It had been a pretty hard day. I had been bitten by two little “ants” as people call them here. I quickly found out that I was allergic to these little critters, and had spent the day working hard while trying to nurse my wrist and elbow that were swollen to several times their normal size. I felt sick too…nothing specific, just a general unwell feeling. But, the work does not stop for ant bites or any other reason, so I had worked hard anyway, and then taken a nice cold bath at the well. I had just gone to my semi private room to get dressed when I felt a sudden stabbing pain in the middle of my chest. “Oh NO” I thought, “here I am alone in the house with no help in sight.” My EMT training kicked in, and I knew that I would have to deal with my problem on my own. So, ripping my shirt off, I began to frantically look for a weapon of some kind. It is better to put a quick end to such problems. Unfortunately, all I could find was a broom, and by that time that nasty scorpion had already escaped into the floor boards. Well… you win some and you lose some.

Life is seldom fair in the mission field. I sustained 3 violations from the local critters in one day, and I had not been able to kill one of them. But, then my mind went back to the fact that we have been killing one or two scorpions every day, so that made me feel a bit of satisfaction. At least we are doing what we can to make Thailand a better place.

Last week is a bit of a blurr still, but it was a wild one for sure. To make a long story short, I had gotten hardly any sleep due to Hannah’s whooping cough, and later in the week, Memewah and Travis joined her in their midnight coughing sprees. Then, in the middle of this, I was given another baby. He was a 16 month old boy who was in “desperate” need of a home. So, we took him in, and spent more sleepless nights trying to sooth this child who so desperately wanted his mother. Then, on Friday, we got a call from a church member that the father had been accused of selling us his child! So, pretty soon he showed up here and took the baby back. We could feel nothing but relief since we are all sick and really didn’t need the added responsibility right now. We were told that there is a possibility that we might get him and his brother back, but as the days go by, that possibility fades into the distance.

So, each day finds us training the kids,  and working on the buildings, trying to get them finished. It seems that things move at a snails pace around here when it comes to building. But, when you consider that if you want to pour a slab of concrete, all of it has to be mixed by hand in poor excuses for wheelbarrows with no wheels. It is a hard job, and when everyone is sick, it just doesn’t go very fast. But, progress is progress…right?

Back in the States, Roy is traveling again, headed back to Missouri to attend his brothers wedding. We hope that he will be able to head on back here soon after that. Ben is still in Idaho and is working, trying to earn the money to be able to attend AFCOE before coming back.

God has certainly blessed us this month, and we want to thank those who helped Him!