Dear friends and family,
Sorry it has been so long since you have received an update from us. I will try to give you a condensed version of the summer and current situation. This summer we visited 14 churches, had 3 V.B.S.’s, 1 church camp, 2 days at Hillsboro Family Camp and a week of seminar. Toby also returned for a week to Honduras. My dad died on May 26th. Toby’s grandma died a week or so later. My mom was admitted into the hospital the day before my dad died. Sarah had her adenoids removed, tubes put in, and her sinuses cleaned out in June. We found out in July that Jonathan’s adenoids were almost completely blocking his upper air passage way which is why he would stop breathing for short periods at night or be gasping for breath. He was at his worst the week my dad was dying in the hospital. I would come home from the hospital to sleep and Jonathan would stop breathing or be gasping for breath. He had adenoids removed in July. Sarah had an infection within 3 weeks of her surgery. After 3 weeks of antibiotics the CT scan showed no improvement so on August 24th she had her sinuses opened up. This does not include 3 trips to urgent care/E.R. for these problems. Sarah also fell out of a cart in July, I believe, and had a minor concussion and a humongous knot on her head.
Toby returned on August 28th to Honduras to find our construction workers barely working so needless to say the house isn’t done. He fired them and has been looking for another construction worker to finish the job. Please pray that the house is finished soon. I can’t start home schooling Cassandra until the workers are done at least in the school area. He has been getting his material ready for the institute and has started to find out who wants to attend. The clinic attendance from the first Wednesday on is as follows: 24, 23, 38, 60, and 38 I believe. I have spent my time since coming home working on getting our financials and other ministry business work caught up plus working at the clinic. I still have some work to do but the stack is dwindling. It was an unbelievable trip back with 2 days of rerouting for the kids, Anabel, and I. I just received my luggage a week ago and am still missing 1 luggage piece. It was quite interesting having little kids in a construction zone with little clothing and problems with the washer.
We are looking forward to changes that will be coming. Please be patient with us as we try to get everything in order since my dad’s death. He was such a big part of our ministry and it is difficult to try to tie up all the loose ends. My brother David who is an MBA has agreed to get our financials in standard accounting format. He has a group of highly qualified people who have graciously agreed to review our books. We will be sending out a report quarterly now. We will still send out regular e-mails keeping you informed of the ministry. Please e-mail if you have any questions. We hope to have everything figured out and up and running by the New Year. Please send financial support to the following address:
Merendon Mountain Mission
1435 Van Winkle
Joplin, MO 64801
We really appreciate your prayers and support through this difficult time. It has meant so much to us. There was so many of you we wanted to visit but with the kids surgeries and everything else going we were not able to do so. We hope next time to be able to see more of our friends.
May Gold bless you,
Toby, Amy, Cassandra, Sarah, and Jonathan Hill