Praise the Lord! Roy should be home in just a few minutes.

When I talked to Roy the other day about what our next move should be, I was impressed that he should go back to the embassy and talk to them again.  So, he went back and they granted him a single entry visa. That means that he has two months to stay in Thailand. We have to do something else about our visas by that time, or we will have to leave. So, the story is not over by any means, but at least we have a couple of months to figure things out. (or I should say “he” does, since Travis and I have not gone on our visa run yet)

We are willing to do anything that God asks us to do, but so far I have been strongly impressed that we are not finished with our work here…rather, we are just starting. So, with that in mind, I will tell you about one of our latest developments.

One day I was chatting with Ben on the phone, and I mentioned to him that I don’t like it that there are no reference materials for the Karen. No bible concordance…no nothing! When my students want to do a worship talk, they cannot just look up a subject in the concordance and put together their talk…they have to hunt for every verse that they need. I was amazed one day when one of the pastors asked me a pretty simple bible question. I had studied the subject some years before, so I quickly turned to the passage that directly answered his question, and he was so amazed. He had actually never read it before.  No, there is nothing great about my abilities, but there is something great about having the resources you need to find the answers that you are looking for. But back to my story…

Ben then  calmly stated that he had noticed that problem, had taught himself computer programming, wrote a Karen typing program for his students to learn to type Karen, and then he started having his students digitize the bible while he worked on making a program that will turn it into a bible concordance. (He tells me that the programming part is easy, but I also know that he has spent months of hard work on it so far) Isn’t that just like Ben? He never said anything to anyone about it, he just studied until he could fix the problem that he saw, then did something about it.  He said that his problem was that  he would need someone else to do the typing of the bible into the computers so that the work could go forward. ( almost all of his computers were stolen, so he was working on trying to get them back so that the work could progress…obviously this is not a project that the devil wants to see happen)  I then enthusiastically offered my students services for this great project. So, we downloaded the fonts for our computers, and started learning to type Karen. Now, we have just started the real job of digitizing the bible. We have the first 10 chapters of Psalms done now. Ben’s students had completed most of the book of Genesis before the computers were stolen, so we have quite a bit done already! That was one of the main reasons that I was so excited about the prospect of those 12 new students for next year…they can learn to type and help us. (and the latest news is that the stolen computers are now in Thailand, and Travis is going to try to get them next week)

I believe that is one of the biggest reasons why we are having visa troubles now. This is certainly not a Christian country, and you can see it and feel it everywhere you go. What is essential right now is for our partners all over the world to pray for us and our situation. God is certainly in the business of doing the impossible, and so that is our prayer. If we have faith as a mustard seed, God can move those mountains!