YUM-O!! Learning to use a wok!

Since we now have a kitchen... (yea!) we’ve decided to take a crack at it and see how our cooking skills are holding up. After going to the grocery store (which is about the same size of our good ol’ Trader Joes in America) we found everything we could to put together some decent dinners. But we couldn’t help but laugh at our new creations! We like to call it “Thai-American fusion”! For instance, last night we put together a Mediterranean balsamic glaze with veggie stir-fry and put it over some Thai white rice. We’ve even been frying eggs and making grilled cheese in a wok. And guess what? You can even use a rice cooker to make oatmeal!

The kitchens for the complex are all outdoor and face each other, so you can only imagine the curious looks as they see and smell the peculiar creations originating from the strange neighbors! But, it’s been wonderful getting to make our own food again!

From Feb '09

Exciting New Features!!

We found a little error in our settings and made it right yesterday. The comments options at the end of each post is now available. Now you can leave us your thoughts! But please be nice :)

We have set up a followers link on the right side of the blog. Sign up if you would like to get an email when a new post is made.

Also, we removed our blog from any search engines, so please make sure that you have our address handy so you can easily access it.

Back Home

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement during this last week. We arrived back home safely after spending a little over one and a half weeks in Singapore and Bangkok. Feel free to read about our ups and downs in the last few posts! As our lcd screen again broke on the camera, our pictures are lacking :(

Shipping Container Solutions?

Spending two days in blazing heat (113F- I call that blazing!) crawling inside used containers was enough to really make us appreciate the A/C back at the house. And the word on the street is that this isn’t even the hottest season! I can wait till then. We found the perfect container- it was a one year old, barely used container, costing only three hundred more than the heavily used eighteen year old containers! But our plans were dashed the next day of our visit- the head office realized their mistake in advertising a new container for sale at a used price. But we remembered what we had recently learned, God must have something better.

Sure enough! That evening while telling our friend about how we’re trying to help the people of Thailand with cheap building solutions, he offered us a steel frame building for the children’s home at his cost! Believe it or not, that then becomes cheaper for us to build a safe western engineered steel frame building for less than the cost of modifying a shipping container! To overcome the portability issue, we plan to purchase land ahead of time and avoid the moving cost. Not only saving in cost, it will also save time, effort, and probably much experimentation.

Not only that, our kind friend offered Lori part-time architectural engineering work to help keep her skills current! And, by partnering with him and having his vast network of contacts available we’ll be able to provide ministries and other organizations with minimal cost building solutions in the future! We can’t help but be amazed how God works everything out better than our expectations!

Better Plans

Well it is already beginning to look like God has better plans. We just spent a few days in Bangkok with our kind friend helping us to find quality used shipping containers. We had originally met him (divinely) through a network of five people each recommending another person to speak with about purchasing shipping containers. God couldn’t have placed a more kind and generous friend in our path! After pitching his sale of metal frame buildings, he invited us back to Bangkok to stay with him and his family. We didn’t realize it would be complete with our air conditioned bedroom and three delicious three course sit down meals a day! Previous to this experience we thought we had already tasted the best of Thai food…. not so much- the cooking was incredible! I think we’re beginning to gain back some of that weight we lost to the worms. =)

An Anonymous Donor

While in Singapore, we thought what better place to find Bibles for the eegufer camps? Recall that is where we had recently seen a number of people dedicate their lives. We learned they would like to teach English by teaching through the Bible. We couldn’t have thought of a better textbook, ourselves! As our recent inquiries in Thailand had only turned up with expensive Bibles, we found a generous donor in Singapore desiring to give as many as were needed! Praise God for this lady and her heart for these eegufer camps and favor from the airline staff for all the extra weight! Maybe God had something else in mind for this trip to Singapore?

Updating Our Blog- Highlighting "Our Links"

Thank you to our readers who periodically comment or send email of support! We sure appreciate the consistent encouragement and prayer.

A reader recently identified a few challenges with our blog's "user friendliness". So, in our cleaning up, we'll be updating elements to make it more user friendly and periodically introduce certain features to our readers.

Today, we wanted to point you to our weekly updated (or rather as often as possible) the Praises and Prayers page, located on our website.

The link entitled "Praises and Prayers (2/10/09)" can be found on the right hand column of the blog under the tab "Our Links". We aim to update this often (as noted by the date in parenthesis) for the following purposes:

#1Based upon God's promises, use the power of prayer to better accomplish His purposes,

#2Identify general and urgent prayer requests,

#3To show God's continued faithfulness.


As God answers, we'll be moving prayers onto the list of praises. We can't help but notice how quickly, accurately, and faithfully God has already been answering! We attribute much of that to our loyal prayer supporters and we Thank You. Keep up the great work!

If you are not currently a prayer supporter and would like to pledge to do so, email us at: andersandlori@gmail.com so we may keep track and thank the Lord for you too!

Layettes, a Blessing to Those Without Much

Our friend Linda and her group kindly donated layettes (pre-packaged newborn kits- with hand knit items) to be distributed to pregnant women during our outreaches. During our recent travel to the raw enoz we found a lady, having just the need. We felt blessed to be able to pass along a gift so small, yet will be able to make a large difference to her and her entire village! Why the village you might ask? Because, in this culture, anything owned is shared throughout the community; so this layette will in turn be passed around a number of times to other villagers for their use too!

From Jan '09

I think this lady was initially a little confused as to why we singled her out for this bundle, but our friend helped translate what the items were to be used for.

From Jan '09

Thank you Linda and your loving group of ladies who hand made these packages! We can’t wait to bring more on our next trip!

I Will Answer… and sure enough… He Did!

I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!
~ Isaiah 65:24, NLT

If the above post did not already call out his point, the following story certainly does!

The most recent praise...
Lori just noted that this request was answered even before we had a chance to put in on our blog or even on our site! After sleeping on the concrete floor for two nights, we woke up in misery and began praying for a place with a real mattress and a little privacy and some closet organizers (as we've been living out of our backpacks since marriage). Later that day a friend had heard we were looking for a place to live. Since they were leaving the country on a four month trip and did not know what to do with their place, they offered their 2bd condo! Not only that, it has a really nice American style mattress!! And... a motorbike to use too! And... the first two months of rent already pre-paid! The timing couldn't even have been better... LI had found five more kids being rescued tomorrow and needed our room by the following morning for additional sleeping quarters. Needless to say we moved out that evening to a very comfy home! We couldn’t have worked it out that well!

We couldn't believe how quickly God answered that one. Even before we had asked, He had already been setting it up! Seeing God work in so many ways just consistently amazes us and we can't help but lean on Him more and more! We have more great stories to tell, but will have to wait till we see you in person!

Sick… auggghhhh… with worms… eeewwww!

We are guessing because we were trying to save money and eat from the street carts instead of restaurants, we caught some “B” worms! Don’t fret though, currently we are feeling much better!

We resorted to western medicine by default. We tried a de-worming pill after the pharmacist promised this medications would take care of the problem. But more sick we became! After the pills, we were plagued with a headache, intestinal cramps, constipation, nausea, vomiting, back ache and pretty much just feeling like our body was falling to pieces!

We began with small bedtime prayers upon the first hint of stomach bubbling. But as things intensified, you better believe we began praying more fervently and claiming God’s healing power. While recently reading Kenneth Hagin’s book, “Power of Healing” we were shown what God says about it. In Matthew 8:16-17, Matthew writes that he (Jesus) healed all the sick that came to Him. This was done by Jesus in order to fulfill that which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases." As Jesus carried not only our sins to the cross, he also bore our sickness and diseases! By his wounds we have been healed and this was done two thousands ago! I don’t know how I ever missed this powerful passage; God gave us Christians power to heal the sick in Jesus Name!

Last night during the height of this sickness, Lori had nausea, vomiting, constipation, stomach cramping, throbbing headache, etc. I knew this time I wasn’t going to mess around anymore. I prayed oh so fervently, claiming healing in His Son’s Name and believing Lori’s healing had already been done and that her symptoms would be manifested as resolved by morning time before the clinic was to open… GUESS WHAT? One hour later, the headache was gone, the nausea and vomiting subsided. Today, by golly, she was rid of that belly-ache and the uninvited worms without the clinic!

A person could say this was coincidence or the body’s natural healing process, but comparing this event to the many sick I’ve looked after and knowing recovery time from these kinds of gastro-intestinal illnesses, I KNOW this does not happen in one measly hour and was nothing less than Christ's healing!

All in all, for the amazing healing and lesson we learned through this, I still shake my head in amazement- He Is Faithful! We don’t highly recommend this diet, but would highly recommend getting in The Word and putting into practice God’s promise of healing! It’s powerful!