Tomorrow marks my half way mark

July 28, 2014

Can you believe tomorrow marks my HALF WAY MARK? That is crazy!! Where is the time going? This week was fun! We have been working hard, EVEN in the hot and humidity! We love it! 

Messer Shimai and her 5L of water!

First off, I want to tell you about our miracle- RISKY CHAN! But you need a back story:

So this week a member just shows up at our house and tells us she has a referral for us! She gave us their name, but didn't know what it was in kanji, so we couldn't read the name plates on the houses, and she only knew the general direction of the house, she didn't know what the address was or anything. So she explains in Japanese all these directions, and side roads and turn right, and then left, and it should be on that small road over there. And she finally gives up and tells us just to sniff it out, the family has 43 cats. We'll be able to smell it from a couple roads away. So the next day we load up with our best noses on trying to sniff out this house. No success. So Sunday we decide we have about 10 minutes, might as well try to sniff out this house. No success, so we stop a nice family who knew them! So they walk us to their house, we visit them. (wasn't even smelly!) The whole back of their house was like their "cat house" It had big windows and fans that were constantly airing it out, and the cats were very mild, very clean house. So they become new investigators and we are visiting them next Wednesday! Oh, they have that many cats because they find stray cats, fix them up and then give them to people that will take care of them. So that night we make dinner, sit down to pray and we hear "Johnson, Messer, JOHNSON, MESSER!!" We look out our window and Williams Shimai (a shimai we live with, who is a direct descendant of Lady Godiva, and looks and acts JUST like Donna off of That 70's show, and her real name is Donna..anways) she is holding a tiny white kitten. It is meowing and moving like crazy. Turns out Hawkins Shimai and Williams Shimai had found this cat in the gutter, covered in blood and asphalt gunk, and COVERED in fleas! They cleaned it up, tried to drown the fleas with no success, so had been tracting for 4 hours with it in their bike basket. They didn't know what to do. But we did! we took her (named her Risky Chan, which means blessing in Indonesian, and well you know the English meaning) and took her to this couple we had met that day. They gladly accepted her. and that is the miracle story of Risky chan. What are the chances we were to meet that new investigator that day! We had planned on meeting her tomorrow! But God is good, and knew we had to meet them the day before! 

It is hot and humid here, but it is fun! We bought an ice cream bar the other day. Melted in the river before we could even eat it fast enough! But that's ok, because our diet is still going strong! We now wake up at 6 to go running for a full hour instead of 30 minutes. We are getting sick of cabbage, but have sworn off rice to try to get our cheeks back to normal size. Oh, and remember last week when I told you I drank 4 liters of water in one day? well I drank 5 this week, just to say I have drunk 5 liters, but then everybody was telling us that you can die from too much water, so we now went back to 2. 

But the work is going great! We found 2 new investigators this week! Unfortunately, one girl we have been working with has to go back to America for a couple of weeks, but we gave her some great church videos to watch if she gets bored on the plane ride! 

I love you all! Have a great week! Remember, God loves you! Even if you are a little kitten stuck in the gutter and you think nobody loves you!

Messer Shimai