I feel blessed to have the privilege of living overseas with children. Having children opens so many doors to meet neighbors and other members of the community. I believe locals find me as a foreigner more approachable because of our common position as wives and mothers. Currently, my children (ages 10 & 8) are participating in a local sports club. They love the opportunity to exert some energy and make friends, and I am enjoying the fellowship of local women.
Over the course of a month, I noticed an elderly woman from time to time waiting with the other parents. She sat withdrawn from the other waiting moms, and she never joined in the chatter and fellowship. Truth be told, she has a very sad and somewhat mysterious presence about her.
One Saturday, as the Lord would have it, she entered the club and decided to sit on the bench right next to me. I began small talk with her and even shared a plate of cookies passed-out by the staff. After about an hour, she asked me to point out my children. I thought it was pretty obvious, but continued pleasantries by indicating which two belonged to me. She
then very gravely informed me that several weeks ago she felt compelled to put a hex on my children. Her reasoning was: “so that their foreign souls would not harm her grandson, and so that they would not succeed and do better than her grandson in karate.” It is very common for women of all cultures to deal with jealousy; however it seems to be much heightened in this society. It is also just as common for women in Central Asian culture to dabble in folk religious practices. However, I must say that my initial response was shock. Thankfully, the Lord gave me His words to share. I basically shared with her that my family loves her and her grandson. We intend her no harm. I also explained to her that my husband and I pray in the name of Jesus over and for our children daily. Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord over all. Nothing happens without His permission. At that point, her face changed from the grave sadness to a strange grin, and she replied, "We know of Him and He is greatest over all."
I cannot quite wrap my mind and hands around what might be going on in this woman’s life, but I do know that the Father desires her heart and fully desires that she proclaim Him Lord of all. I am praying that the Lord gives me more opportunities to share truth with her as well as the other moms. One meeting at a time...AT
As stated in my last post, if you are interested in getting other sources of our family updates you are welcome to email us. I go into more details on our moves and other specifics. I know it seems like I keep posting about moving...well, it's because we have now lived in 6 different homes since January of 2009. In that regard, it has been a crazy journey so far! Recently, in my daily "read through the Bible" assignment, I came again to Genesis chapter 12. This chapter is, of course, special to our family because 12:1 is the promised verse that the Father gave to us when He called us to this adventure. Over the course of our early years of marriage the Father gave us several 12:1 verses from scripture that allowed us direction and encouragement. (At the beginning of 
our 12th year of marriage He finally sent us overseas....crazy right! God's timing is amazing.) I love how He speaks to us through His Word. As I was reading the Genesis passages again, I was struck by something new. In 12:6-9 it talks about how on Abraham's journey to find the place the Lord wanted him to settle he actually, "passed though" the land, "proceeded from their" and then "journeyed on". Well, that seems like a strange way to "arrive" at a destination. I love our new TomTom GPS. You type in where you want to go; you follow the directions; then in short time you hear the 
words, "you have arrived at your destination." If you do not follow the directions specifically, you hear, "when possible make a U-turn". In the Genesis account, the Lord tells Abraham, "this is going to be your land"; so Abraham builds an altar. I'm guessing that at that time, even though it is not recorded, that the Lord says something like, "there is a famine and the Canaanites are powerful right now, so you can't stay in the land I have promised". Abraham has to then go into Egypt. In the next few verses, the Bible only records the part of Abraham being fearful and lying about Sarah being his sister, but later in chapter 13 we see a comparison of the promised land to Egypt. God had reasons for Abraham traveling to Egypt...not just to 
escape the famine. God did not say, "Do a U-turn when possible"; nor does the Bible record God saying, "in 200 meters you will need to do a right turn"; "you have 5 minutes until you reach your destination." TomTom is always so good about that! AND YET our God is even better to us than TomTom. God could have kept Abraham in Ur...waited a few more years to call him if he wanted to simply take him directly to the new land, but we see Abraham moving around quite a bit in the process of settling into his "new land". In this moving and journeying process God was teaching Abraham to trust and depend on Him. 
SOOOO, I guess you might see where I am going with this. I am VERRRRRYYY hesitant to suggest that we have "arrived" at the "land" the Lord has promised us, because that has not been revealed to us; however, we can look back on the adventure thus far and see why the Lord had us journey through different cities. We are learning step-by-step to trust and to depend on Him. Our prayer is that we are allowed to now put down a few roots and see the multiplication of our family and the family of God, but we know that HIS ways are perfect so we are simply remaining faithful to the call. AT 
Upon moving into a new neighborhood, I met “Arnold,” a pastry baker. I was looking for a cooking supply needed by Amy. I was surprised to find him extremely open to a friendship even after only a couple of conversations. Over the next few months, I found myself having tea with Arnold once or twice a week. Sometimes I would stop by and talk to him while he worked in his pastry shop, but as hard as I worked to move the conversation toward faith-based conversations, he worked just as hard to move it away. After spending more than a year visiting, Arnold said that he wanted to teach me how to make the pastries that are his passion. I agreed and thought that I was in for a fun morning. After a day of mixing, kneading, rolling, making and baking, I had learned a small portion of what Arnold wanted to teach me. He asked if I could come back the next day so that we could really get to the “important” stuff. My mind was reeling as I mentally reviewed everything on my to-do list that would have to be shuffled if I spent another day at the 
Our theme this year was "The Kingdom of God". God is the King of Kings, and we are His children. That makes us princes and princesses. We spent the day dressed up in "royal" clothes and speaking very royally! We carved our pumpkin. I am so thankful that the Father cleans us out and places His light in us!! We made crowns. We will be given crowns in heaven that we will have the privilege of lying at the feet of Jesus. We baked brownies and made pumpkin soup. We read about people that have gone around the world and given their lives to share the good news of Jesus Christ with a lost and dying world. It is not an easy job, but it is one that all believers are called to. We pray you made the holiday a special one with your family. William Travis 
