Jungle fun and Catching up

After a long time apart, our family was able to visit one of the communities we have spent much time with over the years. It was so good to be together again. Adam worked hard coordinating a 5-week medical training for frontline responders. The responders will go on to serve at frontline positions helping to stabilize and transport injured soldiers and civilians to nearby jungle hospitals. A secondary benefit of the training proved to be in the way of spiritual healing for many of the students. Some have been veterans now for 3 years without much in the form of rest and recovery. They have seen many friends and family killed and are getting tired. We learned of their longing for a way to continue fighting this war with a heart posture of love rather than fear, hate or vengeance. Our training team led them in prayer, worship and devotionals revolving around the healing and sustaining power of Jesus. Following the training, four of the students asked to be baptized.

I (Aimee) resumed English classes with my women's group and facilitated a swim training for village women and children. On top of that, Adam and I were both able to preach for church services and I helped to run a Sunday School program for children each week. We also enjoyed "Olympics" with our students (where Eden placed 2nd in Women's Pull-Ups, with 8 deadhang pull-ups!), several worship nights for the students, hosting weekly projector-movie nights for local kids, and a farewell talent show where Adam performed a song and I did a dance with friends. It got rainy at the end of our trip, so there was lots of walking involved! The girls were troopers in our travels, with Eden doing her biggest walk yet (9 hours with 7 hours of rain), without a complaint! They're normal kids that are challenging often, but we are really proud of their successes and milestones.

After our training was finished, the girls and I returned home together and Adam continued on for a relief mission. During the mission we asked about what our teams needed most and one of the requests was for body armor for the frontline medics. Of our 16 team members killed in the past 2 years about 60% of the deaths most likely would have been prevented had they been wearing armor. Adam is praying about writing a proposal to send out to the different communities that support this work. A future blog posting will include more information about ways to support this.

At home, Quinn entered Thai pre-school at a local kindergarten and Eden enjoyed lots of time with friends before most of them departed for a couple of months of R&R in the USA. This is our first full summer in Thailand (not returning for a visit in the USA) and its mostly been good. I appreciate the extra time to catch up on projects and prepare materials for the busy season ahead. Adam is enjoying the beautiful cloudy weather (and some rain) and reprieve from the usual Hot weather. The girls feel a bit lonely with most of their friends out of town, but its been beautiful to see their friendship grow and improve. We have also had extra time to do lots of in-country trips (more on that in the next update!).

Thanks for all your prayers, love, support, and encouragement! Hope your summer is wonderful!

On another note- since we didn't get a chance to catch up with many of you stateside this summer...we'd like to set up some video calls to catch up. Below are some times that work for us. Please reach out and let us know if any of these times work for you or if we can "get together" another time!

(West Coast time)

July 12, between 6-8pm

July 15, early morning

July 15, between 7-10pm

July 17, between 7-10pm

July 19, early morning

If nights don't work, we can try to make a morning work some time- especially if you are on central or east coast time! Our schedule for the end of July isn't set yet, so if none of these times work for you, shoot us a message that you'd love to catch up and we'll be checking in this summer to find another time :)