Catching Up
It has been a very long time since I was able to do anything with my website, as you might have noticed. A LOT has happened in the past few years, so I will try to catch you up to speed in a nutshell.
Although we were happy and busy in our village, helping people with lifestyle issues, teaching English, feeding the poor, and anything else that came along, God saw fit to shake things up a bit. Through a long stream of circumstances that were a huge blessing to us, although they felt like trials at the time, we were led to leave our home on the mountain, and move to a location that has a Christian school so that the girls could attend school.
This has been a huge change for us, and for the girls, but really, our location and duties don’t matter nearly as much as knowing that we are in the center of God’s will for us.
But, moving to our new location was an adventure in faith. We were given plenty of housing options in a town next to the school, but at every place, we would have been surrounded by bad influences for the girls, and loud music all day every day. After our peaceful village on the mountain, none of that was even remotely attractive to us. It is bad enough that our girls are forced into school without surrounding them with bad influences the rest of the day also.
So then we were introduced to our final option…a shack in a garden! It was the perfect location for the girls…plenty of room to work and play, close to the school and a big creek to play in. The shack on the other hand was worse than anything I ever dreamed of living in. But who really cares? Not me! At least not until rainy season started!
During the first week we lived in the shack, I spied a HUGE snake right outside my shack. Then the next day, four snakes came to my house, one slithered right in and onto my favorite seat before disappearing somewhere in the kitchen! This happened several times, making me very thankful for those verses in the Bible about snakes not hurting me!
To make a long story short, we ended up deciding to build a moveable panel house, so that if we need to move again, we can just take our home with us. I love tiny houses, so that is what we built. It is less than 300 square feet, and very cozy. But we manage to fit lots of people in here, since it has become a very popular place for the village kids to spend their days.
It didn’t take us very long to find our place in our new community. There are always plenty of needy people, and many kids who need TLC.
The other super wonderful thing that happened was that after two long years, Esther returned to us. She has been through a lot, and changed a lot, but she is still our precious daughter, and we are so happy to have her back in our lives.
So now we have two bible workers working here with us, plus one in Karen state. Our daughter Marybeth and her husband are also trying to do bible work in their new location.
We feel the urgency of the times in which we live. It is very evident that Jesus is coming back very soon. Our greatest desire is to be ready for that day, and to help as many people as we can while time lasts.