prayer. Our friend Ying's mother was hit by a motorcylce yesterday morning around 5am. She had some bleeding in her head and so they were operating and then she will be placed in ICU. Please pray for this woman (I don't know her first name) and their family. They are all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Please pray that they would trust our great God who is able to heal their wife and mother. Please pray that they would know His presence, comfort and peace during this time and pray for our team as we seek to encourage and minister to them during this time (though she is in a hospital about three hours away). Mostly, pray for God to be glorified in this situation and for His grace to shine forth. Thank you, once again, for your faithful prayers.

Basketball Boys BBQ

Thank you to those of you who prayed for our evening of BBQ with the basketball guys from campus. We all had a really good time of karyoke, eating, laughing, chatting, and eating some more! This time we had a couple new faces and some who were here way back in January when we last had a Basketball Boys BBQ. This time, we were much more prepared with a LOT more food..thanks to Bow (Me's girlfriend) and Paul made sure we had enough shishcabobs (not sure on the spelling on this?)...I think he said there were 125!!! Bow made a really yummy fish soup that you eat with this white spaghetti like stuff called Khanom Jiin. When she asked if I wanted to try it, I wasn't too keen on the idea but it was delicious! I had seconds...soooo good! Oh, I also made chocolate chip cookie bars and they were gone in no time! Taa told me that I should sell them...hmm, maybe I will, in my spare time, right?! They were all telling me they were the best in the world..so thanks to Betty Crocker...oh and I even messed up the recipe. Instead of putting in 1/2 tsp of baking soda I put in baking powder. Pretty funny! I think there were about 14 of us all together, including two girlfriends and two Bangkok Bible College interns (Tang and Ying) who work with our team. Pictured above is Ton, Paul and Me messing around!

Pictured above here is Taa (on the left) and Boy (R). These two were SO funny singing karyoke. We laughed SO hard at them and with them. It is truly amazing to me how outgoing Thais are when it comes to karyoke...they are not ashamed or shy in the slightest!

And above is Taa's twin brother, Jay (on the right), Brandon (the American in the middle who works with YWAM) and Nut....showing off their cabobs.

And pictured above here is Ying. Ying actually was an intern with our team last school year but just graduated in June. She is now working with our team until December at which time she is hoping to marry the love of her life and move up north to be a missionary to tribal people. She and Tang, both, are such servants. They came to our home at 4:30 and didn't leave until 10PM! It was so great having them here to talk to the girlfriends that came. Ying and Tang came over last Saturday also and helped me out as we hosted a dinner party for a couple of my English students and their families. Again, it was so nice to have native Thai speakers who love Jesus available to aid in conversation and be a source of general encouragement. Thank the Lord with us because He has give us such great girls to work with here! Ying's older brother also works with YWAM and plays basketball frequently with Paul but he wasn't able to come last night to our BBQ.
So, thank you for praying...please keep praying for these guys and pray for Paul and me to continue to be faithful witnesses. Our prayer and hope is to see this group of guys gathering around God's Word, praying and studying together and growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord...please pray this with us. Oh, and Paul hurt his knee the other day, please pray for God to heal it and for wisdom for Paul to know when to play "bas" and when to take a break and pray that he wouldn't over do it on his knee.

MORE answered prayer!

This past Sunday SEVEN of the Maahaathai community teens received Christ as Lord and Savior! As you can imagine we are all so excited at the work of the Spirit in the hearts of these young people. Please continut to pray for them as they are discipled and will most likely face some persecution and opposition for being believers. (Six are girls and one boy).

God also brought two of our neighbor kids to Thai worship with me on Sunday! They seemed to like it. Rhianna and I also taught the younger kids Sunday School. PLease pray for this Sunday School class...it is quite a challenge as they are a rowdy group, but we praise God for bringing them to learn His truth.

PJ continues to do well at school. He has adjusted and most days forgets to say goodbye to me! Please continue to pray for a loosened tongue for him.

In other news, please be praying for this country especially today as there will be a ruling from the government regarding dissolving two of the political parties. Pray that God's will would be done and that He would grant us on the team safey if there are violent protests. Thank you!

Answered Prayers

Hi everyone out there...I have a few things to share today that I hope will encourage your hearts as they have mine.
Many of you have been praying for our neighbor friends (three little kids that PJ often plays with). Since we've moved into this house I've been asking these kids to come to Joy Kids with us on Saturday mornings. They always have some excuse and never seem interested. The Lord led me to ask Tang (one of our BBCS interns) to come here the other day for the sole purpose of getting these kids to Joy Kids...and she did it! We walked around on our soi (street) for two hours, talking to parents and four of our neighbor kids will be leaving with me in about two hours to attend Joy Kids for for the first time! This will likely be the first time they will hear the Gospel story. The Joy Kids teaching this term is on the miracles of Jesus. Please continue to pray for this important ministry and for our neighbor friends...for God to be at work in their hearts.

The other answer to prayer is the way in which God has sustained PJ this first week of school. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for him. The first two days went really well and then there was yesterday. He was fine in the morning and then just as we were to darken the door of his classroom, he clung to me and didn't want to go in. I told him, "It will be fun." He replied with, "I don't want to have fun at school." (that response made me chuckle to myself a little!) When we were about to enter the classroom, his teacher came out and said there was a mix-up and he was actually to be in another class, not hers. I was a bit annoyed, I will admit. But, I met the other teacher who is younger and FULL of energy. The first teacher took PJ into her class for a little while until he calmed down and then they moved him to the class he is really to be in. When I picked him up after lunch, he was smiling and happy. The other blessing is that the new teacher offered much more information to me in regards to how PJ did and was obviously very encouraging to PJ (and to me). So, keep praying! Thanks so much. He gets a weekend break (but we do have Joy Kids today) and then we start a full week on Monday. Fortunately, he does swimming on Monday and is really looking forward to it!