asia

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!

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.