August 2025

This month was Calvins birthday, we got him roller blades, a minecraft torch, a remote controlled hotwheel sized car, a molecule building kit, and some books. I got good deals on everything. He nearly went to sleep in his rollerblades yesterday. Abbys birthday is in a couple weeks, we have some good ideas for her as well. Business has been on and off, today fang did very well, selling out. Other days she has not sold a thing, which is very stressful and rarely happens, but this month its happened a couple times. My class has been going well enough, and I have been enjoying watching the progress of my students. 

Needs
This month one my supporters has let me know that they will no longer be able to support me on a regular basis, but they will continue til the end of the year. I totally understand, and don't expect anyone to support me forever. I will need to find more supporters however, and i am not sure the best way to go about it. I think maybe having a big party where I invite everyone I know when we are back in Missouri, and asking people to make commitments of 20-100 dollars a month. I could share long term plans, stats, and more information that would help everyone get on board with the long term goal. Right now it looks like we will need a 2-3 thousand dollars more for our trip. If you can support us towards that, thankyou. 

Conversations
A customer came in to buy bread and struck up a conversation with Fang, giving her a chance to invite the customer to take as many tracts as they want from the tract wall, and inviting them to our bible study. We always dream about getting that back up and going again. Interestingly the customer was interested sharing a story of how a missionary led a bible study at their house when he was a child (I have thought about doing bible studies in other peoples houses) and the boys father got angry and sent the missionary away before the child could understand. The boys father destroyed the literature, not sure if this included a bible or not. Perhaps this is a good reason why not to do bible studies in others houses, but to invite them to your place. I think it is better if the missionary is showing hospitality rather than depending on the hospitality of unbelievers or new believers. Regardless, this missionary has my respect for pulling that off. I am glad the kid remembered the situation and came around. It gives me hope that the thousands I have shared with will remember and seek me out when they are grown, or my children or someone else later. Its why i fear leaving. I think a somewhat permanent presence is key to long term success. I will say that early on I had a situation where i had a student help type up some lines from a book, and the childs father found my book and burned it. The student tried to avoid me because of what happened, but eventually they told me. Now that student actually married an american and had a child with them, then divorced. Haven't seem them in a while, I had hoped that they would come around to play with our kids, but that hasn't happened. The book burning hasn't ever come up since. Anyway, we didn't hear back from the dude who talked to fang last week, hopefully he will be back soon and i can talk with him personally. Last week i was out cutting up an old mango tree that a students father wanted to give me, and so Fang talked to them. 

Neighbors tree
A parent of a student had me come by and pick up some large logs from a mango tree they cut down that were barely small enough to fit in my Paradua, the whole vehicle was nearly dragging lol. I am thankful that people know i can come get their wood, which reduces the mess they have to dispose of, and is useful for me. Eventually it will be a business, it could be one now for sure, its just there is no need for that yet, and i need to designate time to ministry. When fang and I finally hire someone, this will be half their job. Got the logs drying in a good spot, and here in a month, ill remove the bark and let them continue to sit for a few more months. I've nearly used up the last tree, and the logs i have left are small and require the jig i made last month. So i am good to go with all of that. 

Preaching podium
I had a unique piece from the previous mango tree, it is a log that has 2 large branches that branch off, i kept the branches on purpose and cut them to serve as legs and the log looks like a trunk. I always planned on making a podium out of it, but finally decided how to make the top, out of a bunch of scraps from the old roof. Literally the very last scraps i had, and mostly unusable, but i put them through my machine, glued them together, again through the machine, and glued into a larger panel, I did some wood carving on the under side, and the top is perfectly flat, it looks great, and fits with the rustic nature of the podium. Its very heavy, but i like that. I even carved in 2 handles so i can rock the podium while i am preaching, leaning it forward onto the 2 large branches. There is a rear leg i had to add in for extra support, I put that right into a knot that appears to be a previous branch cut off a long time ago, this keeps the natural look of it. I will have 2 wooden pieces i can put into the surface of the podium to hold notebooks and my bible, and a gap in between will hold a pencil. I have thought about this project a long time, but was not confident to do it. I am sure that now is the right time, which makes me excited that God may have me preach soon. 

Coaster design
In a whimsical moment i decided to ignore planning and straight lines, and go for something more random. I grabbed a piece of recycled plastic panel that i had made, drew a natural oval shape, and cut it out on the bandsaw, drilled holes half way through with 4 different sized forstner bits, and tried to make it look planned,  back to the sander and buffer, and i had a coaster prototype i really like, a student said it looks like a tomato, which i actually think is a good thing, that means its not too crazy and still resembles order. It works great for collecting the massive amounts of condensation that drip off my cup here in humid thailand, making this a great and unique product we can sell eventually. This goes on the list. Other more geometrical shapes will be made too. 

Countries coloring book
So I am getting slightly faster with the coloring books, but had a change of heart about it, I realized that the vast majority of information on these sheets is not about the kingdom of God, however useful the information is. So because this is a coloring book, each page will have a back, so each back will be a coloring page about that countries church history. This really was good for me. The history i uncovered about some of these countries is nuts. How the gospel spread into many of these countries is just amazing. Now the kids will be able to learn about it. The book has basic text now, but later, after i make it into a pdf, i will go back and add paragraphs with more details in the gaps using a pdf editor. This will be good for zooming, so that in case this is being used on a computer, the text is clear when zoomed in. That will make this a good digital resource for homeschooling as well. 

Single sheet poster style gospel tracts
While i'm on the digital design train, I started thinking about going back and doing single sheet gospel tracts like i have done before. There are a few different ways i want to do them. First type i will do is basically a chunk of scripture but made fancy using typography. The second type would look the same style, but would have biblical truths summerized, and scripture references in small text above each statement. The idea with this would be that I could paint the theme of the whole of scripture, and then the person could follow the references in their own study, making this a lot bigger than just a single sheet. 

Conclution
God is good, He is working in us in this place, and He has a plan. Thankyou for praying for us, and supporting us however you can.