A glimpse... whatever

Narlin will go home to the Philippines for three weeks. She will attend the Philippine Women Missionary Union (PWMU) Triennial Meeting. I was hoping all of us could go but the airfare for five persons costs too much. This means I will stay alone with the children for three weeks. I cannot imagine life with out her. She does many things for the children and me. I will have a tough time filling her shoes.

For this reason, I am writing brochures promoting our ministries to the churches here back home. Hoping that what we are doing here can stir up enough attention for women to get involved in missions. I will also try to create a video presentation. Our prayer is that we can mobilize churches to support missions. My hands are full within the weeks.

We also have to spend time finishing up checking our children’s homes schooling tests. Narlin will bring these answered exam sheets to the School of Tomorrow. She will pick up the books we ordered online at the main school in Paranaque. The total cost for the workbooks is huge. Nonetheless, I am confident that God will provide.

I do not have the time to write (dissertation) anything this week. Writing is a bit tricky on me. If I decided to work on my dissertation, I can do it continuously if I there are no interruptions and distractions. Nonetheless, I really have not stop reading. I take a book with me wherever I go and my clipboard and take notes when I find something that I think would be useful for my research. I can read while when I paused to wait on the children when I am taking them home. I can read while driving and while sleeping (haha!) Ideas are forming in the back of my head, hoping that when I sit down to write my ideas will just flow out from my brain to my hands.

I am also trying to make the laptop usable again. I start saving money for the hard drive. Perhaps a few months from now I can buy it. I asked around how much it will cost us to replace the cracked LCD. If the shop will do it, it costs a lot and it is not practical to have it repaired. However, when I look at ebay at the prices of the LCD for Toshiba A75 Satellite, it is cheaper (though still expensive for me). It costs U$150. I have to work on having a credit card or paypal account so I can do purchase online. I can do the repair myself and perhaps I can again use the laptop for another five years.

When Megan learned about what happened to my laptop she generously gave us hers so that she and Narlin can continuously communicate about the ministry of Grace Home when she is gon. The only glitch is that the LCD is not working as well. However, when I look closely I can see blunt images on the screen. Therefore, I know that either the inverter or the back light has gone bad. Nevertheless we can use the laptop fine with an external CRT. I think it would be great if I can make the LCD works. I checked over at ebay and found out that the inverter cost U$18. It is affordable enough. However, I do not know if they are shipping to Thailand.

Within two months, we will be moving to another house. We love our present house. It is the most comfortable house that we ever had as a family. We live in an unfinished house almost all our lives together. Our present house is God's provision for us when we come here in Thailand. Most houses for rent here are bare, not a furniture. This house comes with beds, bedsheets, pillows, closet, everything that a nomad family would need is here.

So it is with a heavy heart we are leaving this house. We need to move on to another house. This house will be used for children home and hostel. The need for this kind of ministry here is just too immense for us to ignore. Pray for us.