Dear Friends and Family, “What a Wonderful World” If there is one song for which both young and old will remember Louis Armstrong, it is this tune. (watch video) Those old enough will remember the fact he sang it during the Vietnam War. Now, I like the song and no offense to the “Satchmo,” but if the world were that “Wonderful” Jesus went through a lot of trouble for nothing. There is a whole lot of pain and suffering in this world that I cannot begin to explain, and the song sounds a lot more like heaven than earth. But …  

Dear Friends and Family, What happened to “Global Warming”? I’m glad Al Gore is not God, even if the first two letters of his last name are the same. You know, “G” and “O”. It’s been chilly here in Cambodia, a frigid 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 C). We bought blankets and mosquito nets by the truckload. The beds are courtesy of Swiss Warm Blankets. (see photos) Warm is good! Hey! Guess who else isn’t God? Sorry, Google doesn’t measure up, even though they also share the first two letters of their name. Anyway, I decided to ask Google. Here’s what …  

Dear Friends and Family, Twenty-nine years ago, Brother O’Rourke, a cigar chomping, ‘Old Irish Catholic Brother’, who happened to be the controller for the Samoan Arch Diocese, handed me the “slip”. I had just been fired from a job for the first, and only, time in my life. O’Rourke was my friend, and he looked me straight in the eye, I believe there was a tear rolling out of one of his, “Ted, remember, nothing is ever all bad as long as you learn something from it.” Well, that felt pretty bad. I was angry, but the truth is, I …  

Dear Friends and Family It’s shocking but true! Between the months of April and November you are about 150 times more likely to die of a lightning strike in Cambodia than you are in the US . But when you stop to think about it, it’s not that surprising. Eighty percent of the people in Cambodia are farmers. They work in the water raising paddy rice, often with steel implements and there are multiple thunder storms every week. It’s a miracle any of us are alive! We’ve had a wet summer. Two weeks ago 17 of our 23 provinces were flooded. http://www.missionreports.com/flood_cover_cambodia   The good news is …  

Dear Friends and Family, Remember those healthy young men, the tribal kids I mentioned last month, who were being killed, by what their animistic leaders said were spiritual attacks for allowing miners to destroy their forests in Rattanakiri? The people were crowding our churches for protection, and that first week 551 were saved, delivered and filled with the holy Spirit. (If you want to read about it go to http://www.missionreports.com/Cambodia and click on the top left “August Update”) Well, now, the rest of the story! The next week all the area churches were packed out, hundreds more received Christ, blind eyes were …  

Dear Friends and Family Several, apparently healthy, young men suddenly died along the Voen Sai River in a remote region of Rattanakiri early last month. The Kavet Tribe, a small ethnic minority group in N. E. Cambodia, claimed the deaths were due to spiritual attacks, and that the victims had two small holes in their necks where the spirits sucked out their blood. Medical examiners claimed that the three young men they performed autopsies on died of strokes, but they cannot explain the holes in the neck. “Maybe they fell on nails?” is about the best they can do.  According to village elders the …  

Dear Friends and Family, Olbrich! You are late this month! “Yup, Guilty as charged.” Sou and I’ve been off to American marrying our last unattached child off to a fine young man and attending our church annual meeting in Atlanta . We just got home. The nest is empty! Hannah, our youngest daughter, was married on Sunday, May 23rd in Littleton , Colorado . Weddings are always a little “nuts”, but trying to handle this from 10,000 miles away was only possible because we had our older kids there to help out. Though we all came close to homicide at various …  

Dear Friends and Family, The old song goes: “99 bottles of beer on the wall; 99 bottles of beer. What should we do if one of them falls? 98 bottles of beer on the wall; 98…..” Mine goes: “1623 weddings to go; 1623 weddings. What do we do when one of them’s hitched? 1622 weddings to go; ….”  Why is Pa Thom (Me) smiling? http://www.missionreports.com/j_d_wedding Clue: It’s not beer! (Nice try!) Now, it could be the eleven beautiful women? (Good guess! But, hey! I’m a missionary!) The truth is that one of our kids married our surgeon’s daughter, and the doctor paid …