Fall is coming!

It has been a very hot summer in Florida and for much of the U.S.    Many Floridians have gone north for the hot summer months so our condo pool is empty most of the time.   Ron and I have been going early in the mornings to get some pool exercise but just now the water is cool, the morning air is cool and we will wait until the heat is turned on in the pool October 1st.  

We have hot afternoons with numerous thunderstorms.   We had a heavy rain about 3 p.m. yesterday.  By 4 p.m. it was totally sunny again but another storm came in about 6 p.m. and it rained again.   The good news is that Florida has been in a drought situation and the rain is needed.    We had no hurricanes last year to bring us rain and so far there are none in the Atlanta this season.   We are not in the clear yet as the season will not really be over until November.   We remember one hurricane in December when we were in St. Croix, U.S.V. I.   There was one in the Philippines at Christmas time a few years ago.  Weather can be unpredictable.

We have been busy.  I have been transferring more of my work over to Carole Booker.  Ronald's IT man in the Philippines has designed a database for us and we have also been busy preparing Excel worksheets for him to transfer our data into the database.   We are still in the preliminary stages of getting this developed.  It will take some time to complete it and check out the information to be sure it is accurate before Carole can work more with the database.  

The SAS work remains steady with the number of girls averaging from 320 to 350.   Some graduate and leave the safe house and others come in to begin a new life at our centers.    There are always more that need help than we can accommodate, but we are still adding girls as facilities have space.   Our workers are diligent and eager to help as many poor girls as they can.   

Many girls are being added in Nepal on a regular basis.  We had several to leave after completing their high school education.   It is our goal to keep them as long as they want to study so they can be better prepared to take care of themselves.  The longer they stay, the stronger background they have in the Bible to build their faith and keep them strong spiritually.

We have quite a few new girls coming to the safe houses in Laos also.   

Two new girls have arrived at our safe house in the Philippines.  A picture of them with their mother and the house where they lived are shown here. 

They are now at our safe house at Casa Esperanza of Angels (Ronald and Gigi's orphanage).   The parents live in a very remote area and the girls were not able to continue their schooling.   The family is facing severe financial difficulties and poverty.  The girls' house on the CEA campus is full now.   

Focus, in the middle of the picture, is one of our girls in Udon Thani, Thailand. She was baptized a week ago.   The entire congregation came to see her baptism.   

TG, on the left is the girl's house mother.  Another girl has been accepted and will join these girls at this home soon. 
Congregation at Udon Thani, Thailand

Several girls in Nepal have been baptized in the past few months.   They are all taught the Bible regularly and we are not facing any opposition to our teaching just yet.   We know this could happen, but while we have the openness to teach the workers are diligent to teach and train the girls on a daily basis.

On a personal note, Ron will see a new neurologist October 1.  We have not been pleased with the ones we had in the past.  We hope this one will be more suitable to working with Ron as Parkinson's Disease offers many challenges.    Ron is trying to keep active physically and mentally everyday.

We have both had major dental work done recently.   At our age, we really hate spending money on our teeth, but we can't neglect them and just let them rot out as people do in third world countries.    I have two back teeth that I will need to have pulled soon.   Two weeks ago, I had a root canal on a front tooth and now I have to have a crown for it. 

I also had an ear infection in both ears that lasted for over two weeks with a round of antibiotics and a prednisone pack of medication.    The pain is gone but I may have had some hearing loss occur. 

Ronald and Gigi are celebrating their anniversary this Thursday.   They will be coming to Florida to be with us the weekend of October 4th.  It is their last traveling trip before returning to the Philippines.  We have not seen them in a year so we are looking forward to their visit.

Thank you, everyone, for keeping up with us and our work in Asia.   We love and appreciate each of you.  May God continue to bless you!

 

Time is fleeting....

 It seems impossible that August has arrived and kids are going back to school after their summer break.  Although our lives seems too busy and the weeks literally go quickly, life is better this way than being bored or lonely.   I know many people long for the busy days but life continues to change for all of us.

As Carole Booker takes over the secretarial work, I find myself cleaning out closets and scrubbing the oven, chores I have put off, being too busy to worry about things.   I've admired friends who kept a perfectly straight and clean house, but I've never been able to do that with the secretarial work.    I am somewhat lost with the more leisure time, but I am very grateful for the opportunity, knowing the Save Asian Souls' work will be handled properly.

Ron has just put out a plea to collect funds to help build a small church building for a group of Christians in Nepal.  They are meeting in a tent but it is inadequate during monsoon season, winter and other conditions.  

We built this small pink building for a group of Christians meeting in a  chicken house about a year ago.

If you want to help with the new building, send your check to Save Asian Souls, Guaranty Bank and Trust, 3101 Wind River Lane, Denton, TX 76210 and note that it is for "church building".    

Ronald and Gigi are having good trips as they travel around to give congregations an update about our work.   They have been in Texas for more than a month and for a couple of weeks now they are in North Alabama.   

The work in Asia continues to go well under the same workers as before.   Girls are graduating and leaving the safe house, many becoming Christians in the process.   We are blessed to have the opportunity to teach girls who probably would never even see a Bible in their life time if they did not hear it from one of our workers.    As girls leave to find jobs or get married, we bring in younger girls to replace them and the work continues to go on.

Leigh Ann visits most Saturdays and she and Tatum are doing well but both have very busy jobs.   Ron continues to have a lot of fatigue and sleep problems with Parkinson's Disease.   With one shoulder hurting and more rain recently, he has not been able to go swimming every day.   Continue to pray for Ron as this disease progresses and for me to have the ability to do for him whatever he needs.   We will see a new neurologist October 1st and hope this doctor will be able to offer advice and be of help to us.

We will be watching as the hurricane season approaches and hope we can escape bad storms again this year.

God bless you all.

Safe!

Our friends and good sponsors for our girls are safe in Guam.   No other news to report at this time but this is the best anyway.  To know they are safe and there were no deaths as a result of Bavi passing over them is wonderful..   God is good!

Blessed1

We are so blessed to live a peaceful life but many others do not have such a wonderful privilege.  We pray for the families of the earthquake victims in Venezuela.  

People in the Pacific are enduring typhoon Bavi.  We have friends in Guam.   On Saturday, they were preparing for the storm but sometimes we are helpless when disasters occur.  We are anxious to hear from them.    

What a blessing it is to be an American and have the privileges of a free country.   Continue to be aware of those who want to take this away from us and vote to put the strong-hearted and brave men and women in congress, squeezing out those who want to change our country to one of communist rule where government has all of the control.

Our mission work continues to go well with all safe houses doing a great job caring for approximately 330 girl.   Some have recently graduated from high school and left the safe houses to seek employment and help their poor families.   At the same time, we are accepting more poor girls from mountain regions where they have no water, little food and lack of schools for a good education.    We are amazed at how the people even live in these remote areas where they cannot grow much good and have no jobs or the availability of food.    

Each week when we go to the grocery store, we are blessed to have a choice of good stores and so many products.   Do you count your blessings when you shop?  

Carole Booker is doing a wonderful job and I am phasing out of the secretarial work even sooner than planned.    She can handle the work and do better than I've done.  She does not need my supervision.  We are very thankful for Carole!

I still have some work to do for SAS but it has been reduced down considerably and soon I will have time to catch up other things I kept putting off.   I will be able to do more things with Ron in the days/months ahead.   We have a full schedule with too many doctor and dental appointments now but maybe we will have some slow time to enjoy soon.  I have worked since I was 16, taking a little time out when our children were born.   I have probably been employed for 70 of my 88 years!   

Ron was 89 last Monday.    He had a great weekend with ice cream cake, several very good lunches, many calls and well-wishes for a happy birthday on Facebook.   He still swims every morning and it helps with his stability.    

Ronald and Gigi were in the Springfield, MO area this weekend and today they are driving toward Texas where they will be reporting to congregations for several weeks.   

Leigh Ann and Tatum spent Friday together with some friends on a very private beech they have recently located.  

Leigh Ann came over on Saturday and we enjoyed the afternoon working on a puzzle and watching some of the 4th of July parades and activities.    We shared our food and enjoyed homemade chicken salad, shrimp pasta salad, salmon salad, stuffed eggs, green salad, watermelon and mango with an apple cobbler and whipped cream for dessert.   We both said we missed the grilling out but what we had was delicious and healthy.    

Our weather is hot with possible thunderstorms in the afternoons but we are not complaining.   We will be watching forecasts for hurricanes in the months ahead.

I hope all of my reader friends and family have a safe and wonderful July.   May God bless you all.

A New Month and Good News

Last week, the children at Casa Esperanza of Angels in the Philippines had a fantastic VBS with the Christian group from Greenville, TX.   

There were about 54 children present (if my memory is correct) so this includes a large group of children from the community.  I know they had a wonderful time with classes, activities and fun things to do.  These children love attention and they got lots of hugs and interaction with the visitors. In addition, I'm sure they loved the good food served.

One member from the Greenville team commented that it was a good trip due to the enthusiasm of the children and the good meals they enjoyed.

It is a very tiring and long trip for this group of teachers and workers.   This is the 2nd time they have gone there.  What a sacrifice it is to do all of this work for these precious children.    We thank them from the bottom of our hearts!   I know the children were blessed to have them and I hope they receive blessings for their Christian service to teach children about Christ.   

The children are ready to return to school next week for the next term.   Even with a great summer, they are excited about going back to school.   

Ronald and Gigi are packing to leave the Philippines to return to the U.S. next week.   They will spend the next 4+ months traveling to give reports to congregations about our two mission works in Asia.   They are tired from the busy summer activities with the children, getting them ready for school again, and having government inspections of the facility..  Prayers for them to have a safe trip home and safe travels this summer would be greatly appreciated. 

This week, Carole Booker from Houston, TX began training to take over the SAS secretarial work.  Carole retired from Westbury Christian School after teaching English there for 19 years.   She visited us a year ago and inquired if she would be able to assist me with this work.  Carole took two weeks of her summer vacation each year to go to one of our safe houses to teach the girls English and Bible.  She has met most of our workers and been in the homes where the girls live.  This is Carole with one group of girls on an outing following her studies with them.  

Carole has raised funds to purchase a new outfit of clothing for the girls in Nepal each year.  This was not a small campaign as it benefitted approximately 230 girls each year with a delightful gift of new clothing.   

I was 88 in May and had a fantastic day with good food and gifts.  Although I enjoy the secretarial work, I know we are in great need to have an efficient secretary in place to carry on this work in the years ahead.  Carole is the perfect person for this work with her strong Christian principles and her love for our work.   We are busy going over procedures, instructions and explanations about things by email.   I think we have covered most everything this week and she is ready to "get her hands dirty" and actually start the work.   We don't really get our hands dirty, however, as we can work from our own comfortable chair during whatever hours we find available.    

I will continue to teach Carole what I have done since 2015 as we make progress in handling the work.  Soon, we will have a database designed by Ronald's IT man in the Philippines and both of us will be learning to input the data into this new system. It is my plan to turn the work over to Carole by the end of this year.   It is not that the work is hard, but there's a lot to keep up with and we have reports for girls to send to sponsors from Nepal, Laos, Thailand and the Philippines.  It is a little different in scope from country to country.  

Ron and I had a good "wellness" check up this week.   Ron had an eye infection but medication has almost cleared it up.   We try to take care of ourselves, exercise, get enough sleep and eat healthy food. We will be celebrating Father's Day and Ron's 89th birthday at the end of this month.   

Thank you all for following our activities and keeping us encouraged.   We love and appreciate our family, friends and supporters very much!  God bless you all. 

Summer is here!

Our weather in Florida is hot.  Spring jumped quickly into very hot days but nights and early mornings are nice and sometimes we have a thunderstorm.   We have a drought from few hurricanes around last year and few expected again this year.    

Our work continues in Asia with additional girls added to almost every safe house for a record high at this time.   They just had a big gospel meeting in Nepal and our girls from several safe houses attended and participated in a Bible Bowl quiz.   

I am looking forward to having help with the secretarial work in a couple of weeks.   Carole Booker has been a supporter for many years, going all the way back to our days in China.  Since we began the Save Asian Souls' ministry, she's traveled each summer to safe houses in Nepal, Laos and Thailand to spend two weeks at a particular safe house to teach Bible and English to the girls.  She will be retiring from her teaching profession at Westbury Christian School in Houston, TX in about two weeks.   She plans to begin working with me, first taking over the reports and work associated with Nepal where we care for approximately 240 girls.  Each year, she raises almost $5,000 to provide a new outfit of clothing for each of the girls in Nepal so she has a very special interest and love for these girls.

One of our girls in Nepal had an appendectomy over the weekend.  Considering that over 600 girls have come through either our sewing school or public school classes since we began this work in 2015, we have had a very small percentage requiring a hospital visit.  We have not had any accidents or deaths but one girl does have a very serious and inoperable heart condition.  We care for one young girl who is deaf but she is doing quite well.

Ronald and Gigi will be returning in June to begin travels to congregations to report about our progress and theirs at their Philippine orphanage (Casa Esperanza of Angels on Facebook).   They will come visit up the first week in October before returning to the Philippines again.  A group of Christians from Greenville, TX are traveling next week to CEA to conduct a VBS as they did last year.  The children are excited about this special event. It is a great sacrifice and expense for this group to do this for the children.  Pray for them to have a safe and good trip.  

A personal update:   In regard to my sprained and fractured foot, it's been a difficult situation.  After wearing a boot for 9 weeks and the X-ray showing the bone had healed, I started walking carefully in a supportive shoe but pain continued when I walked.   In fact, I had some pain in both feet adjusting to normal conditions.  I was able to find shoes last week at DSW that give me total comfort when walking.  After almost 3 months, it is so good to be able to walk without pain.    

Ron continues his daily exercise programs (going to L. A. Fitness on his Silver Sneaker benefits with Medicare) and swimming in our condo pool.   He liked to go swimming early in the mornings.  Most residents in our complex have returned north and the pool is free of swimmers most of the day.

The exercise helps him continue to be mobile so he can completely take care of himself.  Ron's cardiologist gave him a follow up visit last week in regard to a mitral valve done by the Mayo Clinic about 15 years ago. The Dr. said he'd see him again in a year.  At our age, that is good news when a doctor says that.   

I will be 88 next Sunday. I never expected to live this long and I surely did not expect to still be working 6 hours a day.  To keep the work caught up, I need to work 8 hours a day but I quit early to spend time with Ron.  The work is always there when I get up the next morning.     

We are blessed and we thank God for the opportunity to do this work and to have the health to continue doing what we are doing. We are thankful for the many people who support our work and encourage us in so many different ways.

Thank you for your prayers for all of us and the girls and children we care for.   May God bless you all!

New girl in Chiang Mai, Thailand

This little girl was just taken into our care on April 3, 2026.   Here is what our house father reported:

She was abandoned by her mother when she was very young. Her mother remarried and moved away with her new husband, so the girl had been living with her grandparents ever since.

      Where she lived.  

Her mother does not own any land, but she had promised that once she earned some wages, she would share some money with her daughter. However, recently the mother has not been working much, leaving the girl with nothing to eat. She had to go to the neighbors’ house to ask for food. The neighbors could not bear to see her situation any longer, so they contacted us to ask for help. When we went to pick her up, we saw with our own eyes how truly poor and deprived she was.  

Nasor, the neighbor, felt sorry for her and called us to come and see if we could help her.  Patcharaphon told us that she really wants to live here. She said she wants to have enough food to eat and hopes for a better future. On our way back home, we noticed how cheerful she was. She adapted to everyone very well. Even though she is a Lahu hill-tribe girl, she speaks Thai very clearly.