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March 26, 2007
Travel Update
These was great celebration in the Lampinen household when Wil’s passport arrived. That freed us up to pursue our travel plans as scheduled. Wil attended classes on Wed. morning and then we took him to the airport for his 2:30 pm flight. Then we were free to finish packing our bags and focus our minds on our trip. Our flights, Portland to Chicago, Chicago to Boston, and Boston to London went well, arriving at 6:30 Friday morning. We have enjoyed our time thus far with dear friends at Gold Hill Baptist Church and the big 60th birthday party of Tim Wells at Farnham Castle on Sunday afternoon. Today we will be flying to Belfast and will spend three days with former OMF colleagues from Northern Ireland.
We got word of Wil’s safe arrival in Manila late on Thursday night. After only about three hours sleep he was ready to get up and go to Faith Academy the next morning with his friend Dawson. We’ve heard nothing since so assume he is having a wonderful time and keeping busy.
We want to thank all of you for praying for Wil’s passport and for all of us as we travel and visit with friends. We are rejoicing in God’s goodness and truly enjoying fellowship with friends here.
Posted by David at 1:21 AM
March 20, 2007
Passport has arrived!
PRAISE GOD!!!
Wil’s passport was delivered to our front door by FEDEX at 8:45 this morning. Thank you all for praying for this. God has answered.
Pray now for a safe and straightforward trip for Wil to Manila and that he will truly enjoy his time there. His flight is at 2:30 P.M. tomorrow (Wednesday). Pray too for Karen and me as we pack and prepare for our time in England and Northern Ireland.
Posted by David at 8:00 AM
March 18, 2007
Karen's Brother needs prayer
Thank you so much for your prayers. We still don’t have Wil’s passport, but our hearts have been much more at peace since we did the last update. An email from fellow OMFer Alex Smith suggested we call our State Senator, Gordon Smith, and gave us the phone number. Dave phoned and was able to explain our dilemma to a sympathetic secretary who in turn was able to contact the Seattle passport office. The secretary phoned back later that afternoon saying the passport should reach us by Tuesday, without our having to drive to Seattle. So though our hands are still empty, we are proceeding with plans to travel, and our faith level is much higher.
I’m really concerned about my brother just now. Bill is in the coronary care unit in a La Crosse hospital, having had a heart attack last week. Two of his arteries were 90% blocked and he had shunts put in. But he has had several episodes of breaking into a sweat and turning a grey color and been rushed back to the hospital. The last attack happened while he was at church on Sunday morning. I talked to him this afternoon and he sounds good, but he is on a lot of medication and doesn’t know yet what’s wrong or how long he will be hospitalized. His friend Yvonne will be leaving at the end of the week to visit her daughter and new grandchildren in California, so he will be on his own. And I won’t be near enough to be of any help for the next two weeks either.
Posted by David at 9:19 PM
March 16, 2007
Passport Saga Continues
When we had written a letter to the Passport Office in Seattle that would be hand-delivered, we thought we could hope for a response from a human being rather than a computer. The person at the counter refused to even look at the letter. We got through by phone to the national number again early this morning. They said we might be able to get the passport by keeping our appointment on the 20th, but there is no guarantee that that will work either, since the automated appointments (the only kind you can get) are for passport applications, not collecting a renewal.
We know how much the stress of this is affecting us. We can only imagine what it is doing to Wil as his hopes rise, then are dashed once again. Late last night we were ready to call the airlines to see whether there was any way we could re-book his ticket at a later date, but when we asked him this morning how he would feel about that, he said that he’d almost cried last night, thinking that now he wouldn’t be able to go.
We do not understand the whys and wherefores of all this, but we know that we have a caring God who knows what He is doing and is wanting to work more patience and perseverance into all three of our lives. Pray that we do not allow discouragement to enter in.
Posted by David at 7:46 AM
March 14, 2007
Passport Panic
Only others in the midst of applying for US passports right now can begin to understand what a backlog exists and how long it is taking to get passports. When we applied for a renewal, we were told we would have the passport in six weeks. Now they are saying ten weeks! We applied on January 18th, and need to have the passport in nine weeks in order for Wil to be on his scheduled flight to Manila. We have been emailing and phoning daily for the past week, and today finally managed to get through to a human being (at 6:30 am!). She told us Wil’s passport will be processed in Seattle on March 19 or 20, then mailed to us. I asked if we could pick it up in Seattle and she said we would have to get an appointment. That took several more hours, but we now have an appointment for 9:30 am on the 20th, the day before Wil is scheduled to fly to Manila on a non-refundable ticket!! We got the appointment through a computer, not a human being, so still don’t know for sure that going there on the 20th will result in our receiving the passport.
A member of our church has an appointment in Seattle for tomorrow morning to have a change made to her passport. We’re writing a letter and asking her to hand it to someone in the passport office, asking that they notify us if coming on the 20th will or will not result in getting the passport. Please pray that letter will meet with a favorable response. We know that the staff in Seattle, and all the other passport offices around the country, are overworked, and must be feeling the same stress we are just now. Thank you for your prayers. We’ve had two good but hectic weeks and have a very full calendar between now and our departure dates. Now we’re trying to come up with a Plan B for Wil, so that if he isn’t able to go to the Philippines, he will be cared for and we can still go to England. That isn’t an ideal arrangement, but it seems better to lose the cost of one ticket than all three.
Posted by David at 12:29 PM
March 8, 2007
March travels
Our apologies for being so late with this month’s letter! We’ve had visitors for the past week, and were trying to get lots of things organized before they arrived. They left today and when I sat down to do an update on the website, realized that this letter to you was a week overdue.
For those of you who aren’t able to visit our website, the biggest news is that when I got the CAT scan results, I learned that the two largest tumors in my liver are about 25% smaller than on the previous scan. The Taxol is working! Thank you for your prayers. The Lord has helped me come to terms with losing my hair, and last week I purchased a very comfortable wig.
A major prayer request at the moment is for Wil’s passport to arrive. We took it in to be renewed in January and were told that it would take about six weeks. Seven weeks later, we’ve heard nothing. He leaves for Manila on March 21st! We are scheduled to leave for England the following day! Please pray that it will arrive soon, or that we will find out how to follow up and expedite its delivery. Because a passport is now required to cross the border from the US to Canada, many people need to apply for passports and apparently there is a huge backlog. We arrive in England on the morning of March 23 and will be at Gold Hill for the weekend. Then we will fly to Belfast on the 26th to visit OMF colleagues, retuning to Gold Hill on the 29th. This time we will stay in one place and friends will come to us there in Chalfont St. Peter. We fly home again on April 9.
Our visitors were Leny (Magsanay) Misiano and her husband, John. Leny and two of her sisters lived with me in Tanauan about 25 years ago. Leny is now married to John who is an American, and she has been in the US for about a year. She has wanted to visit, and the Lord worked it out for them to come this past week from New Jersey. We had only met John briefly in Manila, so enjoyed getting to know him and seeing his love for his lovely wife. We were able to share what Christ means to us and to pray with John. We’d ask you to pray for him and Leny as they seek to study God’s Word together in the coming months. March isn’t the ideal time to visit Oregon, but we had several sunny days and were able to visit the coast and Multnomah Falls.
This Sunday is a quarterly Missions Sunday at Damascus and we are responsible for organizing this one. We are trying to help everyone take a step further in outreach, whether to their neighbors, through an organized ministry, helping at a camp, or going on a short-term missions trip. Our theme is: “Sent from the Pew” and Dave has worked hard at gathering information on a large number of outreach opportunities. Pray people will be willing to be sent. We have a follow-up meeting scheduled for the following Sunday.
Both our Damascus Christian School boys’ and girls’ basketball teams were trophy winners in the state tournament this year, and Wil went along to watch all of their games. He’s a very enthusiastic unofficial cheerleader! Now he has daily play rehearsals, and hopes to have his lines memorized before he leaves for the Philippines.
Thank you for your part in our lives and ministry through prayer,
Dave and Karen
Posted by David at 7:22 PM