November 2010

Dear Friends, Brethren and Family

Travels
Because of medical appointments we have stayed pretty much close to Joplin these past few weeks. Three trips were to the VA hospital in Fayetteville and another to clinic in Mt Vernon MO.

Even though we have had a very positive reception for The Bible School in Fiji the funds have still not arrived. The total is just over $13,000 raised to date. We know that there are more funds coming but they are not in hand yet.

We would really like to have $30,000 to take back to do the initial ground clearing, garden planting and building of at least some housing, classroom and administration space.

Medical
I had my prostate biopsy done at the VA in Fayetteville Tuesday (Oct 26th) and the results came back. I do not have prostate cancer but have some markers (HGPIN) that indicate I can develop prostate cancer (dah, I am a male!) so they want to do a follow-up biopsy in 6 months. We will be back in Fiji then, but we can and plan to go to American Samoa for the follow-up where they have a Veteran's clinic. I had my last VA check-up this past Tuesday (Nov 9th) for a cyst I have had in my left eye lid since July. They have given me a course of antibiotics and I will keep lancing and treating it.

Kathy had an appointment to have some of her moles checked and had a couple of hanging moles cut off. Everything else was okay. Her biopsy results from the mammogram came back negative. Thank you for your prayers! She was scheduled for a colonoscopy. I say scheduled because it was never done. Her reason for having one was because colon cancer is in her immediate family. We do not health insurance and the other help she received was because of health programs offered by the state of Missouri for low income/no health insurance people like us. There is no program for free or subsidized colonoscopies. It seems preventative medicine is lacking here. We had been told by the doctor recommended that it would cost $600-800. We had friends who said they would help with that payment. However the day prior to her procedure the hospital called to get the paperwork in order and when they asked what insurance we had, I said none. They said we would be required to pay $2400 before they could complete the paperwork and allow for the procedure. I told them to cancel the procedure telling them we could not afford it and called the doctor's office to cancel with them as well. (The hospital said they would send out an application for financial help but it probably would not be actioned until early December.) The doctor's office asked if she was having any problems that would require a colonoscopy and when I said no, they then said maybe she didn't really need one. Kathy had not been looking forward to the pre-procedure drinking of flushing fluids and so when I got home and talked with her I told her she owed me "big time" and then told her the procedure was cancelled. Relief filled her eyes! Unfortunately she had already taken the recommended laxative but she was relieved she didn't have the do the rest.
We are now both finishing up on dental work.

Hoverounds to Vanuatu
Earlier we asked for help for funds to ship a Hoveround power chair to Vanuatu to help a brother in Christ who lost one of his legs in surgery last year. After no response we reconsidered the cost of shipping and decided it might be better use of resources to sell the Hoverounds and use the funds to get something there for him (even though it would not be anything like a Hoveround power chair). Within a week of advertising the chairs we were able to sell them for $1250 and we will use this money in Vanuatu to help Morris get better mobility. Thank you CURE who donated the Hoverounds and allowed us to sell them.

Return to Fiji

We are in countdown mode!...............We are presently collecting items (repair parts, koolaid, powder poweraide, books, extra summer clothes) we need to take back home with us and are packing bags.

In 2009 FedEx graciously donated shipping costs to ship 10 boxes of donated medical linens for the cancer unit in Lautoka Fiji.
There is a story there. FedEx shipped the boxes to their depot in Australia and we were working on a way to get it them shipped up to Fiji. The boxes did arrive in Australia December 17, 2009 but they were delivered (by FedEx) to and were put in a shipping company's warehouse at the same time that the tsunami hit Samoa and American Samoa and a lot of stuff was being packed up and shipped from Australia.

We did contact the shipping place where the boxes were delivered and they said they could not locate them and they finally figured (four months later) that they got swallowed up in a shipment of tsunami aid going to Samoa. That is what they figured but nobody knows for sure. If so, then at least the medical linens were used for the urgent need they had in Samoa.

We still have a need for the medical linens for the cancer ward in Lautoka Fiji. CURE in Fort Smith Arkansas has graciously packed up more boxes of medical linens for us and we are asking FedEx to again help with free shipping but this time only to Los Angeles Airport. We are also trying to finalize a free shipping deal with Air Pacific so that the boxes can travel with us to Fiji as unaccompanied baggage so we know they will get there this time. We have 11 boxes going this time and if they cannot be flown free, over the big pond) then the cost for excess baggage per box will be $80 each.

We have booked our return flight to Fiji for November 30th. We leave out of Tulsa on Southwest Airlines via Denver to LA where we leave out for Fijj at 9:30 pm that night on Air Pacific. This allows us to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family here in Joplin. It looks like all the family will be together and we will probably do Christmas at the same time. This will get us back into Fiji December 2nd the start of our summer. It is already getting too, too cold for us here! We still have a bit more time to talk with congregations and people about our needs and hopefully to secure more support for the building of the needed school facilities.

We Still need your help
We really need your help setting up appointments to talk with congregations and people who can help us with the plan of building the Bible training school in Fiji.

We think we have secured the additional monthly personal support that we were needing. I say think because we have never had (in over 35 years of mission work) all of the support we needed nor the funds that we were trying to secure when we boarded our plane going to or going back to where we were working. It is no different this time. We have been told that the funds are available (being considered) and the support will come (being considered) but to date these have not been sent nor confirmed. The Lord will provide and we pray that it will be through you!

If any of you can help with one time help financially it would be appreciated. All funds are tax deducible!

Thank you so much for all of you who are supporting us, have contributed to our needs and have extended hospitality by allowing us to stay with you while we are travelling through. God bless you!

Your seed sowing workers in the Kingdom.

Tobey & Kathy