| Kathy's blog |
Thailand 2008 Feb. 15 This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice in it. Ps 118:24 Feb. 14 Thank you for your prayers. I was well cared for by our wonderful Savior. Our last day. It was a good day. I had 7, Gracie was out sick. I had a helper part of the day. My 13th day to keep these little ones and they and their families are very dear to my heart. God really blessed the last 4 days especially since we were so short handed. I get up to the preschool area around 7:30am and the last child leaves about 5:30pm. The LORD has really blessed me with strength for each day. Praise His Name! The parents are so appreciative. They have difficult long days too and do not have time off to “play”. Some are taking vacations when they leave here. My vacation will be to come home. I saw Carolyn earlier who I had asked prayer for a couple of days ago. She is better and able to be up but still does not feel well. I heard that Helen is better also. I know they appreciate your prayers. Julie asked about Caleb. Caleb was in my class last year and I have stayed in touch with his parents. I think I mentioned this family in a previous blog. His dad is involved in translating the Bible into a new language. I got to see Caleb, he was in the room next to mine but didn’t get to spend much time with him. Of course he didn’t remember me but the last few days he has acted like he knows me because I always speak to him when I see him. He looks very healthy. They still had to bring all food that he was to eat to be sure he did not get anything he was allergic to.
I told them that our staff prayed for them and they really appreciate it.
Julie- they are from OK. Joanna has warned me to expect delays in Chicago. That’s ok. I’ll be in the USA. Praise the LORD! I hope you have been praying for my wonderful husband also. This is the longest time we have ever been apart and I DON”T LIKE IT! I don’t think he does either but he has been a big support to me and I really appreciate that. Since we both have blackberries, we have stayed in touch constantly so that really made it bearable. I could send and receive email from everywhere expect Tokyo. Your prayers and support has really been a blessing to me. Thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart. Feb. 12 If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. Thank you Linda for this verse for the day. I will claim it for tomorrow also – the last day with the children. I love them all – they are so very precious to me. I will miss them all very much. I am so ready to come home. I had planned to go to the pier downtown tomorrow night and meet up with some people from Southern Cross as I did last year and pass out Bibles to Chinese tourists. However I have a sore throat so I will just stay here until time to leave at 2am Thursday for the Bangkok airport. The flight is at 6:40 am Valentine’s Day. I am scheduled to arrive in B’ham just after 4pm. It doesn’t sound too bad until you figure in the 13 hour time difference. I don’t mind the flight at all since I am COMING HOME! Please whisper a prayer that the LORD will allow me to get on that flight and the connecting flights. I know you are getting tired of this request I know that our LORD hears and answers prayer and I trust HIM to get me home safely. Please also pray for others with this group who have been and are very sick. I have heard about them but do not know them personally. One lady turned 80 this week while volunteering on this trip and she has been very, very sick. They are concerned that she may not be able to make the flight. Her name is Helen, please pray for her and for others who have been struggling with sickness. I heard that Carolyn is a little better but not able to work today. Sickness has made us even more short handed but we are doing ok – at least I am and I pray the others are also. Everyone finishes up tomorrow and most will be heading home after that to many areas of US and Asia. Your prayers for their safety I know would be greatly appreciated. Also, many are traveling with children, which I’m sure is very difficult. God bless you all - kathy Feb. 11 Angie and I walked to a restaurant on the beach that she had been to last year. The tide was still up so we ended up having to take off our shoes and wade through knee deep water to get there, then it was closed and the building for sale. We then walked through a Thai village from there to get to the main road and ate at an open air restaurant there. The food was great – Spicy Thai soup with chicken, shrimp fried rice with fish sauce and mixed vegetables. You have to watch the soup, thankfully Angie warned me – it has some hot chili peppers in it that look like beans to me, I almost ate one. She then insisted on getting us a coconut so we walked out to the beach and sat and drank our coconut juice and visited. She is leaving in the morning for Bangkok for her annual physical and then she flies out for the US on Thursday afternoon. Angie asked me about bringing a small group to her area to prayer walk. I told her that I would have the people start praying about it. A lot of changes are taking place in the organization of her work and she is excited about the possibility of reaching more people. She would love for Westmeade to be more involved. Pray about this and if you are interested let me know. She is going to be in the US for a few months so we cannot set this up for a while but possibly looking at toward the end of 2008 after the Olympics. Elijah had another great day. This was his last day, they go home tomorrow to their area of service. I’m glad his last 2 days here were good and he will have good memories. I believe all of our others will be here for the next 2 days. I need to prepare some things for class tomorrow so I will go for now. Please pray each day concerning my flight out of Bangkok. I trust Him to go ahead of me and prepare the way. Logon (like “log on” your computer) – goodbye in Thai Kathy My new helper left early sick with nausea and vomiting. She was already recovering from eye infection. Her name is Carolyn. Feb. 10 Linda Burns prepared Bible verses in an envelope for me to choose and read each day. The verse above was a great verse for today. We had a good day! Thank you for your prayers. Elijah’s personal babysitter left at 1am today so he had to stay with the class. I have been praying for him since his first day which was 8 days ago. He seems so insecure and troubled. He was unhappy to begin with today but I just told him he had to stay today. He fussed and stood by the door and begged for mommy and daddy. I would go over now and then and comfort him and touch him and ask Jesus to help him and then go back to the other children. He finally came over to me. We talked about Jesus a lot and about how He watches over us even when mommies and daddies are not with us. I prayed for him and just kept talking about Jesus to him and ask Jesus to calm his troubled little heart. He let me hold him during this time. The rest of the day he was a totally different child. He played, he even took a nap with the other children. He was a very happy child which was a joy to see. This is a miracle. Thank you Jesus – isn’t He awesome! How powerful is the Name of Jesus to our troubled hearts. Thank you so much for praying with me for him, please continue. It was still a long day, my 10th day with 2 yr olds, most days 8am until after 5 as was today. The children are getting tired and the last couple of hours especially are getting hard for all of us. My throat is kind of sore so I didn’t feel like singing so much today but we did listen to our “musik” as Gracie says and we did sing along with it some. I decided I would go up to Tesco (Walmart-like but smaller) and see if I could find some toys for the last 3 days. There were not many toys in our room and not many at Tesco either. They did not have any toys like Fisher Price or anything like that. I bought a package of plastic farm animals and zoo animals. The were much higher than in US but I thought it might be worth it. Julie had been telling me I needed to get shaving cream and let them play with it, just rubbing it around. Shaving cream is expensive here too but I bought a can to try. We do not have a table in our room but we have a plastic tablecloth I can put on the floor. Continue to pray and we count down the last 3 days. I pray for you as you prepare to worship today. It is 9:20 pm Sunday here 8:20 am Sunday there. Heb. 13:15 I can receive email on my blackberry anytime. It would be great to hear from some of you. kathyhogan@tmo.blackberry.net. Our children love to sing. We play CDs almost all day as well as sing songs in the class. Last night while in the hallway sending email (cannot connect to internet in room) I kept hearing the music from class, then I came in my room and kept hearing it. I finally realized that it is stuck in my head, going over and over and over. They never get tired of music. The LORD must really be getting a kick out of our class. Psalm 137:4 I was able to take a break today and go out to walk and make some pictures. After class I went to the beach and walked, took pictures and read my Bible until after dark. Many people were down there enjoying the water. There are many Russians here on vacation as well as Chinese. I cannot communicate with them so I just pray that somehow they will come to know Jesus. The sunset (image1, image2) was beautiful even thought it is quite hazy. The cloudiness is keeping the weather a bit cooler which is nice. Your prayers are appreciated as now we are working with a very limited staff. We had a good day. The children were picked up at 3pm today so I have a little break which is great since I saw Joanna off at 2am and only got 4 hours sleep. It was my time in the rotation to go to morning worship, Angie and I sat together. There has been a worship time each morning since last Sunday through today. It was a really great time. There were personal testimonies from two guys who called themselves “Dumb and Dumber”. (their words, not mine). They shared about witnessing when they had only been studying language 6 months and how together they were able to lead some to Jesus, probably using many wrong words but God helped them understand. Pastor Wes George from FBC Rogers, AK brought a great message. Today ended the main week of meetings. Many are staying through next Wed. for team meetings and more workshops. Our total number of children for preschool will decrease by about 50% we have been told and workers will decrease by 75% by Sunday. Many are leaving in the morning and many on Sunday morning. At least now most of the children are adjusting. Elijah even came in our class for part of the day which is great because he is going to be with us through the 13th. Thank you for praying for him – it helped. Gracie is doing better also. Pray for Faith – she has been out 2 days and I am concerned that she may be sick. Our meals have mostly been provided in a dining hall but beginning tonight dinners are on our own. There are some restaurants here. I think I’ll have the Fish ball, lettuce and seaweed soup on the menu downstairs. Would you like to join me? Not. Actually I have been invited to go with a few people to a Mexican restaurant so I will probably go to keep from eating alone. Mexican food in Thailand – kind of scary but I’ll try it. Even normal things around here have weird things added. Example: Lay’s potato chips – which flavor would you choose? Nori Seaweed, Hot Chili Squid or Pepper Steak. Would you like me to bring some home for you? You don’t believe me? (click here) Not what you were thinking of for your afternoon snack...you may prefer Lays Spicy Seafood flavor I saw in the MiniMart downstairs. I am also attaching a collage I prepared of the snapshots taken from the 18th floor terrace of this hotel and on the beach at this hotel. Yes, elephants on the beach. The pools are beautiful, especially from the 18th floor terrace. My room is actually on the 4th floor which is really great! Many people get in the water at the beach but they told us last year that it is polluted and did not recommend we go in. I think sewage goes in there. You cannot drink the water here as in most 3rd world countries. We brush our teeth with bottled water and try not to get any in our mouth when showering. It will make you very sick. Please pray for those few of us who will remain until the end. The parents are so glad that some of us are staying who know their children – this is why I volunteered to stay for the entire project. Last year the last few days the children had new teachers so they had to adjust all over again. I do appreciate your prayers so much. Please pray for the group leaving in the morning. Most of the flights are at 6:40am in Bangkok which is over 2 hours away. Another group is leaving Sunday morning. I am blessed to be here and greatly blessed to have the prayer support of friends back home. Kob Kun kaa. (thank you) kaa is the polite word to use at the end of all sentences for females. Males us khrab. A man would say Kob Kun khrab. (pronounced like corn "cob" and ra"coon" - cob coon) This was our one night worship and it was great – I really needed it. They had an artist painting while we were singing worship songs. Already drawn on very large board was a map of specific countries of Asia. The drawing ended up being the nail-scarred hand of Jesus holding these countries. The fireworks followed. I had come back to the room and we were able to see them from our room. I have given all my workers a chance to go to morning worship so I made arrangements to go myself tomorrow. This will be the last one. Thanks for your prayers for everyone here, especially Joanna and me. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 When we returned we went out to the beach to enjoy the sunset. Two elephants were down there. We fed them sugarcane and made some pictures (for a small charge of course). One of our little ones and her family were on the beach. We had a nice visit with them and they insisted we have dinner together at the outdoor beachside restaurant. This was the highlight of our day. As it turned our this family lived in Auburn for 7 years while J worked on his doctorate from AU and were/are members of Lakeview. J is actually an MK and LB is from Vietnam. Her dad was captured and killed by the North Vietnamese. Her brothers and sisters were adopted or taken into an orphanage run by Christians. She was 5 when she went to the orphanage. Her dad had become a Christian in the military. She came to the US at the age of 9 or 10. She was reunited with her family in Vietnam after 24 years. She and J met while in college in Texas. We had such a wonderful time and LB invited us to visit in her Let me share about some of our other little ones. Yehoon is so sweet. That is his Korean name pronounced “Yeah Hoon”. He will not be 2 until April but was not happy with the ones so he joined our class Tuesday and has done great. We call him our future sumo wrestler. He is huge but so so sweet. Luke is our other little boy. He is a doll, curly blonde hair and brown eyes. I had him last year and fell in love with him and could not wait to see him again. Faith, Miriam and Grace I had last year also. They are all very, very sweet. Faith loves her “dolly”, Miriam loves her baby named “Six” and Grace struggles with being away from mommy but is doing better, she is adorable. Charis just turned 2 last Sunday and she has a baby brother and an older brother and sister. She is really sweet too. Oh, I almost forgot Elijah because he will not come in class. One of our workers keeps him one on one. His mommy does not want him to cry. I had him last year also. Pray he will adjust so that he can enjoy some interaction with other children. Joanna leaves tonight, actually 1am tomorrow which is about 3 hours from now. I am going to stay up and see her off. I won’t get much sleep but that’s ok. I will probably have a new roommate tomorrow. Please pray that Joanna will make her flights since she is flying standby. I’ve heard about the terrible weather there. Carole Hill emailed me at 3am. I emailed back and asked why she was up and she told me about the storms. I’m praying for all that have been affected. Many are here from Arkansas so it is very possible that relatives of volunteers here are affected. Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31 The Lord is truly blessing me physically. I feel great. He is truly giving me strength and stamina for the ups and downs of the day (I mean up and down off the floor all day-ha). Feb. 5 It rained here again all afternoon. I was able to go out for about 30 minutes while the children were napping and take a few shots from a terrace and near the beach area before the rain began. I saw the elephant again but I was on the 18th floor terrace so the picture is rather far away even with zoom on my camera. Look closely and you will see him. His owner was riding him around in the water. After dinner Joanna and I got a taxi to Tesco (similar to Walmart). The taxi cost more than we spent there but it was raining and did not want to take a songtau and get soaking wet. We just needed to get away from this complex since we have been working 5 days straight and have not been away from this complex for 5 days. The store was decorated for Chinese New Year. We bought a few snacks and I bought a can of room deodorizer. They do not get in a hurry here so our taxi was rather late to pick us up. We had paid for round trip at the hotel to be sure to have a ride back. Why did I buy room deodorizer? I have been given the blessed privilege of changing all the dirty diapers for our class. By early afternoon our restroom will knock you flat. The deodorizer may help, it may make it worse but it was only 39 baht or so,which is a little over $1. It is at least worth a try. One lady was helping us one day, strolling a child that was unhappy and it was time for a diaper change for him (not even dirty). I asked if she would like to change him for me but she said "No, I don't do diapers". I thought, Well you really don't want to know what I thought. I was just surprised at the response. You have to learn to laugh at things like that. People are people everyone you are. Another said she would be up to help after she had a swim and a massage. I laugh as I say that, really I do. It's so funny that someone would say that that it really doesn't even bother me. Really it doesn't. Really it doesn't. Honest. Every time I think about that I laugh to myself. The thing is that I knew what I was getting into when I came back after coming last year and working with 10 one year olds for 10 days. The first day back this year I was wondering if I needed to have my head examined but I know why I came. I came to serve the Lord and our faithful workers here. Before I came last year my oldest daughter, Alison, said to me. "If you give it everything you have, when you go home you will have no regrets". This is what someone told her before she went on a mission trip to an orphanage in Russia. I found that that worked very well. I came with the attitude that I came here to serve and if I get to do any other "fun" things that would be good, if not that was fine too. Do I say that to build myself up? No. This is just what the Lord has put on my heart. I have asked the staff to pray for Caleb's family many times over the past year. I will ask you also to pray for this family. I met them last year, Caleb was in my class. I was disappointed that he was not in my class this time but he is in an adjoining class. I have talked with his parents here and also have kept in touch with them over the past year. They have had many struggles over the past year. Caleb has many allergies and now asthma. His mom had a miscarriage. The evil one is really trying to hinder their work because Caleb's dad is in involved in translating the Bible into a language that does not have the Bible. This faithful couple put most of us to shame. Caleb is doing well in his class this week and he looks very healthy even though he has had some experiences over the past year where they did not know if he would make it. It is because of the Lord's mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness. Lamentations 3: 22-23 Thanks for your prayers for all of us. Today went better than yesterday in our class. We still have one little boy who cannot seem to adjust to being away from parents. Please pray for him, his name is Elijah and for his parents. It is very hard for them to leave him when he is so terribly unhappy. One of our workers just had to stroll him all day out in our open area (inside) to keep him from making himself sick and upsetting all the other children. Our other "unhappy" ones are doing better. I met a doctor who is on staff at UAB but serving also in Asia. Where he lives when he left it was -28 degrees C. when he left his area and it was +28 C when he arrived here (which was probably at night). He has +children and he says they feel deprived because they have the cold but not the snow, they live in a desert. It rained all day again today and this is the dry season. We were inside all day anyway. Actually our room was much cooler due to lack of evening sun through our window in our class. Days are pretty routine as far as schedule now. Breakfast around 6:30, in preschool area at 7:30. Leave preschool area at 5:15 to 5:30. Dinner between 5:30 and 7:00. Breakfast and dinner are the times we get to visit and interact with workers on the field which is a unique privilege. Your continued prayers for all those involved are greatly appreciated. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. James 5:16 (NASV) Feb. 3 I heard that the flight from Angie's city was postponed so I am not sure if she is here yet or not. I have not seen her but this large hotel is full due partly to Chinese New Year. We had our full group today of 8 2-yr olds for our class. They moved some children to another class and we had 4 new ones - 3 of which were not happy at all being their first day. Now, we REALLY NEED PRAYER. At least double your prayer please, or if you really love me, TRIPLE it. Pray for all workers especially preschool. Some have 11 in their classes in these small rooms but the older ones do go out for swimming and go to other areas for Bible story, music, crafts, etc. At dinner one of the workers here in Asia reminded us that whatever you put into a child when they are young stays with them their entire life. That was encouraging. Some children are easy and a joy to be around, others are so unhappy being away from parents that it makes it challenging. However, these parents are required to be in meetings unless their children are sick. I'm sure they will adjust somewhat, hopefully and prayerfully they will adjust a lot. We can call the parents if they just will not stop crying but we try our best to make do. 5 of the children in my room I had last yr in the 1 yr old class. Its funny how their little personalities are the same. You cannot help but get attached to them and to their parents. I guess that is why I am back. Pray especially for all those with leadership responsibilities. It is a great task to organize all this and things have to be adjusted daily.
We roll with the punches even though it is not easy sometimes. I pray the service today is great as most of you are still in bed or just getting up for the day. May the Lord speak of many of the adults, youth and children as Brandon speaks today. I pray many will respond openly to His call. Just for fun you may want to look at the Thai google webpage: http:\\www.google.co.th\ if you can access it. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Have a blessed day! Feb. 2nd |
