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Saturday, August 21^st - We're still in the Philippines and fully involved in our ministries, in case the long gap since my last update made some people wonder. Our summer interns have all gone home to Canada, and we miss them already. They exemplified what we like to see in interns, jumping right in and finding roles to fill in our team, and furthermore became our good friends. As tends to happen, at least one of them is likely to be involved in our ministry in a more long-term way in the future, which reminds me that I was once an intern here myself. Cathy has now been put in charge of handling one of the feeding program locations, and has already been successful in finding a good place to hold it and seen an increase in the number of children joining the program and being fed. This is not Cathy's first ministry experience, but it is the first time we've both been officially on staff with HFTN together, and it has been nice to have her in the Admin meetings with me as she's now part of the leadership of our Tabitha Food For Life program. As for my work, we have been blessed to have very few computer issues demanding my attention after having sorted out the issues that had been waiting when I returned from furlough. I have one or two More interns coming to stay with us in the coming months, so this would seem an ideal time to start work on that study center I've been talking about for so long. Sadly, that doesn't seem likely. As I have stated before, Cathy and I had come to believe that this should be our last two years in this phase of ministry before I work in America and get her visa status sorted out and rebuild our financial foundations. At this point, I have to admit that our finances don't look like they will allow us to stay that long. It has been a hard decision, but I have started putting out my resume looking for a job in either Western NY or San Antonio, TX - and in fact, I've already been through a couple of interviews over the phone. I haven't secured a job yet, however, and this month was especially bad for us support-wise, so as of right now things are quite difficult. Whether I'm able to secure a job in advance or not, I'm likely to need help getting to America within the next few months. I kept holding off writing this update in the hopes that I'd have some more good news to balance it out, but not much has materialized. In the meantime as I try to find the solution God has for me in getting to the states and getting hired in a stable job, Cathy and I have found a less expensive house to move into, and I have looked at options for working here - Filipino wages may not seem worthwhile but it might still be enough to help. Cathy, of course, is now on staff and would continue her ministry here and take care of Roldan until her immigrant visa is ready. I have made my best effort to avoid this, but I suppose some things can't be avoided. God will make a way for us, of this I have no doubt. We do request prayer at this time to find His solution to all of this.

Our current Support letter can be downloaded here, and we also have a color brochure here.

This is a nice group shot with Cathy, two of our interns from Canada, the volunteers and some of the happy kids eating their meals during the feeding program that Cathy is now handling every Saturday