Too Much for Old Folks?

It has been a very busy week.    Ron left early Monday morning to fly from Dallas to Jacksonville, FL.    When he got there, he rented a car and drove straight to the Mayo Clinic for a check-up.   He had a mitral valve heart surgery in April at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN but they were too busy to work him in at this time.  His heart is doing fine. 

We are leaving November 13 for a five-month trip to Asia.  We both want to be sure Ron is as healthy as possible because we don’t want to deal with health issues while there.    Ron has had some dizzy spells, some unstable episodes and though he might have had some mini-strokes.  


Apparently, the problems stem back to the major fall he had five years ago on Nov. 4, 2014.   At that time, he cracked some vertebra and in his spine near the neck.   He was in a body and neck brace for 10 weeks.    They did not recommend surgery then.  It is not surprising that neurological problems exist due to the old injuries.    His neck is not fully in alignment with the spinal column and the doctor believes this is the problem that creates the symptoms of dizziness or a feeling of passing out.    There was no evidence of having a stroke.   He does have a brain aneurysm that is not leaking and appears to be old and probably occurred at the time of the fall.   There were no strong recommendations for a stent to be put in the aneurysm or surgery on the neck.   Just knowing that he has lived with this condition for five years relieves us of some questions.    Ron is very blessed not to have more severe problems such as paralysis or brain damage.  God blessed him with only lingering symptoms that he can live with.


We will finish our visits in the Waxahachie, TX area on Sunday.   Monday night, we have a dinner appointment in Temple,TX and Tuesday we will relocate to Cherokee Children’s Home in Cherokee, TX.    We are on our final countdown to arrive in Alvin, TX at the Westside church of Christ on Sunday, November 10.   We will pick up our son and daughter-in-law at the airport when we arrive late in the afternoon.


Ronald and Gigi, our “kids” from the Philippines are arriving to report to their supporters in Texas until the end of January when they will return to their home.   They will get a crash course on driving and living in an RV for two days before we leave for Thailand.    We have been busy going through things that we can pack up so they have some space in the RV.  

I have made a list for the doors to the pantry areas listing what is on each shelf.    My daughter, Leigh Ann, would be very proud of me for my organization of the pantry.  Every time she came home from college, she had a project to straighten and organize my pantry.   There are some things that are just more important than keeping spices in alphabetical order!   However, there are more problems with my pantry than that. 


People wonder what we do all day in the RV.    Almost everywhere we go, someone asks what we do during the week when we are not visiting at a church.  


When we get up on Monday morning, our workers in Asia have completed their work for Monday and we are loaded up with email.   They get a day’s head start on our work each week.   Ron and Jackie Feng answer questions and direct the workers in every aspect of their work.    Ron does the banking and transfer of funds to the various locations.   Jackie reviews all of the workers’ petty cash reports and budgets for the next month’s operation.   

We have over 200 girls in about 20 locations.    We have sponsors for every girl.   As workers send me reports, I review and edit the reports (correcting grammar, spelling and sentence structure) and email the report to the girl’s sponsors.   Some sponsors write letters to their girls and the workers send the girls’ letters back to the sponsors.   About 99% of our work is done by computer, receiving and sending reports and handling all aspects of the work.

We add new girls and assign them a sponsor.   When a girl leaves, we send a report to the sponsor and assign a new girl to them.   Maintaining accurate lists of girls and their sponsors is a critical part of my job.    We have 13 locations in Nepal but that is all one work; five different locations in Laos with each under a different worker (minister) and one in Thailand.  We still have seven girls in advanced education in China.   
  

I don’t do the accounting but I do maintain a donation log, posting every check that is received by our bank.    I send Thank You cards to first-time donors and if I see a check for a new sponsor for a girl, I write them to assign them a particular girl and add them to my list of sponsors.


In addition, I assist Ronald and Gigi with the Philippine work.   I don’t spend nearly as much time with their work but at times, it is also time-consuming.


Ron will be 83 next June and I will be 82 in May, 2020.   People do not believe our age because we are doing so much.   While I enjoy the work, I am concerned that we are pushing our luck at our age and really need people trained and ready to step in if necessary.   Not many people, unfortunately, want to do mission work and stay this busy.    We really do not have much spare time and the work is never really caught up.


I am never too busy to receive emails from anyone that wants to write.   My email address is patbrown10@gmail.com.    Please keep in touch if you have any questions about Save Asian Souls or the Philippine Mission.    Go to Facebook:  Casa Esperanza of Angels for the orphanage in the Philippines.   


I may not have time to post again until we begin our trip to Asia.   I will post about our travels, the people we meet, the girls we visit and keep you well-informed about our work.   Thank you for your interest in our mission work.   Thank you for the encouragement.   Thank you for prayers on our behalf as we complete the next six months of our busy lives in Asia with constant travel. 

Prayers needed again for Ron

Ron will fly from Dallas to Jacksonville, FL on Monday, October 21 for a check up at the Mayo Clinic.    We are praying that the testing will show him in good health and no further treatment for anything is needed.    His heart seems to be doing just fine since the mitral valve surgery in April.  We want to be as assured (as much as possible) that our trip to Asia (Nov. 13 to April 1, 2020) will not have any setbacks due to health issues.   We both have days when we do not feel well, but we are "burning the candle" from both ends, so to speak, and with aging, getting the work done is often exhausting.  

We are not complaining.    God has blessed us tremendously with success in the mission work and with our health.   So far, we have not slowed down.  As the workload increases, the free time seems to be less.   Many people, our age or even younger, do not understand how we are able to keep up the pace.  When we make a commitment, carrying out the things needed to accomplish the work requires the input.  We just keep working as long as the Lord gives us the strength.  Usually, when someone asks Ron how things are going, he will say:   "It only goes when you 'push or pull' and sometimes we have to do both to get things done."

We are winding down our RV travels with only three more weeks left.  We have recently visited churches in Greenville, Mount Pleasant, Wylie, Wieland, Denton, Commerce, Sulfur Springs, and Sherman, TX.  We have one more appointment in Tyler and then a short trip to Cherokee and LaVernia before arriving in Alvin, TX on Sunday afternoon, November 10.  We are now parked at Brown Street church of Christ in Waxahachie:

When we arrive in Bangkok, we will rest a few days before traveling to Mukdahan, Thailand.   A lady in Bangkok transferred the title for one acre of land to Save Asian Souls and Bands Ministries (a Dallas, TX foundation) is funding the construction of a safe house on the property.   The proposed house will provide a home to 60 girls.  Ron's background in construction is needed to see that the foundation work for the house is done correctly.   Construction work in foreign countries is not the same as in the U.S.   We will spend a good portion of our time in Mukdahan, but we will travel to the safe houses for girls in three locations in Laos as time permits.  Toward the end of our trip, we hope to visit Nepal and the Philippines for a short time.  

I will begin writing more as we leave Houston and arrive in Bangkok.   I hope to write about our progress each week and take pictures to post on this blog.   We will miss Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with family and/or friends but we probably will not miss the cold winter weather.  This is the peak season for tourists because it will be warm weather in the Asian countries we visit.

Thank you for your prayers and for your interest in our work.     We love and appreciate our family, friends and supporters.

We may be going downhill but the journey has not yet ended!

On June 8, 2010 (nine years, three months or thereabout) we started RV’ing.    I said then and I say again, there is “no recreation” in Recreational Vehicles.    We have adjusted and the living in an RV is not bad if it’s parked in a shady spot, where we have sewage and water connection and 50 amp electricity.    As soon as we arrive at a new location, it takes about an hour to get parked, connected and set up again.   We can sit back and relax then.   Well, maybe not when we have lots of computer work waiting for us.   On the days we travel, we get behind in our work so we must catch up again.

We are typically in one location for about two weeks.  We pull the car behind the RV and then use the car to drive to various congregations for Ron to give a 40-minute power point presentation about our work.   We usually have appointments on Sunday and Wednesday night to give reports.   Our work now is Save Asian Souls (www.save-asian-souls.org). We were in China from 1998 to 2015 and then Ron began this work helping teenage girls who are at risk for traffickers.  

Over the 9 years, we have had about 5 different RV’s.   We started out with an old one that broke down every time we drove it.  As he found one that better suited our needs, we traded again.   We spent a lot of time in RV service departments where the cost is extravagant.  Ron has done as much of the maintenance work as he could but it’s still been expensive.  

In May of this year, Alfred Thomas, a member and former elder at the Chickamauga, GA church of Christ, donated his American Dream 1994 RV to SAS.  He did a lot of work to be sure it was in top running condition.   We were happy to let someone start repairs on our 2007 Tiffin Phaeton so we can put it up for sale and use the American Dream.  Hopefully, by the summer of 2020, we will sell the one we own and not have that debt any longer.    

The American Dream is nicer inside…very well built and pretty.   It does not have sliders and is shorter than the Tiffin.   It has taken some getting used to having very tight quarters.   We threw away stuff and pack up and stored other stuff and we are managing quite nicely.   Only minor things have gone wrong with this RV but that is to be expected.

(I have to practice posting pictures again to make it more interesting.  After five years, I've forgotten how to do a lot of things.)   

We will arrive in Alvin, TX (the Lord willing) which is south of Houston, TX on November 10, 2019.   Ronald and Gigi will also arrive that day from the Philippines to begin using our RV and car while we travel to Asia for five months.    Ronald and Gigi will not stay in the U.S. that long but they will report to their supporters in TX and then return to the Philippines.   

We will leave from Houston (the Lord willing) early in the morning of Nov. 13.  We will catch the first flight out of Houston to Dallas, change planes for either Hong Kong or Taipei (depends on the strike and unrest situation in Hong Kong).   It is a 16-l/2 hour flight.   The entire day and night will be taken up for this portion of the trip.   If we go to Hong Kong, Ron plans for us to stay one night to rest but last year we went to Taipei, had a short layover and flew on to Bangkok, Thailand.  This year, we are going to use buddy passes from a friend.    An employee of an airline has 8 buddy passes per year.   They can use them or give them away.   We have to pay the tax on the ticket but the airline employee will have to claim the value of the ticket on his income tax return.   It’s a good deal for us but not for the person giving us the ticket.   It is truly a gift from a friend for them to donate buddy passes for us.   With a buddy pass, we are on standby status.  We fly on Wednesday because that is usually the day the flights are not totally booked.   We can only get on if seats are available as the gate is ready to close.  Usually, we get business class seats since coach is probably sold out.   This is the good part for a long 16+ hour flight.     Even then, it is a very long time and you feel like you will never arrive.   We have trouble sleeping on a plane.   In this section of the plane, the food is fabulous.   The leg room is priceless.

We will be in Thailand a good portion of the five-month stay because Ron will get construction started on a safe house in Mukdahan, Thailand that will house 60 girls.    A lady in Bangkok, Thailand, donated the acre of land and Dr. John Bailey of Colleyville, TX is funding the expense of construction from his Bands Ministries Foundation.

We will have internet and we will keep working.   We will find time to visit all of our safe houses in Laos and Thailand and some of the areas in Nepal.   We hope to have time to go to the Philippines in April before we return to the U.S.

You can follow our journey by reading my posts on this blog.   I will try to post at least once weekly if the travels and workload permit.

Please keep us in your prayers.

A Long Dry Spell for a Writer

It has indeed been a very long dry spell for a writer to post nothing on their blog in five years.  A lot of changes have occurred in five years but most of you who know us are aware of things that have happened.   Even though we go through many mental hoops with changes in life, we usually come out O.K.    We changed the focus of our work in Asia from orphans to setting up safe houses for teenage girls who are at risk for trafficking.     This work is incorporated as Save Asian Souls.  The change was not easy but the work has taken off and continues to expand.   More about this work as I continue to post segments.

Our son and daughter-in-law (Ronald and Gigi Brown) have completed the first house in Tanjay, Negros Oriental and it is ready for children to be accepted to live there soon.   House parents have been hired and all inspections and approvals have been accomplished.   There is much more construction ahead.   Their five-acre property will eventually have four houses (one for only teenage girls financed and supported by Save Asian Souls.)  They will construct an Administration Building for the office and apartment for Ronald and Gigi to live in.  At this time, they have a room in the laundry room building, separate from the house, in cramped quarters to be able to provide all the space in the house for the staff and children.   Eventually, they will have a pavilion for the church to meet and used as an all-purpose building for the facility.    In their future plans, there are guest cottages, one for the minister and his wife, and even a school in years ahead if financing is secured.

A normal morning can change in a split second.    I got a message from Leigh Ann, my daughter, that she heard from one of my nieces that a nephew (her half-brother) has passed away unexpectedly.  The news of Lamar Tatum's death changed my day.   I kept busy but could not help but think of him almost all the time, wondering what happened.   We still do not know but another niece has reported that an autopsy will be performed to locate the cause of death.   A heart attack may be suspected.  He died in his sleep.  He was posting on Facebook two days ago and there was no indication that anything was wrong.   He has been upset for some time about the political mess going on in the U.S.   He was upset but did not seem despondent.   I last saw him at his dad's funeral several years ago but we chatted a lot on Facebook having basically the same opinions and views.   He was a house painter and lived in Nashville, TN.

Lamar lived briefly with my mother when I was in college.   His two sisters also lived with her sometimes because my brother and sister-in-law were going through a divorce.   These three kids were closer to me than most nieces and nephews because of us sharing a home and relatives who loved us.   Mother loved these kids very much.   She took them to church and tried to give them some basic teaching and love.

Those of us who are left that knew Lamar will miss him greatly.

Summer Travels

I wrote about our trip to West Virginia and Virginia the middle of June.  We have covered a lot of ground since that time.   Some of the time, I have limited internet time and have to spend all of it on doing reports for sponsors and answering emails along with the normal work that Leigh Ann and I handle doing the orphan work.   Sometimes we go to a public library to work so I don’t always have time to post to the blog.

Since that time, we have reported to sponsors in Bowling Green, Benton, Pottsville and surrounding cities in Kentucky.   We spent three weeks parked in the Clark’s driveway in Benton, KY.  We had a wonderful time with them (as always). 

We returned to park at Rippavilla Plantation in Spring Hill, TN for another three-week stretch to visit sponsors in Ron’s hometown of Columbia, TN.   When we left Benton, we stopped off at Troy Church of Christ in Troy, TN.   We enjoyed a catfish dinner out with our dear friend, Judge Jimmy Smith (who won re-election).  We were happy about that.    We enjoyed a great meeting with the Pentecost family in Ashland City, TN a few weeks ago.

This week we arrived at the Red Bank Church of Christ in Red Bank (suburb of Chattanooga, TN).   They have a parking space for us near the house they own located in their back parking lot.   We have appointments this weekend in Chickamauga and Dunlap, TN.  

Next week, we plan to drive to Woodstock, GA to visit Leigh Ann (taking the car and leaving the RV here).  That is  going to feel weird…I have to pack clothes and all my office stuff.   Leigh Ann is my best friend and my "right arm."   She is so efficient and does well over half of the work due to our travels and my age.  She is happy to help and do as much as she can and she does it all extremely well.  I am very proud of her. 

We hope to see Tatum sometime during the week we are there.  She will be away over the Labor Day weekend.  She works two part-time jobs and goes to school at Kennesaw State University.  She is a busy girl.  She's also very beautiful, as you can see in the photograph.   It is hard for me to see her grown up when we loved this little girl when she saw growing up...always a delight. 

Judy Yang on the right at her sister's wedding in Shanghai.  We are happy to announce the arrival of Judy Yang to Texas on Monday.  She is re-joining our workforce in the U.S.   She will live in Lewisville and attend the Lewisville Church of Christ (our sponsoring congregation).   She will take over the accounting work and help with the medical patients.  This is probably just the start of her job descriptions.  Knowing Ron (and Judy’s capabilities) she will be doing much more in a very short time.  She was a great worker before and she will again be an asset to our work. 

Ronald and Gigi continue to work through all the legal requirements for the start of an orphanage in the Philippines.   We are talking to many others in order to secure funding for the work there.  We are awaiting one congregation’s decision about overseeing that work.  Ronald and Gigi have talked with many government officials and visited some orphanages and schools on other islands to find out how things are operating and to learn all they can. 

They are in Cebu now to talk with some men recommended highly by others to be possible board members for the newly formed non-profit corporation that will run the orphanage.  It is required that a certain percentage of Filipinos have to be on the board of directors.  Ronald is being very cautious about who he chooses.

They have enjoyed their little home and garden.   So far, it’s been a mild rainy season with fewer typhoon threats but he watches the weather news daily for anything that might form and come across the Philippines. 

Ronald loves plants so he has been propagating cuttings from trees and plants that he can transplant to the orphanage site once they have the location established.  He is still trying to get the government to donate land but that’s not been an easy task.   He is beginning to draw plans and layout for the building but much of that will depend on the site where they build.

Julia Ng is handling the work well, taking over Ronald’s job in China.  But, she’s had a full load.  Early in the year, two of our workers, traveling to another care center to take one of the men for a new position, had a front tire to blow and they hit the concrete center in the road bringing the car under control.  The concrete section actually moved to the other side of the road and caused a car to wreck.  The man in the other car was in the hospital a long time and is still injured.  So, there’s a law suit pending with them hoping to get much more money.   We paid the man’s hospital bills but the on-going debt we might owe the family for disability damages will be decided by the court.   Julia spent a lot of her time in regard to this accident.  

At the end of the school year, several of our directors resigned to pursue other careers.  It’s understandable that they would get burned out doing this work when it’s a 7 day per week commitment.   It is like being a parent to 100 kids so there’s no break.   Julia has been interviewing and trying to find good workers to take their places.  It’s been a very busy summer for her handling all of the many problems.  She’s made several trips back and from Hong Kong to China.   She sleeps with the girls and does not even get a hotel room.  As the CFO of Union Carbine – Asia, she was used to 5-star hotels and good restaurants in her business travels. We appreciate her dedication very much.

We had 10 students to graduate from universities this summer and we have many children moving on to high schools.  Since we’ve cared for some of these children 10 years, it’s understandable that many are getting older into the upper grade levels.  It’s also sad that many cannot pass the entrance test for high school and leave the centers to look for jobs.

In September, Ron will conduct a 3-day gospel meeting in Killen, AL.   We will again park our RV in the backyard of our friends, the Kennedys in Sheffield, AL.   We will visit Mars Hill in Florence and Mastin Lake in Huntsville during this time.  From there, we go back to park at Red Boiling Springs, TN while Ron holds a 3-day meeting at the Moss congregation.  

We will finish September by this time and start toward TX, stopping at several locations in MO (Springfield) and OK (McDill).    I think his last appointment is in McDill (right across the TX line) on October 22^nd.   We will then drive back into Texas the last week of October.  

Julia has met a lady in Nanning, China who wants to do a TV telethon to raise money for our orphanages so she wants them to be there.  (I will stay in TX while they are gone on this trip.)   Julia is lining up various children from different care centers to come to be interviewed about how our helping them has changed their lives. 

  

One of these students will be King, the boy that came to the U.S. when he was 13 to have burn surgeries.  He lived with us for 19 months before he returned to live at the Neil Taylor Christian Care Center in Rongshui.   For the past two years, King has been enrolled in Four Seas Bible College in Singapore.  He’s had two years of intensive studies (in English) with professors from the U.S.  He’s done extremely well and loved it.  He’s been on mission trips to Malaysia and maybe other locations.  He will deliver the commencement address for his graduating class.  We are so proud of him.   We hope he will be interested in being employed by China Mission to teach at one of the care centers.   This is a great need to have someone to teach the children and help them learn English.   King is popular with the girls at the school because he is so kind and sweet.  When they had no water for a couple of days, he took buckets of water to the girls' dorm so they could bathe and wash their hair

This is Lily and George at their wedding.

Lily, who worked with us in the US for one year helping care for heart patients, went to Four Seas at the same time that King went so she could learn how to teach children.   She is the one that told me about King bringing the water to the girls.

Lily met George, one of the preaching students and they fell in love.  Lily quit the school after one year because George graduated and was returning to China.  They married in May and now live in Wuhan.

Our travels are so routine; I don’t have many interesting incidents to report.  We enjoy seeing people everywhere we go and renew friendships and make new ones each year.   Ron and I continue to be blessed with good health…not totally pain-free but still good health for our advancing ages.   

We are very concerned about our country and the turmoil and the future but we know who is in charge and when we can do so little to change the world, we still have to live in it but not be a part of it.   We will continue to do all we can to make it a better place for as many as we can and teach the Way to a better world to come someday when this one ends.

God bless my friends and family as you follow along on our journey and offer great encouragement.

Cave City, KY and Waynesboro, VA next weekend

We have had a very enjoyable week at the Singing Hills RV Park in Cave City, KY.  This park is owned by Eldon and Beth Brown, a wonderful couple that worked at Namwlanga Christian School in Zambia for three years, where Beth was a teacher.  Beth has written a book "Parenting is Rocket Science."  She gave me a copy but I have to stop by the park office to get her signature. Not that it's not already a valuable gift, but I want her to sign it for me.  Beth is a popular speaker at Ladies' events.  Eldon is a very nice and wonderful man and he compliments his outgoing wife by his gentle personality and support.  We went to dinner with them the first night we got here and had a delightful visit with them.  Ron spoke at their congregation on Wednesday night and then we visited with Eldon and Beth for a couple more hours that night.  Their office has been very busy over the weekend with campers coming and going.  The park was almost full with two scout groups here in tents all around the campground.  

The weather has been wonderful with cool nights and warm days.  It has rained enough for crops to be growing beautifully.  We also saw some beautiful gardens.  We got up early Sunday morning and drove to Campbellsville (almost an hour's drive northeast of Cave City).   After the morning service, we drove to Glasgow to worship with the South Green congregation that evening.   We had several hours to wait so we went to Walmart for a few things and to McDonald's for a milkshake.  Then we sat in the car in the shade in a bank parking lot for about an hour.   The RV was really hot when we arrived back last night after a very long day, but it cooled down quickly and we got a good night's rest.

We will catch up on things today and leave tomorrow for a very long trip northeast.  We will be in Waynesboro, VA this weekend.  We have not visited this good congregation to see some wonderful people in this area for many years.  It's a very long trip but we also need to see a man interested in our work in Roanoke, so the trip is important.    RV parks are not plentiful in these states so we will park one night in West Virginia, drive down by car to Roanoke and spend one night in a motel.  Then we will return to the RV and drive the rest of the way to Waynesboro, VA for the weekend, hoping we can park in the church parking lot that weekend.  

We talked about leaving the RV here and making this trip in the car but we have a small car that is not too safe for such a long trip.  It would cost just as much to stay in hotels and eat out as it would cost to take the RV.   We are very spoiled now with our own bed and do not sleep well in someone's home.  Many people would offer us a place to stay but it is a lot of work for them to prepare for us and we need our own space.  Packing up for such a trip is also a hassle.  We are spoiled with carrying everything with us and living out of the RV.   I tell people we are like a turtle...our home is on our back wherever we go.  

We have the long trip back to Bowling Green next week for an appointment on June 29th.  Most of the trip is on interstate highways, which is good since we have a lot of mountains in these states but we have to deal with the truckers too.  Please keep us in your prayers, especially for the next two weeks for a safe trip.

We are waiting on several potential supporters to see if they are interested in the work in the Philippines.   We pray that this will come through because we know that Ronald and Gigi will run a wonderful care center for poor children.   We hope to provide a good life for the children but a rewarding endeavor for our adult children also.

Thank you, dear friends for your support and interest in our work.