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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.

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!

Gobi Desert – The Ends of the Earth

It would take a whole book to share all that happened on our trip to Mongolia. Medical teams are amazing, and this team was no exception. We knew it would be impactful when we spent 6 hours negotiating with customs for them to release our suitcases of medicine. We had the paperwork, but the agents at the airport didn’t want to accept it. However, the Lord gave us favor and they were released. In the process, we got to meet the head of customs and have a direct line to him now. The Lord uses everything.

We got to visit our orphanage in Ulaanbaatar and love on the kids for a while. It is the only orphanage that takes in babies and was recognized as the #1 orphanage in Mongolia. They even put out a documentary on the news, in Mongolian of course. The team also got a tour of one of the pro-life centers the missionary has.

Then, it was time for our 10-hour trek into the Gobi Desert. We stopped and checked out some camels along the way. Once we got to the village we got setup into our yurts, which became our home away from home for the next week. From there, we saw a crazy number of patients. We had people the travelled 50 km just to see a doctor or dentist. They were coming from everywhere. We also had the opportunity for some of our team to go to the schools each day and provide health checkups and fluoride treatments to around 600 kids in the village. We even got to put on a clinic in a second village, 3 hours further in the Gobi and see Boldmaa. 20 years ago she was a 6 year old girl, and our very first MANNA kid at the nutrition center. Today she is married, has a son and is a teach in the school. God is good.

In the evenings the schools hosted us to put on hygiene clinics for the parents. We got to spend time with friends, star gaze at night (the Milky Way is incredible in the Gobi), and make new friends. We even had a famous Mongolian throat singer give us a performance after we treated his child.

Thank you for your prayers and support for our family. I wanted to share some pictures of our trip into the Gobi. In a little less than 2 weeks I’ll be leading a team to Guatemala, then we head to Thailand and Cambodia until Thanksgiving.