Recovery Update

Greetings to all of you, our family and friends,

It has now been one week since I received treatment for my thyroid cancer. I won't go into too many details of the process or anything else, but just want you to know that I am no longer glowing at this point and am doing ok. I am still having some small residual side effects from the treatment as well as starting back on thyroid meds, but overall am functioning to the best of my ability. It will take some time for me to balance back out and get my strength, normal vision and thought process back. I will go in this Wednesday for another full body scan to make sure the treatment did its job. As far as I know, last weeks treatment should be all that I need to get rid of the cancer. Of course, we don't know for sure but our Lord does and that is all the matters to us at the moment! =D

People are still wanting to know how to be praying for us. I guess I would ask for patience. I know it can be a scary request when we decide to ask the Lord for patience but I don't deal very well with a slow recovery process. I want my body to just be back to normal right away and it just doesn't work that way. So I need to continue to rely on the Lord and remain humble in needing to slow down and even ask those around me for help until I am back on my feet. Mostly, our hearts are with Paul's dad who still is in the hospital trying to endure the process of fighting GVHD (Graft Verses Host Disease). Though they, Paul's parents, rely on the strength of our Father to carry them through this, they can grow tired and weary. We want to be able to be there as much as possible for them and desire them to feel the love of the Lord in their lives.

We want to say thank you to all of you who have helped us physically, offered to support our family and all the prayers that have been said on our behalf. We couldn't ask for a better prayer warriors and loving people to be part of our lives. We love and appreciate each and every one of you.

Blessings,
Kim & Paul

Where are we?

I know many of you are wondering if we fell off the face of the earth and if we hadn't, why isn't the blogsite updated!! Well, I wish I had a glorious story to tell you, but the reality is, I haven't been as good at doing this as I had hoped I would. So to the few of you that look at this, please except my greatest apology and I will try to get on here soon to get an update. I did get some basics updated on budget, praises and prayer requests.

Thank you for all of your love and prayers for our family!

Overdue...

Friends,

It seems that I am not as diligent at updating this on a regular basis as I thought I would be. Please forgive me as the updates are far, few in between and then seem pretty long!

There hasn't been too much going on since our last update. We started school with the boys and this year (the first week) has been going better than last year...thank goodness. It is a lot of work and there are days that I would prefer to not have to get up to do it! I suppose we all feel that at some time or another no matter what we are waking up to for the day? But, we are thankful that we awake every morning and are eager to see what the Lord has in store for us.

For those who may not know, there are five families who have opened up their homes to host "gatherings". This was for us to invite everyone to come and hear about our trip to China, the people we met over there and what the work we will be doing will look like. The dates are listed below and if you are interested in coming to any, just send us an email to let us know which date would fit into your schedule the best. We are excited to have the opportunity to share with everyone in a small setting. We hope you will be able to come!

* Saturday, September 22nd, 4pm, in Graham
* Sunday, September 23rd, 5pm, in Des Moines
* Sunday, September 30th, 3pm, in Federal Way (Marine Hills)
* Monday, October 1st, 7pm, in Auburn (West Hill)
* Sunday, October 7th, 2pm, in Burien

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as the fall schedules get under way. We don't want to become consumed by our schedules and want to stay focused on the Lord and what lies ahead. We would also appreciate continued prayer for Paul's dad, Dick, and his mom, Jean. The process of preparing oneself for a transplant is both full of anticipation and down right frustration. We all know the Lord is sovereign but they continue to need His physical and emotional strength to walk this path. They are both a great testimony of perseverance in times of trouble and we pray the Lord continues to give them peace and joy amidst it as well.

It is a blessing to be able to hold each other up in prayer and we are so appreciative of the prayer that is being sent up on our behalf. We would also like to be holding up your prayer needs as well. We would be honored if you would send us an email letting us know how we can be praying for you and your families.

Blessings,
P & K

Changes coming our way

It hardly seems like it has been over a month since we arrived back home. The Lord has been working many wonders in our lives since then and we are also getting back into the swing of life and hopefully not letting it bog us down in the process. It is so easy to lose ourselves in our daily lives and forget where our number one focus must be in order to stay on task.

Our house went on the market while we were in QZ and before we left, we sent out this message to many people saying, "we are prepared to wait out the market for the house which is 66+ days but if the Lord wanted to sell our house in two weeks, He will!". Once again, the Lord has shown His power in our obedience to let go and trust Him in this journey we are on. We had a buyer within two weeks. We couldn't have asked for a more smooth transaction with the house closing on Aug. 20th.

Paul and Andrew had left for our Youth Montana Mission Trip the week after we got back. They both had a great time of working for their perspective towns, didn't receive any injuries (yeah) and grew in their faith. What more could you ask for?

Two weekends ago, we received a call from M&J (our field mentors - who we will be working under) to let us know they had found us an apartment and rented it. They will use the space for other visitors who come and go until we get there. It is fully furnished, with the exception of a diningroom table, on the 3rd floor (no elevators), with two bathrooms, oversized bedrooms and it is over a bakery!!! Boy the Lord is good!

Last weekend, we had a garage sale with some help from of our friends and it was a great success. Even the terrential rains waited until we had everything picked up and under cover!

Paul's dad who has been on a stem cell transplant donor list for several months now has received word of a 10 out of 10 match and will most likely start the process of a mini-stem cell transplant in September! Praise God!

As you can tell, the Lord has been awesome in moving us ahead this last month. But along with many blessings comes some hard things as well. We wholeheartedly believe we have been under attack from the enemy from day one, but the last month seems to have been more than usual. So please pray for our family to be faithful in following God's word in standing firm against the enemy (Eph. 6:10-17) and that we don't get discouraged along the way.

The best news of all is, we can leave at any time! So what is holding us back? Well, we do believe the Lord's timing is perfect and when He is ready to send us, the means will be there. But, the Lord is not relying just on us to be faithful to His call to missions. We feel part of our job is to allow people to see God's call on their lives to be part of missions as well. He may be calling you to be a committed prayer warrior for us, He may be calling you to give financially or He may be calling you to be encouragers in sending us. Either way, He is calling all of us to make sacrifices in our daily lives to serve Him and His purpose for us. Please be in prayer as to how you might be involved in missions with us. It is very humbling for us to rely soley on other people to provide funds for the work He has planned for us, but we trust He is speaking to many of you and wants you to be blessed by being part of His global purpose in some way!

Many blessings to all of you who we appreciate so greatly!
K & P

Coming Home...For a Visit

12:55pm Thursday, July 19th, 2007 (QZ time)

To all our friends and family,

You may be wondering about the subject line, but in many ways, that is how we feel about coming home. Neither one of us wants to leave here, at least for very long. We are torn, now, between two places. One has our family and many wonderful friends and the other has many new friends and we have found many new family members (the believers) as well. Enduring the heat, the sweat, communication gaps, and barely surviving rides in the pedicabs and taxis has been more than worth it. I think we can honestly say, we have found our new home! Unfortunately, many of the students we have been getting to know will be off to the universities and colleges and we will be saying goodbye to them knowing we will most likely never see them again. We have been touched by their generous giving of themselves in taking us places, helping us order food and for our "laugh sessions" while we try to pronounce Chinese words. We will forever be touched by the little bit of time we have had with them. Today we will go on our final "outing" with them and I hope the Father has allowed us to have touched them in some way.

We head back home tomorrow excited to be able to share with you our experience here. We have many pictures and several interesting stories to share. But mostly, we hope to share the work that is being done here and the desire to return quickly to participate in this work. There is work to be done everywhere in this world, but we now know more than ever before that this is where the Father wants us to be!

Please be talking to the Father to give us a safe trip home and that we are rested enough to enjoy our eager reunion with our boys. Thank you for your many thoughts for their safety and blessings with the friends they have stayed with. The Father has heard you and answered you in bigger ways than we could've ever imagined! We look forward to seeing many of you soon!

Blessings and our thoughts are always with you,

Paul &Kim

Busy in QZ

July 15th, Sunday, 4:20pm (QZ time)
Greetings!

It has been several days since I have had time to sit down and write you all an update on our trip, but we have been that busy! On Thursday, we visited the market and bought some fruit for our apartment. May not sound that big, but everything is new here. I would like to tell you all the stories about being grossed out by all the things we saw, but really we weren't. I really feel the L has prepared our hearts in many ways and haven't really been shell shocked about anything here. The only thing that may come close is the traffic. The rule is, if you make eye contact while walking, you are responsible for making way for the bike, scooter, pedi cab, motor cycle, car or bus. Otherwise, you just walk and they are responsible to work around you and I mean around you, maybe giving you a couple of inches!! So we have made a practice of crossing busy intersections next to other bikes and people. I don't think I can adequately explain our experiences in taxi's or pedicabs. It is beyond words, I tell ya!

I guess the funny story of the day would be that while we were together with other friends today to talk about the word, Paul flung a huge cockroach off of his chest. That was proceeded by, "don't let it get away...kill it" and people running to try to stomp on it. The stomping was referred to the likes of being back in dance class because the cockroaches are not cooperative in letting us stomp on them!!

Friday, we were taken on a pryr walk to the local temple, mosque and then to the earliest Budha of QZ. It is disheartening to see the people searching so earnestly after the wrong thing. It breaks your heart for the people here who follow their g's mostly out of fear. They so desperately need to know the truth and be free from such oppression. But as we know, they must be exposed to the truth before they can even be aware of something different. The Budha that we visited was on the outskirts of town and we started the climb about 11am. When we reached the top, we were pretty much dripping wet and I really mean dripping. It has been around 100 with the "feels like temp" being around 15 degrees hotter. One day, it only got to 95 degrees in the shade! Our purpose for visiting such sites is to pry for the people who are searching and who come to such sites to worship their gods. I think one reason why the tour we get taken on happens at this time of day, "crazy" as the money taker put it, is so there are not many people there. At a somewhat lower point, we could see the whole city, well sort of. We couldn't see much of it due to it being so hazy.

We have mostly been observing different level of english classes given here at the center. Today, Paul and I each had a topic class to teach and will teach the same classes again tomorrow night. What we don't want to miss out on sharing is our experience attending the government church. It was a little hard because we didn't know what they were saying, but a friend from the center that went with us is a member of the worship team and she tried hard to translate things throughout the evening. Again, it is hard to put this experience into words, but imagine being in a room of about 1500 chinese friends singing Amazing Grace in their native tongue. There are no words that can explain the overwhelming emotions of hearing friends from half way around the world sing to the same Father and it didn't matter if we knew there words but our hearts were the same.

I don't want to make this too long, but Paul and I seem to be doing quite fine with the food, water, getting around (somewhat). This city is big with many people and though I have never been there before, I assume it has to be similar to New York. I wish we were able to share pictures along the way to give you a better perspective and maybe we will have that chance before we leave but maybe not. Please just continue to keep us in your thoughts as we consider where we could possibly live when we return here. Also, be thinking that the work here ontinues in great ways!

Getting Oriented

Hello to everyone from QZ,
Paul and I made it through another two airplane rides without any problems. Then we endured a hour and a half car ride that we weren't quite sure how we survived. I don't think we will ever try to conquer the skill, or the lack thereof, of driving here in this country. Once we arrived, we were taken to our apartment that we are sharing with a young man from Louisiana. He is here for the whole summer teaching english at the center. We will try to send some pictures at a later time since we cannot figure out how to make the broadband in the apartment work for our computer. So our email is limited to the center right now.

After resting for a little bit and taking a much needed cold shower, we were escorted to dinner with 20 other people. The food was good and I only had to chase off one cockroach from the table! Once we had some time touring the center and orientation, we were beat and ready for bed. Nothing, not the hard bed, the constant traffic and honking noises, nor the persistant sweating, could keep us from getting a somewhat decent night of sleep. This morning, we had the opportunity to be part of a "Topic Lesson" class which is geared towards giving students practice of using what they already know. It was alot of fun participating with the students and trying ourselves to interact with them. The staff and students here are absolutely wonderful in greeting us and being happy to see us. After Paul and I had another time of orientation, we went to lunch with our room mate. We were perfectly content with our meal that only cost us about $1.70 US, and that is paying for the three of us.

We will be going to our apartment for a rest (since we have been awake since 5am) and coming back to the center to observe/participate in another topic lesson, then to dinner and then another class before we head off to bed for the night. Maybe Paul will leave the airconditioning on ALL night this time instead of thinking we need to get use to the heat the first night!! Thanks for all the notes and thoughts coming our way.