1 month to go!!!

Hello! I can't believe it's almost one month before Arm and I will be starting a new chapter of our lives. As you can imagine, we have SO many mixed emotions, and yes, some surprises are still coming up. The biggest one is that Duke's hip became dislocated and while we THOUGHT he wouldn't need surgery, Arm talked to 2 more veterinarians who say he DOES need surgery. We know God provided for us once, and we know He will again. We have saved up a good amount of money in Thailand so that we can have a pretty good start in the states, but all of the surprises are causing a bit of extra stress. Please pray for Arm and I that we will trust God and (especially me) just calm down. I think I'm the one who gets more stressed then Arm does, but we both have our moments.

However, enough talk about stress and problems! Time for some fun!!!! I thought I would share some things Arm and I have both enjoyed from being married.

1) Having a friend with us at all times.
2) Having someone accept us for the good and the bad.
3) Having someone to challenge us to be better.
4) Having someone to be nerdy and silly with.
5) Having someone to walk into a new, exciting, and scary adventure with :D.

Well, those are a few things about us for something fun :D.

Finally, some prayer requests. Obviously, please keep praying for Arm and I, however, there are a few other things I would like you to pray for.

1) Jan has seemed to find a church that she likes! Thanks to the recommendation of a friend of ours, she has found a church which is younger and they do a LOT of singing. Jan is an amazing singer, so it fits her well. Please pray that she will continue to find friends there and that she will be plugged in. She really needs a community to support her, especially since I'm leaving. It's been hard on her, but if she can get plugged in at this church, it could be like having 10 people like me, which would be amazing for her to grow!

2) A lot of the students in Arm's group at church are having various problems, but thankfully not personal problems within the group. Please keep Kat, Nicky, Bun, Oo-m, and Dang in your prayers.

3) One of the major problems within the church is the desire to be married. Thais already think about getting married late (around 28-32) and your options are significantly reduced, so a lot of them think a lot about getting married. Please pray they will entrust that to God and focus on getting to know Him rather than figuring out how to get to know other guys/girls in the church. Even singles in the states struggle with this, but there are less than 1% Christian, so Thai Christians sacrifice when they become Christians and it is on their minds.

4) Pray for the church. They are having to move out of their current location and the mission organization made a good decision and decided it's time for the church to stand on their own, so all the support money has been slowly phasing out over the last 2 years and they just recently recieved their last check. They only have about 2 months left in their current location and they're still not in agreement. There's a lot of feelings going on right now and it's kind of stressful for them. Pray that God will use this to strengthen them as a team and they will be refined as gold.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. Arm and I really appreciate it! Please send us e-mails and prayer requests so that we may know better how to pray for you all as well. I miss you and can't wait to reconnect and Arm is very anxious to meet everyone. May God bless you all!