Samurais and Sushi

As you know from our previous update, July started in Fiji. From Fiji we flew to Japan to pick up the next team. It’s when you realize Fiji is roughly 10 hours by plane from LA, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo that you were in the middle of nowhere. Ha! This Japan team was amazing and I’m excited to share some updates and prayer requests.

Each year we take a team to Japan, and it is a unique trip. The team invests its time and talents in getting a youth camp ready for campers. Over the years we have been adding components to the camp, from zip lines, to tree forts, to rock climbing walls. We also have organized a game room, painted, yard work, and installed flooring. This year’s team may take the cake for tackling the most projects. Too many to list as I think the list reached 28 different projects we all worked on and completed.

Part of the team installed flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms. Another group installed ceiling grid tiles, while others work on planting and gardening. We refurbished a gazebo, swing sets, and basketball court. We built what we called the swing of terror and bridge of death. LOL Another group tore down some stairs attached to a deck that were rotten and dangerous. We secured that area and a Japanese team of carpenters were coming a week later to install new stairs. We even built a corn hole set and introduced the Japanese to this new game.

Another part of the trip is a giant fellowship with Japanese churches. They all come to the camp for a day and we work alongside each other, encourage each other, and get to fellowship with believers from the other side of the world. These churches will be bringing youth groups over the course of the next few months to the camp. 

I talked to this team about how important this work it. They are serving people they will never meet on this earth. But, their investment gives the opportunity for those children to come to a camp and hear the Gospel. You don’t always get to hear the fruit of your labor, but this year we did. During the first camp after we left we found out Pastor Tanii got to lead a 10 year old boy to the Lord on the gazebo we refurbished. I’m sure the swing of terror played an important role in this process too. 🙂 

In all seriousness, it is a beautiful thing to be a part of and getting to see the impact on lives after we leave and a blessing and a bonus. I head out on Monday to Cambodia, then to Korea, then Mongolia to provide medical care in the Gobi Desert and finally to Fiji. Kim and Kayli will meet me in Korea. We will make it home the end of September. I look forward to sharing updates along the way. 

Thank you for your prayers and support. Enjoy the pictures.

Where’s Waldo

It has been a crazy few months. I wanted to get an update out last month and time got away from me. Kayli graduated from Texas A&M in May and we moved her to Ohio so that she could work at Camp Chautauqua this summer. Reaghan started an internship at an architecture firm in Fort Worth, so for the first time ever, Kim and I headed out without any of our kids. 

Fortunately, we were not alone. Kim’s sister Kristi and her husband Jim came with us to Asia for the first time!! It was such a tremendous blessing having them be with us with our first team in Thailand. 

Speaking of teams, we have had 2 teams to Thailand and 1 team to Fiji thus far this summer. As we speak, Kim and I just made it to Japan and we are awaiting the arrival of everyone. We have several people arriving tomorrow, including our daughter Reaghan who got permission to take 2 weeks off to join us on our Japan team. It has been really sweet to hear her talk about how missions is in her DNA now and not being overseas has been tough. Kayli has even mentioned how much her involvement in our mission work and teams has impacted her and helped her as she serves at Chautauqua. It such a confirmation of the Lord’s plan and His provision and grace in our lives.

In Thailand we were able to work in southern Thailand where we took on a construction project to help build some new offices and a conference room while others taught the children and we prepared bags of rice for 500 families. On our second team we had the privilege of being with our sending church, FB Lex! We worked in MaeSot, Thailand teaching the children, hosting women’s night, youth night and special meals for the family and teachers. We also had our traditional epic field day. After a tour of Bangkok on the backend of the trip, they headed home and we headed to Fiji.

In Fiji we got to put on a VBS for the kids at 2 nutrition centers and setup basketball goals. Meanwhile the kids taught us how to play rugby. On Saturday we had a carnival and hot dog cookout for the children at the deaf hostel. What a way to also celebrate the 4th of July! The kids loved it! They come from all over Fiji to go to the deaf school, but since they don’t have family to live with, a boarding home was setup. MANNA partners with them to provide the food for the kids. To cap off the whole trip, we ran into one of our best friends, Randy, from our church in Pennsylvania! What are the chances! I love it when the Lord does things like that. I look forward to sending out an update after Japan as we then gear up for more trips in August and September.

Thank you for your support. Enjoy the photos!

From Togo to Tinca

It has been a crazy month. We ended up spending time on 4 different continents in February. In our last update we had just arrived home from Asia. I had some meetings in Texas, then we flew to Togo, Africa. We were able to visit a MANNA medical clinic in a village and Kim was able to teach physical therapy techniques to the staff there. It is a huge need. We also had the opportunity to spend time with the kids and take part in the nutrition center. The big bonus was there are twin boys who have cerebral palsy in the village. They are roughly 16 years old. They are not able to move or stand. Kim was able to work with them for a while and teach exercises and treatments that can help them. The highlight was when she was able to help them stand for the very first time. The look on their faces said it all. We are planning to take a medical team back with us in the future to serve this community more.

From there we flew to Budapest to meet up with a team and drive into Romania. We had the grand opening for a new medical clinic in a gypsy village in Tinca, Romana. This is a very underserved community from a medical standpoint and through the help of many generous donors we have been able to convert a two story building into a medical clinic for the village. The grand opening was a celebration of years of work. We were able to be a part of the first day of clinics as Kim saw physical therapy patients and Christine O’Neal saw medical patients.

Our daughter Reaghan is doing study abroad in Italy as part of her architecture program at Texas A&M. It is a required component. Poor thing having to spend 4 months in Florence. Ha! But, since we were already in Europe it made sense to stop by and get to see her. Also, it lined up with Kayli’s spring break and I have more airline miles than I know what to do with. So, we used our miles to fly Kayli over and we got to see both girls for a few days. It was a real blessing for our family.

We headed home from Italy, slept in our own bed for a night or two, then headed to Boston to speak at one of our supporting churches who help us a lot in Mongolia. As we were laying bed Kim says, “I’m looking forward to the day we can spend more than 2 days at home in a row.” It got me thinking, how many days have we been away. It turns out in the past 300 days we have spent 88 days at home. The remaining 212 have been spread out over 4 continents and time spent in I think 17 different countries. It’s been a busy few months. We will spend April and May getting all of our trips ready to go starting the first of June, and we will be attending Kayli’s graduation from college. Hard to believe how fast time is going by.

Seeing is Believing

We have returned from a month in Asia. It was crazy and amazing. We started with a surgical eye team who performed cataract surgeries, then went to Vietnam for a week and ended with a medical team back in Cambodia. The trip finished with Kim and I getting stuck in Hong Kong for a day due to flight delays. In the end, it was pretty amazing to see how the Lord worked. 

Starting with the eye team, we knew it was going to be an impactful trip when the team’s flights were delayed due to mechanical issues and we had to scramble shift everything by a day to accommodate them arriving a day later than planned. In total we saw 250 patients and performed cataract surgery on 17. Watching the joy on their face as they got their bandages off the next day and could see was amazing. Cataracts are a huge problem in Cambodia, we even had a 17 year old kid with cataracts already. The trip ended with the team having their flights cancelled due to a winter storm in the US and us scrambling to get them rebooked and home. 

After we saw them off we hopped to Vietnam and got to go and work with the Hmong people in the far north. We were able to provide them with backpacks and fed the kids. It was truly amazing and we are hoping to start a new tutoring program in the village.

We then made it back to Cambodia to pick up a medical team. We had clinics for 5 days, saw over 800 patients and saw some amazing things. Kim worked on a patient that had been shot in the neck by Pol Pot’s regime over 40 years ago. We had difficult dental situations where the team prayed and the Lord moved. A family with a genetic eye condition came to the clinic, most were either blind or mostly blind. The team is working to get them into our school and provide education services for them. You never know who will show up and how we can minister to them. They had us host a medical clinic at a Buddhist temple on what was being celebrated as the anniversary of the beginning of Buddhism. When we showed up, the temple had put all of the festivities on hold, moved the Buddha statue into a closet, invited the governor and he shared a group of Christians were coming to provide medical care. It was a surreal experience and a lot of lives impacted.

Kim and I are home for 10 more days before we head to Togo, Africa to look at a new MANNA medical clinic, then off to Romania for the grand opening of our newest medical clinic. Thank you for your prayers!

Thailand to Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We made it home from Thailand just in time to celebrate the holidays and see our girls. I headed to Thailand the end of October and went to western Thailand along with a couple others to spend time with our ministry partners there. We have a school and a boarding home for Burmese children. When we go, we always have a team with us and are teaching the school and putting on a lot of events for the community. This time we went with only a few of us to get to invest in the lives of the leaders and family there. It was well worth the visit and time.

From there, I flew to Japan and met Kim in Tokyo. We went to church with our ministry partners in Japan, then spent a few days with them planning out our team this coming summer. It will be twice the size of our previous teams and will take some extra logistics and planning. This was a tremendous opportunity to do that, and get to also spend time with them without the circus. Ha! I must say, Japan is beautiful in the fall.

We then hopped back to Bangkok and picked up a team. The team was great and all throttle and no brake as I like to say. They hit the ground running and didn’t stop until 9 pm or later every night. We put on an English camp at a public school in Bangkok, delivered food and had a VBS for a community that lives around the city dump, and got to work with our soccer team. They ran circles around us, but we had a lot of fun with them. After church on Sunday we flew to northern Thailand.

In the north, we taught English at a school, then put on a VBS and performed construction work the remainder of the trip. We got to have a special meal with the kids, paint the classroom at the church. I love getting to engage the hill tribes in Thailand and this is a very special place. Part of the team went the extra mile when they framed and drywalled the ceiling at the pastor’s house. We are back in the States and will spend more time at home in the month of December than the last 6 months combined before heading back out in January. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Where do we live again?

We have just finished back-to-back teams to Mongolia and Thailand with some detours to Korea in the middle. I was talking with our last team, and if my math is correct, Kim and I have spent a whole 8 nights in our own bed since May. The good news is, we get to sleep at home this Friday night! It has been a pretty amazing month. Here is the recap.

We took a medical team to Mongolia for the 3rd year in a row. It really is the ends of the earth type of trip. We were able to visit a crisis pregnancy center in Ulaanbaatar and spend time with at our orphanage as well. It is great seeing the kids and loving on them. The government ranked it as the #1 orphanage in Mongolia several years ago and they had a whole news documentary on it.

From there, we drove 10 hours into the Gobi Desert and had a medical clinic in 2 different villages where we have nutrition centers located. It has been a tremendous outreach to the communities and provided us an audience with the local mayor and given us favor with the schools and people. What has been a treat is getting to see some repeat patients and follow-up on them. There is a stroke patient that Kim worked with the first year and he and his wife have come back every time. The first year he couldn’t walk or talk, the second year he was able to walk with a cane. This year he told Kim, “welcome to Mongolia” for the very first time. It is really incredible to see his progress and the joy.

From there we sent the team home and picked up a team in Thailand. We started in northern Thailand working with the Lahu, which is a Hill Tribe. We have been able to start a tutoring program where we feed the children and the pastor’s wife helps tutor them in school as most kids never make it past 6th grade. She is a school teacher and was able to get us into 2 different schools to help teach English.

Next, we went to southern Thailand and worked at a school for Burmese refugee children. It is a great partnership. MANNA provides the funding to feed the over 200 children breakfast and lunch each day so that they can have good nutrition while learning. This team taught a VBS to 2nd grade for several days, attended chapel, and help do some demolition and painting on the second floor classrooms. It was a huge help to the ministry and the kids. It was amazing to see how excited the kids were to find out they were getting newly painted classrooms. Both teams were a huge blessing to the respective ministries and communities and I cannot wait to see what the long-term fruit is from both of them. We will now be speaking at churches in 3 different states in October and heading back to Thailand at the end of the month until Thanksgiving. Thank you again for your prayers and support!

Ring of Fire

After we saw our Thailand team off we headed to Japan. We were met with an earthquake and a typhoon. Reaghan seriously thought I had snuck into her room and was shaking her bed not realizing it was an earthquake. I guess that’s going to happen when most of our time is spend in countries in the Ring of Fire. The team arrive the next day and we headed up to the mountains to work at a camp.

Every year this group comes and brings a team to help do renovations on a youth camp in the mountains several hours west of Tokyo. This year we replaced 30 year old carpet with new hardwood floors. Reaghan was my right hand helper too. In addition to the flooring, the team roofed an outdoor kitchen, worked on a rock climbing wall, and did a ton of cleaning. We had a big fellowship with Japanese churches around the Tokyo area and cleaned up the grounds with a chainsaw and a lot of helping hands. We headed back to Tokyo on Wednesday and the first campers showed up the next day. I know the kids really enjoyed the renovations at the camp. Before we sent them home we took the team on a tour of Tokyo and visited Mount Fuji. 

Once we sent the team home we headed to China to help with another camp of sorts. We landed in Beijing and met up with a team who was working with kids, teach English and take them to visit cultural sites. We made a lot of new friends along the way. We took a high speed train to Xi’an and met up with the kids there. Around English lessons and programs we took them to visit museums, historical palaces and the Terracotta Warriors. The kids loved it!

After finishing the camp in Xi’an we flew to Shanghai and met with a school and a couple who works with orphanages and special needs kids. We are preparing to help them engage the kids and assist with additional camps for special needs and autistic children in China. All in all, it was an amazing trip and the kids in China will have a special place in our heart for sure. 

We made it home and are moving our daughters back to college this week, as we speak. On Monday we are back on a plane as we take a medical team to Mongolia, then head to Thailand for a second team. We should make it home the end of September. I look forward to keeping you updated on those teams.

Mongolia, Hong Kong, Fiji, and unlikely trio

June has been quite the adventure. We were able to serve with a team from Harbor Church in Cape Cod in Asia. We started in Mongolia. We were able to work at our nutrition center in Ulaanbaatar for several days and go to church with some of the kids. Part of the team worked on constructing a new gate, new doors and building a set of monkey bars for the kids. Meanwhile the rest of the team did lessons, skits and crafts each day. On the last day they put on a carnival for the kids. The kids loved it, and it turns out Reaghan makes a really good shark. Getting to visit some homes and deliver water filters to families was a great experience as well.

Logistically, this trip was a challenge. There are no direct routes to Fiji. So, we had to get creative. It turns out there is a direct flight from Hong Kong to Fiji 3 times a week. As a result we had to figure out when the Mongolia to Hong Kong flights matched up with the Hong Kong to Fiji flights, which also had to match up with good days of the week to do ministry work with the kids on both ends. The bonus was, we got to give the team a crazy fast night tour of Hong Kong between the flights.

Once we landed in Fiji we hit the ground running. We worked at 2 different nutrition centers and a deaf hostel. There is only one deaf school on the main island, so if a child is deaf, they have to go there, but most of the families do not live anywhere near that town. As a result, they started a hostel for the kids to live at during the school year. Think of it as a boarding home. We got to put on a carnival for them as well and have a big cookout. They are away from home, and can be isolated from society, so we wanted to love on them as much as possible and show them how much the Lord loves them.

As I write this, I am sitting at the airport in Sydney on our way to Singapore, then Thailand for our next team. It will be all throttle and no brake from here on out. I was looking at the schedule and our family effectively has 1 day between now and August 7 where we are not working with someone or trying to travel to someone. Your prayers are coveted. Thank you for your support and continued encouragement for our family.

Cambodia Medical Team

Kim and I made it home from Cambodia and it was an amazing team! Each year at this time we take a team of medical professionals (doctors, nurses, dentists, occupational and physical therapists, etc.) to help serve in rural communities in the middle of Cambodia. It has been amazing to watch what the Lord does and to develop lifelong relationships with everyone there.

This year we were able to add a VBS component to the mix. They were incredible and worn out. I think they put on 6 different Vacation Bible Schools in different areas. The kids loved it, the parents loved it, and our ministry partners loved it. 

We held a mobile clinic it a village where we provided medical care along with eye glasses and sun glasses. We also setup a clinic in the hospital in Kampong Thom that we have been partnering with for years. We are in the process of raising funds to help get the hospital fully staffed and providing free medical care on a daily basis in an area with over 225,000 people. On the site of the hospital is a school MANNA is partnered with that educates 500 students. 

While we were there the governor of the region showed up and met with us. So, you never know who you will get an audience with and the doors that will open. We then moved to another part of Cambodia and provided medical care in a floating village area along the Tonle Sap Lake. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, there are days where neither are sufficient to describe what you are seeing. Such was our time in the floating village. The need for these people was immense, but the love that poured out of our team was greater. 

Thank you so much for your support, it is an honor to serve on your behalf. Enjoy the photos below. I’ll be in Virginia next week in meetings at Liberty University talking about missions and engagement around the world. Thank you for your prayers!

A Fall to Remember

I am having to combine two months into one update. From mid-October until now I have been overseas with teams. It has been an amazing fall between Guatemala, Thailand and Cambodia. We are home for this week for Thanksgiving and we are really excited to see our girls. Then, I’m off to China next week to finish out the year. 

We started in Guatemala where I had a team working at our orphanage, in a Mayan village and down on the coast. We were able to build stoves, wash feet and hair, and deliver food baskets in a Mayan village in Guatemala where we have a nutrition center. We also took the kids from our children’s home to the zoo and had a bonfire and cookout with them. Next came a large carnival and church service followed by several days on the coast where we released turtles and put on a VBS at several nutrition centers while delivering food and building stoves. From there I flew to South Carolina to speak at a church, then Kim and I headed to Cambodia and Thailand.

Our first team was only in Cambodia. They put on a VBS for a lot of kids at different nutrition centers. The theme was Jonah and they brought a giant shark suit as a prop. This turned into an epic game of sharks and minnows with the kids afterward. We were able to teach English in the school and love on kids in 4 different locations. 

Our last team spanned Thailand and Cambodia. We started in Thailand in a village on the Laos border working with the Lahu tribe. Part of the team taught English in several schools while others replaced windows on the church and the remaining people put on a medical clinic in the village. It was a challenge with all the different languages being spoken. Next, we travelled to Bangkok where we put on a carnival to promote Christmas services and medical clinic to serve the Pakistani and deaf communities. Next, it was on the Cambodia. We hosted a medical clinic at the hospital in Kampong Thom, which allowed a medical team from Phnom Penh to provide cancer screens. The remainder of the team put on a VBS for 4 groups of kids in 3 different locations. In all, this team required 8 flights, 6 hotels, 6 buses, 5 vans, 1 boat, 27 visas, 26 translators in 5 different languages for 2 countries to complete. It was a lot, but the Lord provided. We even saw one of our translators get led to the Lord!

Thank you for your prayers and support. Your generosity has enabled all of this to happen. I pray each of you has a Happy Thanksgiving!