We give praise to God for answered prayers. New TMM missionaries David and Allie Houle will be arriving in Thailand in two days from now. They will be serving at Blessing Home in Pattaya and the first year they will be doing intensive Thai language study, which is difficult and can be discouraging, so keep them in your prayers. We have prayed for a long time for God to fill the need to have missionaries serving long term at Blessing Home in Pattaya, and God has answered those prayers. It is necessary to have full-time, long-term missionaries on site at Blessing Home Pattaya in order to provide the after-school services and regular home visits needed to do this ministry effectively. As the children and teens get older, it is more and more difficult to keep them in school, especially in Pattaya, where there are fast-life easy-money distractions and temptations. We have to "up our game" to meet the challenges.
This quarter, we had our first drop-out from high school at Blessing Home Pattaya. We are trying to convince this Blessing Home teen to go to classes for a high-school equivalency diploma (like a GED in the States). But as of now, this teen has not made the move to go to class. We know we cannot win with every one of the kids but we want to do better.
This past week we had training with the Pastor Banya and Teacher Amporn at Blessing Home Pattaya to use a new electronic curriculum to teach English and Bible with the Blessing Home kids after school and on Sundays. 2 new televisions have been mounted on the walls to the smaller classrooms and a new computer was purchased so they can use the new curriculum. This next week will be the first week using the new curriculum, which we believe will be more helpful to the kids and fun too.
God answered prayers for the David and Allie Houle as well. God has provided the prayer and financial support they need to serve in Thailand as career missionaries. But in the final month before their arrival in Thailand, they had two answers to prayer.
First, David and Allie needed to sell their tiny house (yes, like the ones you see on TV shows), but they were having problems selling it. Many people wanted to buy it, but a tiny home is considered to be an Recreational Vehicle (RV) so they could not get a standard home mortgage, and did not qualify for an RV loan. Well, on the last week before coming to Thailand, their tiny home sold, and it sold for the price they bought it for a few years ago. Now they are debt-free (very important for missionaries who will see a great decrease in salary).
Also, their paperwork for student visas arrived very late, but they were able to get student visas and the process went smoothly.
Thank you for your faithful daily prayers. We see God at work through the power of prayer.
