Praise Update :: Grandpa and Visas

We are happy to share that my Grandpa is doing much better, and though his body is still retaining water, everything else seems to be coming under control and we are hoping he will be released from the hospital in the next week. Thank you for all of your prayers. In other family news, we were able to speak to my brother, sister, dad and grandma (from Germany, Texas, Colorado and visiting from New Orleans) over Skype last night and are all looking forward to seeing each other at Christmas!

As for our visas, we were able to procure a 30-day visa extension as we are waiting for approval from Bangkok for another 1-year visa. It took 3 round-trips from Chiang Rai to Maesai, and a lot of apologies and wais, but as of early this afternoon everything is finally in order. Please keep our visa situation in your prayers as we hope to receive the approval from Bangkok in the next week.

All that driving between here and Maesai really wore Lori out, so we will probably spend the rest of the day at home in Chiang Rai and then this weekend we will join the celebration of the 2007 Akha Bible Institute (ABI) graduation. This is always a fun time, as hundreds of Akha come down from the villages to join in the celebration each year. This year we will be honored with the presence of Dr. Paul Lewis, the linguist who first created the Akha script, wrote the Akha-English-Thai dictionary, and translated the Bible into Akha. We hope to post more on all of these festivities next week.

Tags:

• praise
• family
• visas
• ABI

My Grandpa and Our Visas

Please join us in prayer this week as we have two major requests...

My 'Grandpa Du', 89, in the last two weeks has been suffering from an infection and low blood pressure and needed to have a wire then a pacemaker implanted onto his heart. In the past, he has suffered from multiple heart attacks, needing bypass surgeries and stints placed into his arteries; he also endured a severe case of diverticulitis four years ago. There has been difficulty in regulating the pacemaker, and the infection is not yet under control. We are looking forward in faith to being able to celebrate his 90th birthday together with he, his 6 grandchildren and his (soon-to-be) 9 great-grandchildren at the beginning of next year.

Please join us in praying that the pacemaker would work well, that his body would have the strength to fight off the infections and that he would be back to his full health soon.

Secondly, through the madness of morning sickness, village trips and working with our director on his dissertation, we really dropped the ball with our visa and work permit. We were supposed to send our passport info to Bangkok at the beginning of February to apply for another 1 year extension, but missed the date and sent it down two weeks late. This mistake mostly just causes a headache for everyone and will cost us some fees in renewing our visa and work permit for an additional 10 days. Our visa expires later this week and so we will have to go to the immigration office to request a ten-day extension on the expiration date.

Please join us in praying for favor from the customs officers, quick processing from the Bangkok office, and grace from all the government officials as we do not speak Thai.

Thank you for your prayers.

Tags:

• prayer
• family
• health
• visas