This update has been three months in the making, and it’s been a wild time! I keep trying to sit down and get it out, but something always comes up. If you add up every day I’ve been home since May, I think it comes to about four weeks. Kim and I got home from a missions conference last week, head to another this week, then MANNA’s 25th Anniversary celebration early next week, and finally Togo, Africa, at the end of the week.

We have a dental team in Togo, then head to Thailand for another team as soon as they return home, getting back just in time for Thanksgiving. But enough about the future! Let me share what the Lord has been doing.

In August, I headed to Cambodia to visit our projects and capture amazing stories of life change. People who came through our nutrition centers as teenagers are now leading churches and schools 20 years later. It’s incredible to see what the Lord has done! From there, we headed to Seoul to meet a young lady who grew up in our projects in Nepal and is now a college student in Korea. Sometimes the future looks impossible from our perspective, but then the Lord shows us otherwise.

Next, we headed to Mongolia for a medical outreach, joined by our daughter Kayli. We hosted a medical clinic, saw patients, and were invited by the kindergarten principal to provide annual checkups for the children. We even had a family from Nevada join in and help with the clinic. Unfortunately, someone in the village opposed the church and clinic and called immigration. That’s a story for another day, but let’s just say persecution is real.

From Mongolia, we traveled to China to visit a school and a home for special-needs orphans receiving medical care. Kim and I headed to our next team while Kayli stayed two more weeks to help at the school and teach gymnastics. It was a huge hit!

Meanwhile, Kim and I picked up a team in Fiji. We served at several nutrition centers and worked with kids. We also painted a church, reframed floors at the pastor’s house, and repaired pews at another church. One highlight was a carnival and cookout at a boarding home for children attending the deaf school MANNA supports. These kids are so precious. Often isolated from society and their families, they are deeply impacted by the time we spend with them. You can really see the difference that investing in their lives makes.

On Sunday morning in Fiji, we received an emergency call that our youngest daughter, Reaghan, was in the emergency room. As I headed up to preach, she was heading into surgery for an emergency appendectomy. Being half a world away and unable to help is tough, but we’re grateful for family and friends who love our girls and can be there when we can’t. Reaghan is recovering well, back in class, and doing great!

Kayli is back in Ohio, working at the youth camp and attending medical school interviews. It’s been a crazy season, to say the least! Thank you for your continued prayers and support. They mean more than you know.