So, It’s been a crazy last month to say the least. School was out for all the kids here and the temperatures starting rising, and rising. At first, we thought, this heat isn’t too bad, we’re from the south, we can handle it, but then the last two – three weeks came, and it was really HOT! Several days were up to 115 degrees F. There were reports of over 1200 people dying in this state and the one next to it, but in all likelihood, with the amount of people living in villages and tribal areas, that number is probably much higher! We have been fortunate to finally get our a/c fixed so we can now bear the heat at night, Praise the Lord.
We have been able to take most of the kids at Ziah Mission to the city for a treat to the mall, they all wanted the same thing, to eat at Chili’s, play video games and arcades and then have dessert at dunkin donuts, which just happened to open up here about 2 months ago.
You want to see what it looks like when dunkin donuts opens in Asia?, here is a pic!
We were also able to buy Ziah Mission 4 box a/c fans for their home, if we are beating the heat, we want to help others to do the same. Thanks to our great friends at AIM, for helping with the cost, supplying $400 of the $750 of the price. If you want to still contribute to the cost of helping these amazing kids beat the heat, please click on the 1 Path donation button on the right side of the page!
We have been able to work with a couple more dental camps in various areas around the city, it has been a lot of fun working with local dentists and pastors helping meet the needs of the people in their communities. One of those dentist even helped me receive an Indian Dental License, who would have thought? I tried to thank her, but she immediately turned all the attention to God for allowing that process to go through and actually go through quickly, which is a bit of a surprise here.
About that container we had shipped with some friends last december, well, it is still stuck in customs, getting closer day by day, inch by inch. Please keep that in prayer! There are many things on the container that various ministries had hoped to already use to help meets the needs of the needy and share the Gospel, and then there is our stuff for our home, we sure would love to sleep in a bed again some day!
Towards the end of April we were also able to travel to a village area about 4 hours away with a local pastor here who runs a children’s home, and visit with about 15 local pastors serving in villages in that area. We enjoyed being able to share the Gospel, share about the importance of staying in the Word, and daily prayer time. The second day we were able to speak on church planting movements that have been going on across the world the past 20 years and what those movements looked like. We look forward to meeting them again soon and talking more about church planting movements.
About our home, some crazy news that happened very quickly last week, we moved! Not far, but across town about 30 minutes. If you have been following our blog or our prayer mail out, you know Cynt has been volunteering on Mondays with a local organization going into a government childrens home working with newborns and premies. Feeding them, holding them, changing diapers, etc. They have many babies in this room, with usually only 2 ayahs(caregiver) who are overworked and tired. It is a pretty sad situation, babies who need so much care and support, and unfortunately haven’t been able to receive it. We wanted to inquire about helping in some way, through fostering or adopting or whatever way we could help these babies who aren’t thriving. We were led to another organization, Sarah’s Covenant Home, which has been doing foster care with some of the babies as well as babies with special needs, which is of course what Cynthia’s degree is in. We have come on to help in foster care of one of their homes while their foster mom is back in the states trying to reapply for her visa. We are excited about this, and are looking forward to how we can do this on a more permanent basis in the future. We had been told it would be better to live closer to the homes, so we had began looking without much luck at first. We had been told by people and realtors with your budget, that is not possible in this area. We were driving around Saturday 2 weeks ago with the whole family in tow, and were praying for God to open doors or close doors, but to do something to let us know what He wanted us to do. Sure enough we drove up to one of the houses, and the house directly next door to the children’s home, had a ground floor just come up for rent, within our budget! As my mission pastor Mike Megginson always says, “God shows up, and He shows off”. And that He did, showing us a place right next to where we wanted to serve. As we were walking up to see the apartment, Maddie said,” I can hear the babies crying!” It has been a lot of fun seeing how excited she has been since we moved, asking each day, can we walk them, can we go hold them, can we do this or that.
We haven’t been able to do too much this week, my parents arrived last week, and we have spent this week showing around and introducing them to some of the things we have been doing. And now they have left to head back to the states, with our kids with them! That’s right, our daughters are headed back, in a plane right now to spend the next 5 weeks in the States, or home as they call it. We are very excited about this adventure they are going to experience. My parents are sending them to summer camp, then to the beach, and then I believe they will even get a quick trip to Fairhope! We sure will miss them, but can’t wait to hear about all they get to do without us.
We want to thank all of our partners back home so much. For anyone interested in partnering with us in fundraising, we are still short of our monthly needs to be here, around $400 or so each month, so if you are interested, we would love for you to be a financial partner with us this year. Just click on the AIM paypal button on the right of this blog, if that covers our personal living expenses. This journey so far in South Asia hasn’t been the easiest with all the twist and turns this country throws at you, but through it all it has helped us to rely on God, to seek Him daily and we know that He is enough, when finances are tight and stretched, when we don’t have beds or some of the other things that are in the container, when the car isn’t working, God is still good, and He is enough and we are satisfied with all the blessings He has given us. So once again thank you so much for our prayer partners, our financial partners, our friends who allow us to be real with them, we thank our families, and most of all, we thank God as he guides us, loves us, saves us, forgives us and uses us for His Glory. For that, we are so thankful.
God bless,
-Bakers
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