Well, as you can tell I have been in hiding....not really! The summer has flown by with us hanging on the tail of the winds. Our summer was one of uncertainty but full of trust in the Lord. We began July with not one meeting booked because Harrell had been called up for Jury Duty in Fort Worth, Texas. I am so excited to tell you God supplied all of our needs and even a few of my wants! Harrell was excused from serving and God took care of all our bills.
I had the opportunity to see my 3 sisters and 2 brothers on a spur of the moment family reunion in Sulpher, Oklahoma. We ended up with over 50 people there! I was blessed to see 2 of my aunts, several cousins and my favorite uncle of all, Uncle SL. Many of these family members I haven't seen in close to 40 years. It was a great time of reconnecting and renewing family ties. Don't take family for granted. It felt so good to be with my sisters and to know we love one another no matter what.
We were in Romania in August to get the kids ready for school this year. The little ones were so excited to get back to playing and learning. The older kids weren't as excited! We want to thank the Lisbon Baptist Temple of Lisbon, Ohio for sending their Vacation Bible School offering for us to use on the school supplies. You thought buying for 2-8 kids was a hassle, try doing it for 28 children from Kindergarten up to High School! Boy, was Brother Harrell worn out when we finished! We would go into a store and ask for a specific item and just buy all they had! Most stores only carry a few things on their shelves! Boy could I have used a good old Wal-Marts!!! Well, the kids are all doing good in school and God has kept everyone healthy.
There was a scare back in March when two of our little girls were diagnosed with heart problems. Timea was found to have a very small hole in her heart. The doctors are just watching her right now to see if it will heal itself. Dana is a very skinny little girl whose chest cavity is just too small for her heart and lungs. They have her doing some exercises to expand her chest bones. So please pray for my little girls that God will touch them. Both girls are 7 years old and we have had them since they were 8 months old.
We also had one of our little 5 year old boys, Alex, set to be adopted this fall. All of the paper work was done and the potential parents came out to the home to see him for the first time...when they saw he was 5 years old they turned him down! They thought they were getting a baby! It broke my heart but I was also very glad that we still have him under our loving care.
The Gypsy churches are doing good also. We are close to having the church in Bertin completed. Here in the U.S. it would have been completed in less than 3 months, in Romania in has been close to a year!!! The people are ready for it to be finished and opened for services! So are we!
I thank God that HE has placed such a wonderful man over the Feeding Center in La Ceiba, Honduras. Aldo is so conscientious towards doing right and being accountable to us and the Lord that we don't have to worry too much about that work. We are still trying to get a national pastor to start a church there and work with these people. We would love to be able to move the whole neighborhood to a new location. The area is being built up with new homes all around them. The locals solution to this barrio is to build a wall on either side of the street and close them in. All this does is close off what fresh air they can get and puts the children in danger from the workers on these new houses!
We have a great need for your prayers in October. Harrell will be flying to Viet Nam and then over to Cebu, Philippines for 2 weeks to see about starting some ministries over there. We have met a Vietnamese pastor through mutual friends and on the internet. We are so excited to see where God is going to take us. We promised the Lord we'd go anywhere HE leads, so pray with us that Harrell will know without a doubt what God would have him do while in these new countries. Our hearts desire is that God would allow us to have a working ministry for HIM on every continent on the Earth.
Well, I promise not to be so long in publishing a blog next time! Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all I need to do and kind of go into a shut down mode!!!! So til next time keep those prayers coming our way and remember that without your prayers to shield us from Satan's fiery darts we are wide open to attacks. I really am a coward too, so don't stop praying for me, I mean us, them...well God knows!!