55 years -- Don's Birthday

Happy Birthday!

After a special meal prepared by my Niece, Louretta, the lights went out for a birthday special cake! Here I am "making a wish" and getting ready to blow out two sets of 5 candles. We had some of our church members over a lovely meal and one of the first of many good times in our new chuch center.

While there is still a lot of work to do to finish our new Church/Office/Home center, we are happy to report that we are making regular progress almost daily (we do not allow our workers to come on Sundays). Yesterday was Don's Birthday Party in the "Great Room" as Gail calls it. This room will be our new auditorium, seating about 75 -100 people.

Our old "living room" from the downstairs has been converted to be our living quarters which will be our bedroom, bathroom, and Gail's office. The workers have these rooms almost finished. Drop ceilings were hung and the walls and floor of the bathroom were finished. My office (temporary bedroom) and our kitchen will be next to be remodeled. Our guest room has been plastered and the outside entrance has been finished off.

A large hardwood tree was sawed into planks which will make pews, a pulpit and other furnature for the new center.

What's left? Well, our electrical, lights, plumbing, auditorium floors and the plastering of the walls of our auditorium. That is perhaps a month of work.

Please pray with us for remaining funds and stamina through the continual rebuilding.

Pray for the outreach of our church -- God has given us many opportunites to share Christ through out these days of hard work and recovery from our May 4th fire.

Lots of news!

First of all, our youngest daughter Hannah (and her husband Seth Rone) just announced the birth of their son, Owen Lee Rone (6:05 AM July 14, 2007). Mother and baby are fine.

Our nephew David and Louretta Landon just returned from a "visa run" in Cambodia where they spent some time with some of our dear friends and missionaries, Arturo and Malou Baste who put them to work in their ministry for a few days as well as showed them around some. They loved it and have lots of stories about their time there.

And our house reconstruction is moving along well. All interior walls are blocked in and ready for plastering. The front gable is finished and one side is enclosed with a soffit closure. Here is a picture of Gail standing in the entrance way (our original front porch). Our house will have one large room which will serve as our church auditorium for our church planting ministry here at the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church.

We praise the Lord for funds that have met the needs as we build. Pray for our future finishing off work -- this takes a long time and there are lots of little things. We still have a lot to do and other expenses such as replacement of furniture for our bedroom, Gail's office and clothing. We are considering how we will "light" the house. Most of the electrical wiring and lamps were damaged during the fire. We would like to get some modern ceiling lights with old fashioned style suspended fans for the "Auditorium" and perhaps some recessed lighting in the ceilings. We are planning on tiling the floor with ceramic tile.

People who know and love us here are making regular visits to see the progress. It will be a nice looking and very funtional building afterward.

And we are sharing our faith with our workmen -- even today we had an long discussion after lunch. Our single co-worker Miss Kaew makes our daily lunches and she is a bold wittness too.

Progress!

Since we are using old windows and wood from our upstairs, a lot of the wood has to be reworked to be usable.

These are shots of some of our workers and the progress they are making.

Wooden house poles (from the upstairs rooms) are being made into door frames, windows and other usable lumber.

As you can guess, we are looking forward to the regaining usefulness of our house everyday.





Exciting, inside,

front and
back views of the house as progress is being made.

Thank you for support and prayer for our efforts.