In the new building at last!

June 20 is the day we moved the clinic into the new building and June 27 the kitchen began to function there!  It is beautiful to put it mildly.  I walk through looking at everything and breathe a prayer of thankfulness to God.  It is all His work.  He has again supplied every need beyond our wildest imagination!  You have to believe that this is a miracle from God because BletJaw and I do not  know how to plan a building to suit our needs.  We do not know how to find a builder or where to purchase supplies.  Step by step God has led us and arranged everything!We were concerned about the steep bank of loose dirt going down in front of the house.  It could be easily washed away by the heavy rain.  BletJaw and I both came up with a genius plan that would prevent erosion.  We thought of it independently of each other and felt certain God gave us the idea!  Three large tarps laid down overlapping each other and secured at the top.  Rain would pelt down and flow off the tarps like water off a duck’s back, leaving the soil intact and not even allowing the weeds to grow!  God even allowed us to make it out and back in with the tarps and other supplies, one more time with the truck before we drove in to MeaSalit for the last time.  –But that is a whole other story in itself! Elani has come to Thailand again for 2 months during her school break.  Two years ago she came for 9 months, learning the Karen culture and quite a lot of the language and falling in love with the Karen people. She has just spent almost three weeks with me in BYT, at the right time to help me move all the medical supplies into the new clinic!  What a great help she was!  I have 3 large metal cabinets in which all the supplies must fit, that used to take up space all over our previous house!  Elani placed everything in perfect order.  I will try to keep it that way!  What a beautiful sight! June 20 was the first day we began treating the sick in the new building!  As we settle in to the new way of caring for the patients, I marvel at how convenient and easy it is here!  Oh how simple it is to sit on a stool at a desk and take blood pressures and write on the charts.  How absolutely wonderful to open large metal doors and have all the medicines and supplies at your fingertips without opening and closing multiple plastic drawers.  It is so clean and so neat everywhere! And to think, I was going to just move the drawers in and continue using them, thinking it would be better because we are so used to them!  Water is available at the sink!  The bathroom is accessed from inside the building.  The storeroom is chuck full of supplies.  Charcoal poultices etc. are made on the counter!  Stethascopes are hanging from a nail right beside me!  Everything is easy to reach.  I am beside myself with joy!  This is easier and more beautiful than I ever could imagine!  Just think how God has blessed this work!  I even have an oxygen tank!  I can give breathing treatments this way instead of “jogging” with an asthma patient all the way down the hill to the pastor’s house in the pouring rain and then back up again, plus they do so much better with oxygen rather than room air!  There are benches on the porch and in the waiting room.  A window is always open in the waiting room and often we hand patients things through the window.  Oh, how much fun is that?!  The view outside is breathtakingly beautiful!  You can see part of the village and all the surrounding mountains.  In the sky you can follow the clouds and watch the weather patterns.Oh the patients are so happy to come in here and look around!  We are so happy to see them that we pull up the chairs - and then we all sit on the floor!I want to thank you!  You have supported us financially and with your many prayers!  You listened to God’s voice calling for help in the jungles of Thailand and you have responded!  Oh thank you for making this all possible!  You are wonderful to me!  I cannot thank you enough!  I cannot wait to do this all over again in LaGlah village! And then on to other villages!  The harvest is ripe!  The people are listening and responding to God’s call all over the place!  God’s work will not languish.  We will press forward and move on, by His grace alone, fulfilling His commission no matter what the cost.  All the honor, all the glory, all the praise and thanks go to the precious Saviour who trod this path before us who alone takes care of all our needs and brings victory and success