December, 2010 Prayer Letter and Recent Pics

Kasalehlia and Merry Christmas! We trust you all had a blessed Thanksgiving! We had much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

I’m sure that most, if not all of you have heard about the miracle that God performed in our little girl. The Thursday before Thanksgiving, Kaylinn began coughing, choking, and turning blue. We rushed her to the ER and after working on her for some time, they were able to get her in a stable condition, though it was obvious that there was some sort of object caught in her windpipe or lung. To make a long story short, the doctors felt it necessary to try to get us off island as soon as possible for medical help. The next 24 hours were a flurry of paperwork and stress trying to get passports together and clearance to get her on the next flight. During this time, she was unable to swallow and appeared to be in a lot of pain. We are amazed at the way news traveled around the world and so many were praying for our little Kaylinn! Just after all the paperwork had cleared and we were set to leave, Kaylinn coughed up the object! Even the doctors were amazed! Her pediatrician kept the piece of plastic for a ‘souvenir’. We are so thankful for this miracle! Thanksgiving was an extra special day this year as we also celebrated Kaylinn’s 9-month ‘birthday’.

Another thing to be thankful for was the opportunity to see our little Kyler accept Christ! He came to Susan one afternoon and, with tears in his eyes, said he wanted to get saved! She and I both talked with him for a time and he prayed, asking Christ to save him. He was baptized the following Sunday, giving such a sweet testimony to our church.

You may remember me mentioning in a previous letter a young girl named RJenny who accepted Christ at our VBS this past summer. She was also baptized when Kyler was. We are thrilled for her testimony and faithfulness. However, tragedy has struck her home. During the time Kaylinn was in the hospital, RJenny’s mom suddenly became ill and died. We are unsure if she was saved or not. This has been a difficult time for the family, yet RJenny has continued to come to services faithfully. We are praying for her father to accept Christ as well.

We are working with the youth on our Christmas cantata. This year we are doing 10,000 Hallelujah’s by Ron Hamilton. It is a difficult program and we ask for your prayer in our preparation and that it would be used of the Lord to bring hearts to Him.

A new ministry that we have become involved in is a jail ministry here on the island. Every other Tuesday, the preacher boys in our church and I are able to hold a service at the state jail. It is a great opportunity to reach those who have faced hard times and made wrong decisions as well as a great training opportunity for these preacher boys.

In January, Lord willing, we will be holding the first classes for our Bible Institute. We especially ask for your prayers as we move into this phase of our ministry. We have several young men on the island desiring to be trained in His Word, as well as older men who are unable to go off to Bible college. We pray God will use this ministry to further His work here in the islands.

We thank you for your continued prayers and financial support. Please continue to pray for us and our ministry here on Pohnpei. We hope that you all have a blessed Christmas and New Year.

Because of Calvary,
Rickson, Susan, Kaleo, Kestra, Kyler, Katrianne, & Kaylinn

Katrianne's 4th Birthday

Our September Prayer Letter

Kasalehlia! This has been one of the busiest yet most productive summers we have ever had! We have much to update you all on.

Of course one of the highlights of our summer ministries is always youth camp. This year we did a combined camp with all the Baptist churches on the island. We had a great week and saw many decisions. One young man who had visited our church the Sunday before camp was then able to attend the camp. The following Sunday I had the exciting privilege of leading him to Christ after the morning service. That evening as the youth all gave testimonies of the decisions they made during the week, this young man, Eldon, also stood and gave a testimony! The following Sunday he brought a close friend who then accepted Christ as his Savior after the service! Eldon has since been faithful to all services, youth meetings, helping out with VBS, and bringing other friends to church!

Another one of our summer highlights is Vacation Bible School. The youth group did an excellent job of making this a great week. We had as many as 60 or more children throughout the week and saw some salvation decisions. One young girl by the name of Rjenny accepted the Lord and has continued to come faithfully. What a blessing it is to see these young people come to Christ and then grow in Him.

We were privileged to have Susan’s parents come to the island for three weeks. We enjoyed showing off our new little one, Kaylinn, of course, and all the kids sure enjoyed getting spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa. Susan’s Dad, Pastor Stevens preached many of the services while he was here and was such a blessing to our people. Kestra was baptized while the Stevens were here, and we also had the privilege of Susan’s dad conducting the dedication service for our little Kaylinn. Pastor Stevens has been able to do the baby dedication for all five of our children now! Susan had surgery while her parents were here – one of the reasons they came at this time, to help with the kids during her hospital stay and recovery. She is now nearly fully recovered and doing well. The doctor said she can fully return to normal activities within the next month.

I mentioned in my last letter that we were seeing low attendance in the services. I am thankful to be able to say that attendance has been back up throughout the summer! We even had one Sunday morning service with 115 in attendance! We are averaging around 95-100 most Sundays. The Lord is really blessing and we are definitely in need of a new building! Our biggest thrill of the summer has been the salvation decisions. We had salvation decisions from youth camp, VBS, and our regular visitation. One of our teen girls accepted Christ while Susan’s parents were here, and then the Sunday after they left, a man visited our church and contacted me that afternoon that it was very urgent that he meet with me. To make a long story short, he was wondrously saved by our Lord and Savior and has been faithful to church ever since!

We started our homeschool year September 6th and so far it has been a great year! Kaleo is in 6th grade this year, Kestra in 1st, and Kyler in K5. Katrianne spends most of her days doing her best to distract them. Kaylinn is growing and by far our biggest baby! She weighed in at 22 lbs. at her 6 month checkup!

We thank you for your continued prayers and financial support. Please continue to pray for us and our ministry here on Pohnpei. May God bless you.

Because of Calvary,

Rickson, Susan,
Kaleo, Kestra, Kyler,

Katrianne, & Kaylinn

Our Cutie Pie!

"Why are there frogs all over the floor?"

"You got anything else to eat?"

"Why do they always strap me in this thing when we go places?

I want to look out the window!"

A Day At the Beach

"Hey, you're an interesting looking puppy!"

The girls meet Bacon! (seriously, that's the pig's name!)

"Hey, get this thing away from me!"

"I like this one better!"

Update

We had a great weekend! God has really been working and the spirit at church yesterday was so good! We had great crowds both morning and evening and Rickson preached two really good messages. Lots of people at the altar. So good to see the Lord working in our people.

Please pray for Rickson and the youth this week as they all leave for camp this afternoon. It looks like there are aroun 70 teenagers or more going to the camp. The theme for the week is "Overcoming Temptation".

Next week we will be having our VBS. The theme for that week is SeaQuest: Diving for God's Treasure. We're looking forward to two great weeks of ministry with the camp and VBS. Please keep these outreaches in your prayers.

The week after next, my Dad and Mom will be coming. We're really excited about having them!

I'm posting some new pictures of the kids here. Kaylinn had her first cereal this weekend so including a picture of that as well!

Have a great week!

Kestra's Graduation

Our Little Princess

The Flag Bearer - Kyler practiced his "Salute Pledge" all day but still forgot and had to ask me "what am I supposed to say again?" during the ceremony. Too cute!

Kaleo played "Pomp & Circumstance" on the violin

Church Van!

Many of you know we have had the need for a new truck or church van for quite some time. Rickson really has wanted to get a nice van for picking up people for services, but that just didn't look like a possibility for anytime soon due to current finances. We've had a truck/van account for some time that we have added to every month but we expected something like this to cost so much we would be saving for several years still. Well, the Lord had an unexpected surprise for us!!! Rickson noticed a beautiful Ford 15-passenger van in town with a 'For Sale' sign on it so he contacted the owner and found they were willing to sell it to us for only $3500! After having several mechanics check it out, test driving it, and praying about it, Rickson came home this afternoon with a new van! It is a 2003 Ford with only 18,000 miles and we are so thankful for the Lord's provision!

A couple of pics I took this morning...

Weekend Update - June 13th

It's Sunday night here in the FSM while most of you are just starting your Sunday. Sunday morning service was a good service with a pretty good crowd. We had around 90 in attendance. Yesterday we had a church picnic and a good turnout for that as well. Everyone enjoyed a good time of fellowship, BBQ, swimming, games, and relaxing. You could tell by the sunburned noses in church this morning who had attended the picnic!
Tonight was a bit of an adventure with the kids. Kaylinn got very fussy in the morning service so I had to bring her home early. Her fussiness continued through the afternoon and into the evening so Rickson suggested I keep her home tonight. Kestra also broke out in a bad rash (probably from something at the picnic yesterday) and started to complain of chest pains so I kept her home as well and of course Katy stayed with us. Kestra fussed and carried on through the evening from the way she felt and I had a difficult time getting Kaylinn happy. Then Katy started screaming, saying her tummy was hurting. Her screaming got worse as the evening progressed and I started to worry something was really wrong. She's never done this before. Finally, I went down to the church to get someone to help with the baby and Kestra and someone else to go along with me to take Katy to the ER as she just kept screaming like she was in horrible pain and had broken out in a heavy sweat. And during all this, the baby screamed since her feeding was interrupted. But then by the time I got back up to the house with help (who had to come out of the church service), Katy had stopped crying and said she was feeling better. I didn't know whether to be relieved or aggravated with her! Over the next half hour, church people were coming up to the house to see if everyone was ok and who needed help! What an evening! Then Kyler came home from church screaming since he fell down our hill on his way up! Kaleo still hasn't gotten home from church yet as I write this, so I still have one more child to fall apart over something. It's not usually like this around here - it just turned out to be one of those times when everyone had an "ailment" at once!

Hope everyone has a great week! I'm looking forward to Kestra and Kyler finishing up their school this week. Kaleo has another 2 weeks still; then officially summer vacation!

More Pictures

Recent Pictures

May, 2010 Prayer Letter

Kasalehlia! A lot has happened since our last prayer letter and we are way past due in giving you an update.

In mid January, Susan began having some complications with the pregnancy – early signs of labor as well as an irregular and high heartrate. With medication and rest the labor stopped, but she continued to have problems with her heart. The baby was due March 20 but to make a long story short, due to the heart condition, Susan delivered by cesarean on February 25 and we were able to welcome little Kaylinn Alora into the world, weighing 7 lbs., 6 oz. Susan only needed to stay in the hospital slightly longer than expected due to the heart condition and now is completely off the heart medication and doing great. Kaylinn did fine through her first two weeks, then began to have severe jaundice, later than is normal for newborns. She was readmitted into the hospital for an infection which was causing the jaundice and was there for another week. We thank each of you who were following all of this on Facebook or our blog and keeping us in your prayers through this difficult time. We ask for continued prayer as Kaylinn is still experiencing some problems that the doctor is concerned about.

We also request special prayer for our ministry. We have been seeing lower attendance lately. We usually do have lower attendance during the spring months as there is such a strong pull from the Catholic and Protestant denominations for the people to be involved in their Easter activities and other things they have going on this time of year. We ask for prayer for our church people to take a stand for what they believe and stay faithful to the Word of God.
We have seen, however, a great deal of growth in some of our college age young people. They have been a great asset to our ministry in working with the youth, Sunday school, and music. I also have the young men preach from time to time. They helped a great deal during the times Susan and Kaylinn were in the hospital and I needed to be there with them.

Summer is coming up quickly and we are starting to plan for VBS, youth camp, and other activities. We are also looking forward to a visit from Susan’s parents as well as some men possibly coming to help with the planning for our new church building. We have not been able to complete the filling of the land yet, but are still working on that as funds are provided. We are anxious to get started on the new building!

Susan and the kids are also looking forward to summer to enjoy a break from homeschooling. The time in the hospital did put them a good bit behind but they are working hard to catch up and finish the school year sometime in June.

We thank you for your continued prayers and financial support. Please continue to pray for us and our ministry here on Pohnpei. May God bless you.

Because of Calvary,
Rickson, Susan,

Kaleo, Kestra, Kyler, Katrianne, & Kaylinn

More Kaylinn Pics

Kestra and Kaylinn - what a good big sister!

Kaylinn's not sure about this sister yet!

Daddy's not missing having another boy, is he?

Twins?

Pictures of Kaleo's Tennis Tournament

Update on Kaylinn

Well, again I am behind in keeping this blog updated. A lot has happened since little Kaylinn was born. She came home from the hospital with the usual mild jaundice, but after a week or so it progressed into severe jaundice and the doctor decided it had to be more than just the usual infant jaundice. After having some blood tests done, she found Kaylinn had some sort of infection (what exactly we were never able to find out). So Kaylinn was admitted into the hospital again to be put under the phototherapy lights and to be on IV antibiotics. We went to the clinic for what we thought was a routine checkup - EIGHT days later we finally were able to go home! Thank the Lord though that Kaylinn is fine now and doing great at home!

I'm posting pictures here for whoever is interested, but primarily for the benefit of grandparents, aunties, and uncles who aren't able to see Kaylinn in person! Enjoy! (These two are of Kaylinn in the hospital - poor little thing - it was a rough week.)

She's Here!

I know it's been a LONG time since I posted here but things have been a bit crazy around here. In January I went into early labor so really had to take it easy for awhile to keep the baby from coming too soon. I also started to have problems with my heart which got progressivly worse and finally I was admitted last week with the heart problem. The doctor then decided the best thing was to go ahead and take the baby c-section as the heart medication was also lowering her heart rate. So, Kaylinn Alora was born via c-section on Thursday, February 25th at 9:25 AM. Things have been up and down since then with recovery and all but Kaylinn is doing great and I am starting to feel much better now. My heart is also doing much better and hopefully I will be able to go off the medication soon. We came home from the hospital on Monday and are now adjusting to life with 5 kids.

Here are some pictures of our new little angel. Thank you all for praying. Please continue to pray as we are facing challenges from every angle. There has been a drought on the island and our water is being turned off often. We didn't have water at all for about 24 hours after getting home from the hospital so that makes life a little "extra interesting".