As far as Regan goes, she is on the road to a rapid recovery.  She spent quite a while today walking around the halls pushing a little toy shopping cart.  Loren said that he believes that her peripheral vision is better now than it was before the surgery in the fact before, she would often walk into things, counters, tables and such, and now, she avoides them with ease.  She went up to the therepist today and they said to take her home and keep letting her do the things she has been doing and she will get along just fine.  The only thing that she made need help with is a speech therapist for some of her slurred words.  That may disappear on it’s own, but they are not sure.

Loren said that they were getting ready to go home this afternoon and we praise the Lord for that!!  The doctors are pretty sure they got the whole tumor but she will have to be watched regularly for the next 20 years.

Loren doesn’t know that I am going to write this, and if you don’t tell them, they won’t be the wiser.    As many of you know, Loren and Kendra felt God leading them to move further south and buy a farm earlier this summer.  I know personally that their strength, endurance, and finances have been stretched to the max.  I asked him the other day if he had any way to pay for this incident and he said that they were still a part of a brotherhood aid and they would be helping to pay for most of it.  However I know that they had to hire help for the farm while they were gone, and numerous other expenses of being gone for a week from the farm.  If you would like to help them out financial, please email me for their address, or if you want to use a credit card via PayPal, please send it to my email address of jaimee@paulbunyan.net and write a note to be included with the gift.  I will then download it to my bank and send them a check.

Thanks again for all your prayers!!  Loren testified that they could feel God’s presence with them the whole time.! PTL!

August came and went and with it the 1st anniversary of A Stitch in Time’s founding. It also held another move for the business as the old location of 160 sq. feet was insufficient for it’s growth. I now have 270 sq. feet that is contiguous space and is only three-fourths of what I was spending. I moved the last week of August and only now feel like I may be getting settled in.

We are on the move again though. It has been two years since I have been east to see Aimee’s family and with her brother-in-law needing an addition to their trailer, thought that this would be a good time to make a quick trip into Virginia. We plan to leave this Friday after work and drive through the night since that is the best time to travel with small children anyway!! We will be in Ferrum, VA. for the next week before making a quick pass-through trip up to Harrisonburg and Lancaster, PA for a few days before heading home. We plan to return about the 4th of October.

On the humorous side, I had to stay home due to an illness and kept the four oldest children with me. They LOVE having story’s told to them so I decided to tell them several from my growing up days. The one was when I accidentally shot a ring-necked pheasant because I was not using my BB gun properly. So even though my boys are several years away from that right of passage, I decided it is not too early to start instilling in them the need for proper gun safety. After explaining that you never point the gun at something you do not want to shoot, we had a dialogue that went like this.

“Should you point the gun at the dog?”
“NO!”
“Should you point the gun at Grandpa’s chickens?”
“NO!”
“Should you point the gun at the clouds?”
“NOOOO!”
“Why not, son?”
“Because Jesus lives up there!”

We had just gotten done reading the Bible story were Jesus talks about coming in the clouds of glory.

I was touched this morning by the sermon from the last few verses from Hebrews. My father, (the pastor) has been working through the book for the last ten months and it has been an encouraging, though somewhat baffling at times, study and has given much food for thought. This morning the part that really stuck out to me was the plea for the ability to live with a pure conscience. It was brought out about Paul who was able to say that he has always lived with a pure conscience. Paul!! The one who persecuted the church most mercilessly, and wrought great havoc among the early believers, was able to say that he did it because, he was deceived and thought that it was right. BUT, once he found out that it was wrong, did he make excuses? Did he justify it and try to reason it “his way.” No, he made an immediate about face and strove to work just as hard for the true church, as he had destroying what he thought was a false one.
The thought came to me that I have never fought and destroyed the church the same way that Paul had, but I still cannot say that I always have walked in a pure conscience. There have been times to my shame, that I have “walked over” the Spirit and hae done what I wanted to rather than what I knew God was calling me too. Oh the weight of grief that follows such actions and what I wouldn’t give to go back in my younger teen years and get rid of so many of those actions that I am still reaping fruit from to this day. I can say that when I have walked in the truth that I know, there has been unsurpassed peace and joy that nothing else can compare with!!

On another note, we are facing another change here this week. The place that I have been housing my business in is much too small for my needs and I was struggling to know what to do. I talked to my landlord and he said that for me to have more space, I was going to have to pay more per foot than I was now and I would have to foot all the remodeling expenses myself. Along the main road that the store is on, the going rate for lease space is $15 – $18 a square foot per year. Where I am now, I would have been having to pay almost $32 per square foot. Also, I had never signed a lease due to my landlords supposed right to come and go from my stores space whenever he chose, with, or without, my permission. I was nervous about that and talked to numerous other commercial landlords and found that he had no grounds for this and it raises a lot of sticky situations. So I decided to look for a new place.

To make a long story short, we are moving the store this Friday to another building about 100 yards away and I will almost double my floor space for ¾’s of what I was paying before! God is good and with the way that sales have been going, I may b able to pay off my business contract within the year.

We also have started Lakewood Christian Academy and have enrolled our first three children in it. We are home schooling for the main reason that there is no Christian school around and even in there was, with the wide diversity of “Christians” we feel that it would be better to give them their training here and exposing them to the culture only in steps that they are mature enough to handle.

Japheth Jr is in first grade though he already is reading some simple story books. He loves to have stories read to him and we look forward to his being able to enjoy them without us having to read it for the 75th time!

Jeremiah is going to be starting to learn his phonics and maybe start on math.

Loraine is going to be three next March but she doesn’t want to miss out!! We are planning to teach her the alphabet and number 1 thru 20. (and go potty where all the big people do!)

Wayne, well… let’s get him talking and then go from there eh?

“What does he look like?” (I, who never misses a chance to learn better how to describe one’s looks

Oh how the laughter rolled.

Japheth was only trying to find words to describe his uncle so he compared him to someone he knew.  The thought came to me later, what do people compare me to when they try to describe my physical features, or more importantly, my spiritual features!  Truly, “by their fruits ye shall know them.”

We are so thankful that the weather is warmer and that summer seems just around the corner! Here in Minnesota, when the daily temp gets up into the sixties, like is has for the last few days, we realize that the winter is finally over, even if we did have snow just a week and a half ago!

This evening I was too tired to cut firewood so I decided to cut the grass in our pasture in preperation
for church campout next weekend. My four oldest children all wanted a ride with Papa. Since I will not take more than one at a time while mowing, this was going to entail a lot of switching.

So instead I hooked the wagon onto the back of the mower, made sure that the discharge was not going to hit them, and gave them all a ride. They loved it and Amiee did too as it gave her the opportunity to get some sewing done.

I Love these days!!!

On a business note, here is a picture of the machine I made for the sharpening of rotary cutter blades. It involves two spin jigs, and a cross slide table from a machinist supply cataloge, a Delta variable speed bench grinder, two Cratex wheels, and the two blade holders I manufactured on my dads lathe. It takes me about 5 minutes to sharpen a blade with nicks in it and a little less for one without. I havn’t had too much call for it yet and I have yet to see if I have beaten the Stauffer stigma of being able to design and build things, but never able to market them. We shall see.

We had a major answer to prayer lately! When Wayne was born the cost of a circumcision was almost $500. This time with Jaden, I called and asked what it would be and was told $175!!! I asked why and they told me that due to some change in the State run Health care system, I no longer had to pay for all the others who weren’t paying! When we got the bill, it was for $153! Praise God!

We praise the Lord that He saw fit to bless us with another son. After weeks of unrest in the fact of not knowing when we were due and several false starts of labor, today was a God-send!

was born at 3:17 am on April 5th, 2006.
He weighed in at 9 lbs even, and was 20 3/8″ long.

The labor was hard to get started but once Aimee’s water broke at 2:05 am, things kicked in high gear and Jaden was born 72 minutes later. Both Aimee and Jaden are doing very well. Aimee had no complications and is recovering quickly. Truly God answered our prayers for safety and as quick a birth as possible.

Thank YOU for all the prayers you have offered up for us the last week or so. We have felt them and feel very blessed by all the friends we have out there.

Now it is 5:21 and I have not slept yet so since Aimee and the little one are sleeping, I shall try to get a few winks in before I have to get up with the rest of the children.

“Japheth, I never heard if your new little one is a little boy or a little girl?” (he had not seen us for two weeks since the previous week we had been home from church thinking we were going to have the baby.)

(Me) “Well, it would have to be one or the other I supposed, eh?”

“Yes Japheth, that is how it works! So… (about this time my wife, who he has not seen yet this morning, walks past us, still looking like she has imbibed too much on the watermelon patch. He looks down and sees her) OH….”

The poor fellow! He got red and started stammering around and if I hadn’t felt sorry for him, it would have been quite hilarious!

The new store is up and running and I have been busier than I thought possible! I have been getting at least 5-6 customers a day with some days as many as 15! Thanks to a dear brother who gave us the needed money to mail flyers to 930 sewers in the area, I have been getting quite a few machines in for servicing. I have been so blessed by the Lord and my close friends that I feel that this store is hardly mine, but God’s since he is the one who prompted all these hearts and so bountifully provided everything that was needed.

This picture is of the out side of the building where I have two offices inside. I currently lease about 180 square feet and am using every square inch of it!! However, the main business, Search Resources, may not be staying there much longer and then I would have first dibs on their space (almost 500 square feet) and the bigger sign you see out front. For the time though, I am very content with the space I have and am grateful to the Lord for His leading in getting me there. (see previous post for that saga)

No baby yet though we rechecked all our dates and figures and the EDD could be as late as April 6. So we still wait!!

Greetings from a tired, globe-trotting father! It is now 11:00 at night and thanks to jet lag, I am wide awake! Oh well, I have acquired a precious 6 hours of sleep over the last 52 hours so if this seems a little dis-jointed, you’ll know why! We arrived home here at 1:30am this morning.

I want to thank all of you for your prayers! I felt so buoyed up these last two and a half weeks that I could hardly believe it! We praise God that the surgery was a success and we were very grateful we went. The doctors and staff were beyond my expectations and we were very blessed with their knowledge, skill and tender loving care! As far as the surgery, it took about a little over an hour from the time they put him under till I could go to the recovery room to see him wake up. I was so thankful that I was allowed into the operating room and hold my son as he “fell asleep.” I was the last face he saw and the first when he awoke and that meant a lot to me. I tell you, it goes thru the heart of a father to watch your frightened son go from crying to his eyes rolling back and as limp as a dish rag in the space of ten seconds. I went out into the waiting room and wept while asking all the questions that a father asks at those times. “Why did we do this? Couldn’t we have done it another way? Do they know what they are doing and did they give him to much anesthesia?” I know these questions are irrational but when you are on the other side of the world from your wife and family, it’s different. I had my Bible with me and spent the time reading portions of scripture about the eye and then turned to Isaiah 40. God really touched my heart again as I read the promise He made to his children Israel, to shepherd their hearts and gently carry those with young. Oh that lifted up my spirit as I realized that I was “with young.” Not in a reproductive way of course, but I was alone with a young child that I was responsible for and God was saying that He would gently carry me! Oh how I rejoiced!

When they called me into the recovery room, Wayne was just beginning to wake up and was still very groggy and VERY hungry since this growing boy had had nothing to eat or drink since almost 8 hours earlier! After he was able to swallow water fine, they let me give him a bottle of milk and then he was a little better able to cope with the fact that his one eye was sore and he could not open it or rub it. We were able to then go back to our room though he had to keep the IV in for a few hours more. Speaking of our room! We were able to pick what kind of room we wanted. When was the last time that you got to do that in a hospital?! We got the second best kind of room which had a balcony, sofa sleeper, soft, padded chairs, table, and private bath with a shower, refrigerator, wardrobe, and all the patients’ meals, for the royal price of about $70 a day! We didn’t get to much sleep that night though because the nursing staff had not every had a white baby in before and couldn’t get over seeing a baby with such long eye lashes, blond hair, and such a ready smile. They had to keep peeking in to see if he was awake yet and since the surgery had gone so well and Wayne was so happy, I didn’t care a bit!

The next morning they came and changed the bandages and Wayne’s was clean and his eyes briefly looked straight at me…I almost wept for joy! The surgeon moved the muscle back as far as is possible and it brought Wayne’s eye into a close enough alignment that his brain should now be able to see the two images and pull them together. Wayne still does not always focus on you due to the fact that he still has stitches in there and it makes it slightly uncomfortable to move the eye very far. They sutures will disappear within three weeks and after that is when we should see the greatest improvement. The doctor told us that it may take up to six months for his brain to learn to pull that eye consistently into alignment and “fuse” them together like yours and mine. If it doesn’t do it by then, we may have to tweak the other eye a little to get them to line up. We will be seeing the local doctor here to see what he thinks and to keep up to date with his progress.

While in Thailand, we visited several different places, the highlight being our weekend trip to Chiang Mai to see Deaniel Yoder and the rest of the staff at GTO. The weather was quite warm over there with the daily high being in the 90’s and getting down to 75 at night. Thank God for A/C!!!! Now, last night when we arrived home, it was 120 degrees colder that what we had left in Bangkok, -26! Yowsers, was it COLD!!!

I now have my work cut out for me as I have 30 sewing machines waiting for me and jet lag to conquer! It is great to be working at home this time since if I wake up at 3:00 in the morning again, I can get up and head to the basement to work on the machines.

I will probably post more tidbits in the days to come but for now this will have to do since I am starting to get slightly sleepy and that is a good feeling. Thanks again for all your support for me and my wife during this time!