Dear Family & Friends,

As the season of Christmas is upon us, we can reflect on this year and all the blessings we have received from our loving father. Life is always full of twists and turns, some surprisingly good while others are disappointing or even frightening – they are not what we would choose to happen – but God is always in control and we must trust Him to work things out according to His purposes, not for our comfort. The past few weeks have brought much stress, but also much joy.

The staff (and children) at Home of Hope were very happy to receive their new clothes washer because they were using one machine to wash and another to rinse and they had been using two washing machines prior to that, so the washing was taking a lot of time. Thanks to all who donated but we still have some to pay off and we know God will provide. The water pipe coming into the house at Home of Hope broke and they were flooded. The pipe broke underneath the cement in front of house, inside the gate so they would have had to tear up everything to fix it. Sooooooo the staff and kids moved one Saturday to a new place. They live in four ‘apartments’ as they are called here. Each apartment has a living or sitting area, a bedroom, a kitchen and a back area for cleaning, hanging clothes to dry, etc. Daum and two of the girls live in the first and the cooking is done there. The second one is where the other girls stay, the fourth, the boys stay in and the fourth is lived in by Nu, May and their baby boy. This building is brand new and they were allowed to use the back area for themselves, so it provides a place to play, eat and have worship together and to keep their two dogs. Because of having to rent 4 of the apartments to house them all, we are paying more for rent so the need is still great to finish our new building. The funds are beginning to come in, so please be in prayer with us that this will be completed soon.

The Rock Magazine, a Thai, Christian magazine in Bangkok, is putting out its first edition this month or early next year. It is going to showcase Christian ministries in Thailand and they decided to highlight orphanages in their first edition, so the Home of Hope will be featured in one of the articles. Praise God for networking for us!

This past week was exciting as we had Dr. Matthew from India here in Mae Sot. He is pastor of one of the largest churches in India and holds evangelistic and healing crusades. He has already held several throughout Thailand this year and this past week in Mae Sot was exciting to see many people healed, saved and lives changed through the power of the Holy Spirit. He even spoke at Foursquare Mae Sot Church this past Sunday. I haven’t received the results of the crusade yet because we had to take ‘the detour’ to Bangkok but I will try to remember to get them out to you when I get them.

A brief update on Diana after her first tests: She is very low on vitamin B12, her sugar is a little high, there is no nerve damage and her blood pressure came down today from 196/150 to 150/90. She has some good meds now and feeling better. She will have a “cervical spine” (I think that’s what they called it) MRI on Wednesday at 7am. We will talk to the neurologist Thursday at 8am to discuss the results and see if there is anything more to her symptoms than what we know now. We will hopefully return to Mae Sot on Thursday afternoon and go to Chiang Mai Friday for some much needed R & R.

We pray that you can look back on this year at the good along with the ‘bad’ and give thanks to God for all things. May peace and joy be with you, no matter what your circumstances and may you experience the stillness of the night that baby Jesus was born (of course the shepherds didn’t think it was too quiet at the start, but I am talking about later). Thank you again for partnering with us in prayer, and giving and coming to Thailand. We could not be here without you.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! And a very contented New Year. (Happiness is an emotion that comes and goes depending on circumstances, while Paul says he was content in all ways).

So Merry Christmas and a Contented New Year to you!

Neill & Diana