Weekend Update!

Monday morning on this side of the world!   I know most of you are still on Sunday though.  We had a great weekend.  Saturday Rickson was gone most of the day at a workday helping Pastor George Milgrim and Good News Baptist Church put up their new building!  This is an exciting time for them as they have been praying for 6 years for their own land to build on!  

Sunday started our annual Missions Conference!  This year our theme is "Help Me Win the Lost".  We had over 100 in attendance in both the morning and evening services!  One of the missionaries our church supports, Pastor Sonny Padock of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Palikir, Pohnpei preached in the evening service and Pastor George Milgrim also shared some about the projects going on with the construction of Good News Baptist Church in Tomoaroaloang (I probably spelled that wrong!).  Our missions conference meetings will be this Wednesday, next Sunday, and the following Wednesday, with a closing banquet on Saturday, November 12th.  Please pray the conference goes well and we will be able to meet our Faith Promise goal for the year!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.  Monday is always is a busy day for us as I am getting the kids back into school mode as well as preparing notes and paperwork for Bible Institute classes this evening.  

October Prayer Letter

Kasalehlia!  We have had quite a summer and much to update you on.

I’ll begin by explaining the medical emergency we had with our daughter, Kaylinn.  Over the past several months, she has had breathing problems where she has just randomly stopped breathing for no apparent reason.  It’s happened about six times and each time gave us quite a scare.  The doctors here could not figure out what was going on; therefore, after her latest incident the last week of August, they sent us off to Hawaii to the Children’s Medical Center there for further evaluation.  Thankfully, some of our church people offered to stay with our other four children and Susan, Kaylinn, and I flew to HI on September 7^th.  We had expected to be there for about a week.  However, it ended up taking an entire month!  The doctors there also could not come to a conclusion as to the cause of her problem.  She had just about every test there was to run and saw nearly all the pediatric specialists that they thought could help her.  It would take an entire book to give all the details of that month here in this letter so if you are interested in the detailed story as well as the many ways God blessed during this time, please read about it at our blog.  We arrived back on Pohnpei on October 5^th and since have been trying to get back into a routine with the children and ministry.   While I am on the subject of Kaylinn’s medical situation, I would like to mention a need and that is the medical bills.  At this point, we have not received all of the bills from the hospital so I am not able to give an exact amount, but we were warned while there that it would be quite high.  If the Lord lays on your heart to help in any way with these expenses, donations can be sent through our mission board, designated for Kihleng Medical Expenses.

The ministry is doing well.  The church people worked together to keep things going while we were gone.  I’m so thankful for the men in the church that put so much into the ministry!  Since we’ve been back, we’ve had the exciting privilege of seeing four individuals come to know Christ as their Savior.  That was a great welcome back for us! 

The Baptist Bible Institute of Pohnpei started the Fall Semester in August.  We have forty-five enrolled this semester, all from the 6 different Baptist churches on the island!  What is even more exciting though is the fruit that we are seeing in the lives of these students.  Some of the students have started Bible studies in the public schools on the island and on the community college campus.  It’s been great to see these young people so on fire for the Lord!

We have several events coming up that we ask prayer for.  In November we have our annual Missions Conference.  This is always one of our favorite events of the year.  We’re looking forward to a time of honoring our missionaries that we currently support and hoping to be able help them more financially.  One of our missionary families is the Boylston family, who is currently on deputation in preparation to come here to work with us in the ministry.  We are fervently praying that God will provide the support quickly so we can have them here with us! 

In January we will be having revival meetings with Evangelist Ron Comfort.  Dr. Comfort started the Bible College that Susan and I attended and it is a great honor for us to be able to have him come and hold revival meetings.  Please begin praying now for these meetings!  Another need I would like to mention here is our need for a sound system which we will need for the revival meetings.  In the past, we have borrowed sound systems and speakers from other churches, but we would like to be able to obtain our own at this point as it is something we are always in need of.

Thank you all for your continued prayers for our family, our ministry, and especially these past couple of months for our daughter Kaylinn.  God has used some trials in our life to show us His love and care for us and we are so thankful for those who have faithfully prayed during this time.  

Because of Calvary

Rickson, Susan, Kaleo, Kestra, Kyler, Katrianne, & Kaylinn

Weekend Update

Good morning!  It's Monday morning over here in the islands and we had a great weekend!  Saturday we didn't have a whole lot planned so it was a nice day of much needed rest - though Rickson did spend a lot of time doing yard work at the church so maybe it wasn't so much a day of rest for him!  Sunday started out beautiful and sunny and we had a good crowd in church.  Three men met with Rickson after the morning service and accepted Christ as their Savior!  So exciting!  These are all men who have been coming for awhile but had not yet made this decision.  Sunday afternoon we had a huge storm hit the island!  It got very dark, rainy and windy. The power was knocked out from around 3 in the afternoon until about 2 AM this morning!  So evening service was held in the dark!  

Kaylinn Update

We had about a week of really rough nights with Kaylinn, but for the past four nights she has slept really well, probably the best she has ever slept!  We are hoping and praying that this will continue.  She has not had any breathing problems since we've been back and for that we are very thankful!  The doctor wants to try taking her off the medication in about a month or so to see what happens.  Of course, that makes me a little nervous!    She does have another small problem right now in that she got a small blister on her foot that ended up infected (a common thing around here as the bacteria seems to thrive in this humid environment).  So she is currently on Keflex for that and it seems to be healing well now.

Family Update

Well, we've been back two weeks now and are finally getting into some kind of a routine again with school and all.  Kaylinn has done pretty well since we got back.  Some days are really good and some days not so much.  I really wish we had more of an idea of what causes her problems and discomfort so we could help her better.  For the first week and a half after she started the medicine they gave her in Hawaii, it really seemed like she was better.  She slept well those nights and was just overall a happier baby.  But then about 4 or 5 days after getting back to Pohnpei, she started waking up a lot at night again and screaming like she is in pain and she's fussy a lot during the day.  Some days she seems fine though.  I've tried tracking what she eats and keeping her on a strict schedule but still not really seeing a pattern anywhere.  She is a mystery!  We'll be talking to the GI Specialist again in a couple of weeks and see if he recommends we continue the medicine or not.  We have found we cannot get the medicine here so will have to have someone in Hawaii pick it up for us and send to us.

As for the ministry, things are going well, though Satan is attacking as always.  One lady accepted Christ since we've been back and that was encouraging.  The Bible Institute continues to go well.  They took their exams last week and started a new block of courses this week.  We have missions conference starting next week.  So we are busy!  But a good kind of busy!

We're working on getting our new prayer letter out soon!  I know it is long overdue!

Thank you again for your continued prayers!

Pics of the Family!

Here's some pictures of our first family outing together just after we got back from Hawaii.  We sure missed these little rascals!

We're Home!!!!

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get an update here since we got home.  BUT, I've been a little busy enjoying time with my kids!  The flights home were long and thankfully uneventful.  Kaylinn got VERY tired of sitting on the plane and made sure everyone on the plane knew it.  She did pretty good though.  The plane arrived at Pohnpei earlier than scheduled but then we hit bad weather and couldn't land.  We circled around above the island for about 40 minutes!  I thought I was going to go out of mind being THAT close to my kids and not being able to see them!  The kids all talked non-stop until bedtime!  I was exhausted!  But enjoyed every minute of it!  Kaylinn has done really well since we have been back.  It actually does seem like the medicine they gave her is helping.  She seems to be sleeping better.  A couple of nights she's hardly woken up at all which has been nice.  We started school yesterday and being a very organized homeschooler, this has been "traumatic" for me, LOL, considering we had to just jump in and start - BEFORE getting school supplies and having all the books/manuals organized, lesson plans done, and bulletin boards up.  I'm working on things as I can.  Kaleo survived his first day of 7th grade!  And Katy survived her first day of K4!  I think Katy is going to be my challenge this year!  Today we got in the school supply shopping and hopefully by Monday we will be a lot more oganized.  

Thank you all for praying!  The sweet comments and knowledge that so many are praying have been such an encouragement.  I know God has a reason for all that has happened.  Yesterday in my devotions I read II Corinthians 12:9,10 - "And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee:  for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake:  for when I am weak, then am I strong."  The book I'm reading said this that really struck a chord with me:  "Often the difficulties we face in life are actually preparation for a greater work God wants to do through us."  As Iscanned through the previous verses in the chapter, the one that REALLY stuck out to me was verse 8, "For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me."  YES!  I can relate - so many times I've asked God to spare us from these problems with Kaylinn.  But God is preparing us for something greater.  I've learned so much this past month, I can't even begin to put it all here.  

Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts on our Month Long Stay in Hawaii

1. Obviously stopping at a red light here is optional. 
2. And apparently so is clothing.
3. The pigeons here all LOVE Kaylinn.
4. The homeless people here have cell phones and drink Starbucks.
5. You really don't need a car here! (I've enjoyed walking everywhere!)
6. It's not a good idea to stay at a hotel THIS close to a See's Candy store and a Dairy Queen.
7. I'm ready to go home!

Going Home!

Yep, we're heading back to Pohnpei!  We're disappointed and a bit frustrated that we are having to leave with no definite answers for what is wrong with Kaylinn, but as there are no other tests the doctors here can run, we have no reason to stay any longer.  We are anxious to get back to our other children and our life back in Pohnpei.  Kaylinn is on a medication now that may or may not help.  The hospital had Rickson and I take CPR while here so that we can be more prepared in case she has further problems.  We are also going to get a sensor monitor that will alert us if she stops breathing or her heart stops while she is sleeping.  There really isn't much else we can do at this point but pray that God will protect our little girl.  We fly out tomorrow and will have a one night layover in Guam.  We will be home in Pohnpei Tuesday (Wednesday Pohnpei time).  Thank you for your prayers.  We'll keep you updated as we can as we return home.