Harbor Covenant Church, Gig Harbor WA

Hope House, a home for needy youth in Macas Ecuador is usually the home of Kacey and Marco Toctaquiza and their children Diego and Isabela. However, the family is in Gig Harbor on furlough and staying with Kacey’s parents, HCC Members, Doug and Linda Olsen. Friends Silvia and Edwin are in charge of Hope House in their absence.

Kacey writes: I received an e-mail from Silvia saying that Lisandro was doing really well in Nicaragua. He is happy in his classes and has no regret about his decision to go. We have been helping Lisandro get his residency papers in order to stay in Nicaragua. The school is assisting him in this also and helping him get to the offices. So exciting!

I ask you to remember to pray for Lisandro this year and his studies. He has always had a heart for missions. We are so proud of him and what God has been doing in his life over the last few years.

Silvia also mentioned Franklin, who has been changing in the last few months. He seems to be a different person and has the will to help and learn. He was always so quiet and alone before, never saying a word about anything. Pray that God will use Silvia and Edwin during this time to share the gospel with Franklin.

Thank you for continuing to pray and encourage Hope House. I know these times have been hard for everyone. Our country and the economy are so uncertain which obviously causes concern. However, we are grateful for your faithfulness to support the Hope House ministry and the youth who benefit from your generosity. So, thank you so much.

May God bless your families and repay you for your kindness.

Hay Adventures

Dateline March 21, 2009. As many of you know, Doug and Linda Hay are on short-term mission in the Orient. This report is really in two sections: Personal experiences and the challenges of teaching in the English business school. They are living in an apartment provided by the school and located in the same building.

The first three weeks here have been a bit of a challenge. We both felt like a four cylinder engine hitting on two because Linda was challenged with a local intestinal bug and we both had a strange cold-like bug which was very sapping. However we found that 10-12 hours of sleep a night helped hold the bugs at bay. During that time, our lives were limited to teaching, eating and sleeping. Finally, we feel somewhat normal (3.5 cylinders). Most of the staff is operating on about the same health level, so we are not alone in this malady. In spite of this, we all are in reasonably good spirits and continue trying to develop a modest amount of linguistic capabilities. Finding shop owners with a good sense of humor is a prerequisite to testing our sub-novice skills. We try to spend a bit of time each day working with “Rosetta Stone”, which is a good program, but we still carry our pocket translation books wherever we go! Shopping here is so different, though there are three grocery stores about the size of Safeway or Kroger. The rest are very specialized with a product range of perhaps 100-200 items. The shop owners will tell you quickly if they don’t have what you need, but he/she usually has no idea what other store might carry it. We thought this was due to our non-native status, but Doug found otherwise when he went shopping with an intern who is a graduate from a local college. We needed a science series of items: chemistry flasks, graduated cylinders, thermometers, Petri dishes, marbles, small pulleys, wood blocks, etc. Doug equipped him with a picture of each item and they went hunting together. In the course of a couple of hours, they covered over 30 shops. Since most of their time was in what is known as the International Market (where the shops are both small and close together), they made good time. At each shop, the intern showed the entire set of pictures….even in a stationery store! The shop owners did not seem to mind in the least. Although this was a shopping tactic that was new to us, it also was surprisingly effective. At this point, the only item not found is a small pulley and 22 gauge copper wire. These two items are being delivered from the states by people who will be coming in the next two weeks. In this past year, we do see signs of growing affluence. Small children are frequently seen in plastic strollers. Older children are regularly seen on roller skates, roller blades or articulated skate boards. Other small children have their own bikes with training wheels. The equivalent of a vehicle registration office is about 2 blocks from our apartment. The line of cars waiting to be tested and registered is frequently 6-10 blocks long and moves VERY slowly. We are seeing a lot of new cars in the lineup. So much for the Marco Polo report!

We are here to teach and the students are enjoying what we offer as a science class. It is very basic with many hands-on activities. The hands-on part is something that most have never encountered….even the college grads. We have been working on the basics of observation as well. In our first exercise, we gave students a single die (dice). We asked them to find eight attributes. They looked at us like we were expecting way too much. A few did find their eight. With prodding, the class found over 20 unique facts about their die! Local dice are slightly different from “western dice”, so they do have a few extra facts. In another exercise, we took them to a room that looked out onto the school’s courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard is a large fountain. We had the students look at the fountain for 10 minutes and write down all they saw. Some were hard pressed to list ten things. The effect of many years of conditioning is still quite apparent. History of the past 60+ years has seldom rewarded the highly observant.

We are taking students to lunch as often as we can, which has been helpful in understanding more about their backgrounds, families and aspirations. One of the teachers has invited the fellows from the school to meet weekly to discuss various Biblical topics. All of the fellows in the school are currently attending. There is a similar session with the gals of the school and it also seems to be well attended. This week we hosted “English conversation corners” on the topics of “Love and Relationships” and “Aging”. The interaction was lively and exciting.

Our internet/email access has been very spotty. We can get to the Internet with little problem, however getting to our e-mail (Comcast) is frequently very difficult.

We usually can connect once or twice a day. “Thank you” to all who have sent e-mails of any kind. We still hop out of bed each morning and go straight to the computer to see if we can log on.

Items for knee-mail:

• Improved health of the entire faculty

• Germination for the seed that is being planted

• Growth for the seed that has germinated

• Ability to hear the heart behind student’s words

• We need an extra 10 day extension to our visas. A request is in
and it is being reviewed by officials this week.

• Ability to locate key items for science projects

• Stamina to keep teaching and to coach the 30 science projects
that need to be completed in the next 4 weeks.

News from the Qs

From London, John Quanrud directs the work of several local churches, giving oversight to about 30 families serving in other countries. In addition, this year John is focusing on pursuing a PhD and traveling to Kosova and Albania at the request of the churches and organizations there. His wife Lynne serves as administrative coordinator at a local private school, while daughter, Chloe, is in her final year at university, Their son, Nick, after finishing the equivalent of American high school last year, opted to work this year and travel to China to participate in a ministry to aid those addicted to heroin. John is the son of HCC Members, Mike and Mary Quanrud.

John writes: As I type this, Lynne is upstairs talking to Nick via video link on the internet with a free program called Skype. I remember standing in a line for hours waiting for a phone at the post office in Tirana and then paying $3 a minute for one of the crackliest lines imaginable, so this is pretty amazing. Things just aren't the way they were when I was young!

These are busy times for us here in London. I was at an international conference connected with my research last weekend in Cambridge, which I really enjoyed. The school, where Lynne works, is approaching their big two-week Easter break, so it means lots of work for her before then. Her old boss, the headmaster of the school, is retiring, so Lynne will have a new boss when she returns after Easter from our week's holiday up in the beautiful Lake District.

Chloe is working hard on her final dissertation and then will be studying for her exams in May/June. She spends lots of time in the library these days and phoned to say she needed a break from studying and is looking forward to coming home for some time off next week. Her future plans are still to look into doing something with law. A friend from church is helping her get some work experience this summer. She also said she's thinking of spending some time, perhaps even working, in Seattle next year, so who knows, maybe you'll be seeing her!

Nick now only has a few weeks left in China. When I spoke to him last, he said that his Mandarin was coming along nicely, which was good to hear. A good friend of his will be joining him in a couple of weeks and they will travel back together. I think, on the whole, it has been a very positive experience for him and he's learned a lot. I know too that he's missed home and friends and is looking forward to being back in London. He has decided to study social anthropology next year at Brunel University in another part of London. That should be great for him.

This Friday I will be meeting up with a young Albanian named Ermin. He's now read through "A Sacred Task" and we're going to talk about the life of Gjerasim Qiriazi and what it means to be a Christian.

Thanks for your prayers.

The Sedore Saga

Liz and Jim Sedore left for Mongolia eight months ago. They returned to the US recently and planned to leave for Mongolia at about this time however those plans have been temporarily put on hold due to a diagnosis for Jim of prostate cancer. Jim explains:

A mission conference can change your life. In my case, perhaps it saved my life:

In December 2008, Central United Protestant Church in Richland, Washington offered to pay for our plane tickets if we would return from Mongolia to attend their mission conference in February. Initially we were not sure if we should accept this gift. We were focusing on learning Mongolian and building relationships and our plan was to not return to the US until 2010 or later.

After prayer and counsel, we accepted this gift and, on February 20, we landed in the US and joined our daughter in Olympia, Washington. The next day, I went to the medical lab for a routine blood test. I scheduled an appointment with my general practitioner for two weeks later when we would be back in Olympia after the mission conference.

The mission conference was wonderful. We were blessed and encouraged by the passion and inspiration present throughout the week. It was amazing to hear how many people have been reading our blog and updates.

Back in Olympia on March 10, I had a follow up appointment with my doctor. He gave me the news that my cholesterol was good; however, he noted a significant change in my PSA level. He said he would try to get me an appointment with an urologist before we returned to Mongolia (in 10 days), but that would be difficult.

The next hour I was with Liz at her oncologist. Her white blood cell count has not changed since the last test - wonderful news. Thanks for your prayers. The doctor asked how we were doing and Liz shared that I needed to see an urologist. He said he worked with an urologist and would call him immediately. Fifteen minutes later I was in that urologist’s office and the next morning I had a prostate biopsy.

On Monday, March 16, we got the diagnosis that I have an aggressive form of prostate cancer and surgery was recommended. We were shocked. Liz and I prayed and talked about what to do next. We remembered a friend, Dr. Ray Lance, who went with us to Mongolia in 2002. Ray is now a professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia specializing in “robotic surgery of the prostate as well as minimally invasive cancer surgery.” Ray, and his wife Cari, have supported us in our ministry in Mongolia. We called Ray Monday night and he was encouraging. When I asked him if he would do the surgery, he said, “Absolutely.”

Another friend is a travel agent in Olympia. We called her and shared our dilemma. We have plane tickets to return to Mongolia on Friday, March 20. The tickets go through five airports with 3 different airlines. Lucy went to work finding out if and how we could delay our return and called us daily with updates.

We have been blessed:

•   If Central Church in Richland had not invited us to return, we
    probably would not have discovered the prostate cancer for at
    least another year. This could have been a fatal delay.

•   If we had not been encouraged to have routine doctor
    appointments as soon as we got back in the States, we might not
    have detected the cancer.

• If Liz’s oncologist had not referred us to his associate, we would
not have gotten the diagnosis so soon.

• If we had lost contact with Dr. Lance over the past six years, we
might not have called him for his advice and expertise.

• I believe that your prayers for us are a big part of this story.

So what is “the next thing” for us today?

• Praise God for His mercy and grace.

• Share our story of His love with you and anyone that will listen.

• Schedule the surgery and travel to Virginia.

• Schedule time with our family and you to continue to grow in faith.

I am committed to

• Enjoying each day with my wife and daughter.

• Spending more time daily in Mongolian language study.

• Spending more time daily in preparing Bible studies for the men’s
ministry in Mongolia.

• Exercising more and eating healthy in preparation for surgery in
April.

As of March 18, we decided to delay our return to Mongolia until I recover from the surgery, probably the first part of May. Our colleagues in Mongolia have encouraged us to make this choice because it is difficult to get out of Mongolia in the spring, due to sandstorms.

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Prayer requests:

• Jim’s surgery in April for prostate cancer.

• The Sedores plans to return to Mongolia after surgery.

•   Both Liz and Jim’s mothers are in poor health. Hopefully during
    this time in the States we can help them. Jim’s mom spent 3 days
    in the hospital this week with bronchitis. She is home now. Today
    she reports that her back no longer hurts after several months of
   disabling pain.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

Write to the Sedores at:

Sedores

6833 Foster SW

Olympia WA 98512-7118

Or:

JCS International

Attn: Sedores

P O Box 189

Ulaanbaatar 210351 Mongolia

Check out their blog at http://www.LJMonGO.blogspot.com for new photos and updates.

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Harbor Covenant Church

5601 Gustafson Drive NW

Gig Harbor Washington 98335

253 851 8858

info@harborcovenant.org