What a whirlwind trip we have had since we left the Philippines on May 8th, landing in Los Angeles, California, with a lot of luggage, to meet with our LINKS District Churches. We were blessed by their kindness, friendship and love for us and our ministry!

Then it was off to West Texas for two weeks of Deputation touring, getting acquainted with new friends and with family. Wide open spaces and warm friendly folks made this a very enjoyable time indeed!

And finally to Idaho just in time for our niece’s (Connie’s brother’s) wedding, followed with the marathon scramble to get ready for our daughter’s wedding the very next weekend!  But we did it!

Communication responsibilities do not stop while we are stateside.  Keeping up with what was happening on our region while in the US was challenging, but we are so thankful that the Lord worked through the details to allow us to continue our ministry responsibilities while on the road.

Many of you have been praying for my  (Connie’s) older brother Curtis as he has been battling cancer.  We were so pleased to see him looking great and feeling great at his daughter’s wedding! What a huge blessing from the Lord!  He continues to struggle with treatments, drug reactions, and the like, but his faith remains strong!  Your continued prayers for wisdom and healing are much appreciated.

Our daughter’s wedding was nearly perfect!  What a beautiful bride she was! We were so pleased on Father’s Day to welcome a new member to our family, Landen Ray Kelly, our daughter Courtney Jade’s new husband!

From ordering the linens, to prepping the food for the reception dinner, to folding napkins, and cleaning up, so many details to be covered in one short week, but with God’s help, and the help of friends and family, we pulled it off, and it was beautiful!

Once the kids were off on their honeymoon, we went to work returning the rented items and prepping for our own departure back to Manila.  We purchased a few items we cannot get here and packed the action packers, our preferred luggage for overseas travel.

Being financially conscious, Todd found us tickets from Manila to Los Angeles at a greatly reduced rate.  We later realized that the reason for these significantly reduced tickets was that it was the long way around the world!  Instead of going East from Manila to L.A. we went West, passing through Dubai.  Although the Dubai airport is very beautiful, I do not recommend this route as it was quite a trip! Knowing what we were in for on the way home didn’t necessarily make it any easier!

We arrived in Manila to a tropical depression, which had significant rain that caused the drains in the terrace to back up, flooding our 2nd story living area.  The young man staying in our house for us had done a great job of mopping up most of the water before we arrived home, but the three of us ended up spending a couple more hours moving beds and furniture to reach the water that had puddled underneath them.  Thank goodness we have all tile floors with just a few small rugs at entrances.  Sorry, no pictures, we were too busy mopping!

We are glad to be home in Manila, fulfilling our calling to go and make Christlike disciples in the nations.  But that does not make it any easier to be away from our loved ones in the states.  Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we seek where God is working here in this region and we follow Him in every area of our ministry and personal lives.

Yours and His for the harvest,

Connie Lou and Todd Too!