Back to Our Asian Home

 

Dear Partnering Friends,

We’ve made it back to our Asian home. Thank you for your prayers for the 10 flights we took getting back here, Titus even slept for most of them so that was a relief.

It’s been helpful for our girls to talk about having a Florida home and also an Asian one. Trying to help them to embrace the situation wherever we are and be thankful that God provides a home for us where He wants us. We had a great year of Home Assignment in the States, added a new family member, made many new friends and enjoyed all the times of reconnecting with family and friends. So now begins a new chapter for our family as we begin another term of service here on a big island in Asia. Of course we wonder what is ahead for us, how God will use us, and what does He want to do in the lives of the people all around us. The comforting thing is knowing this is where He has us for now and being convinced that He will provide all that we need for the tasks, opportunities and challenges.

We have a praise to report, many of you know we were coming back here having heard that our landlord did not want us living in the village house anymore because her daughter wanted to move back into the village from town. Well we visited her here in town a few days ago and after some cultural hemming and hawing, we were able to figure out that there was “a shrimp under the rock”. That is the local proverb for, “there is something else I’m getting at here”. It turns out that she is wanting to start charging us for using her house in the village and wasn’t sure how to come right out and say it. So the round about way was to say, “how about you pay me rent for staying in my house and I’ll talk my older daughter into not coming back to the village to use the house.” Well we’re very happy and thanking the Lord for that outcome. We were fully prepared to start the VERY long process of looking for land to buy, cutting down trees for the posts, looking for cement……. to build a new house, but boy are we thankful we don’t need to do that at this time! Thanks for praying with us about this issue, now we feel we can move back into the village and get started with life and ministry straightaway.

On our way over here we were able to reconnect with a church in Alaska and that was a really nice time. Thanks to the Body of believers that gave us a warm welcome, delicious meals, and a bed to sleep in!  We enjoyed making some new friends as well, and look forward to staying connected through the years to come!

Please pray for Tim as he has just arrived back in our village tonight after about 10 hours on a motorcycle, in the pouring rain. He will see what needs to be fixed and make some minor adjustments to our little bedrooms to try to make it more livable now that we’ve added Titus to the family. Pray he gets a lot accomplished and also reconnects with our friends in the village. He will plan to come out around Sunday and then all of us go in next week. We appreciate your prayers for all the adjustments to life back here!

So sorry there are no pictures this time, I’ve tried at least 10 times with 4 different programs to resize some photos to add but it will not work. You can look on my Facebook page (Andrea Ullum) if you would like to see some recent ones!

Thanks for walking with us,

Tim, Andrea, Dina, Abby, & Titus