Back in the USA - Summer 2019

We're Back!!!!

We arrived back in the USA on May 14^th.  We landed in Nashville where our sons, Ben and Will, both live.  We have a house there and we spent several weeks working on different areas of the house to get it ready to rent to our son Ben and two other roommates.  It is amazing all the little things that need fixing and how long it takes to fix (especially when we are not too experienced with some of those things!).

We drove up to Wisconsin on June 13^th and went to Marinette to visit Julie’s mother for the weekend before getting settled in the Valley.  We are again staying with the Perkins family this year.  When we arrived at the house we drove around Jo's car to our NORMAL parking space to find this.

We know we are loved!  We are truly humbled by their generosity and warmth shown to us.  We are amazed – they treat us like family (Bill told Jim, “you need to cut the lawn!”  LOL!)  Actually Jim volunteered to cut it – one way for us to show our appreciation.

Each summer, we try to take inventory of our products, represent Threads of Hope at a couple of festivals, try to raise more support and work on business applications that are easier tackled here than from the other side of the world in a time zone that is 13 or 14 hours ahead of the time in the US.  This summer one of the goals is to add a new dimension to our shopping cart that would allow customers to pick a specific dog collar and/or camera strap for purchase.  That sounds pretty basic, but we have never done that before because our products come in assorted bundles.  

This summer is the first summer that Threads of Hope did not order bracelets throughout the summer.  Threads of Hope just did not have the funds available to be able to finance 3 months of bracelet orders while we were not there.  We will be working this summer to build up the funds accounts to be able to start ordering at the end of August when Julie and I return to the Philippines. 

This past school year Threads of Hope had been paying for 17 students to attend colleges in various towns/cities by covering their expenses.  This ended up being fairly overwhelming and as of April the ministry decided to stop with the scholarship payments for the students.  If there are any of you who would be willing to sponsor any of these students, please contact Chris Kuhlow at kuhlcrew2@gmail.com to work with her in getting something set up.  These young people need financial help.  Some will likely have to drop out of school because we cannot help them with scholarships this year.

One of our continual needs is to raise more financial support.  Our goal is to raise our support by $1500/month.  We have been short in our support for the pass 4+ years which leaves us in the situation of not being paid about 3 months out of the year.  We would be humbled if you would choose to partner us to help us in that endeavor.

If you would like to know more about what God is doing through Threads of Hope and what we do in the Philippines we would be honored if you would join us for an Open House at Calvary Bible Church on Sunday, August 4^th from 6 pm to 8 pm.  It will be held in the music rehearsal room which is in the west wing of the church near the sanctuary if you are unfamiliar with the layout of our church.  Please mark your calendar to come and see us and say hello.  There will be snacks, stories and socializing.  There will be a question and answer session.  We really hope to see you there.

If you cannot come to the Open House and would like to spend some time with us please contact us via email at jijumarsh@gmail.com.  We would love to touch base with all of you.  We appreciate your prayers and support as we prepare to return to the Philippines for the 6th year!  We will be leaving the Valley on August 12th.

Blessings,
Julie and Jim

Progress during our 2018-2019 work in the Philippines.

In October we implemented the first phase of the collections system ATC and so far it has been fairly successful.  We have received many responses from customers once they received the automated email from ATC and we have been able to close many accounts through final payments and return of unsold bracelets.  We will be working on an education series of emails to send to new customers to try to remove any questions they may have on how Threads of Hope fundraisers work and what they can do to maximize their success with their fundraising efforts.  The implementation of ATC and changes to some of our procedures starting last summer has seen significant benefits regarding the closing of accounts and receipt of more funds for the ministry.

In January of this year we implemented a change to our attendance policy at the church.  We removed the requirement for bracelet makers to sign in and sign out every Sunday and Wednesday night.  We moved the responsibility for “members” to the 23 leaders that we have.  They now keep track of their bracelet makers and report to us any changes that may cause someone to be removed.  At this time we are not adding anyone to the list unless there is a serious need.

Jim had a series of events this Spring that was fairly serious but thank God for friends who are doctors and good medical opportunities in Manila, everything was resolved.  He had tachycardia in April and went to see a cardiologist.  After reviewing Jim’s 2D-echogram the cardiologist set Jim up an appointment with another cardiologist in Manila at St. Luke’s Hospital (probably the best hospital in the country) for an angiogram (viewing my arteries around his heart).  He discovered a 90% blockage in the LAD (widow-maker) artery and performed an angioplasty to open the artery up.  Jim is doing great now physically and mentally regarding his heart.  Please pray for both of us to have continued good health this summer and when they return to the Philippines.

More info about the summer is in our next post.

God Even Cares about Dowels - Part 2 (11/11/16) (Christmas 2017)

 I am great at thinking up projects for decorating or getting more organized.  Since we moved into this apartment and were painting and designing furniture and moving things around I have wanted to make two mirror frames.  One would be covered in shells. The other would have four 1 inch strips of bamboo along each side with, abaka (twine) and some Threads of Hope necklaces woven around the bamboo strips.  Other projects would be making the ornaments I described in my blog post from 1/6/16 entitled "God Even Cares About Dowels".  I have the driftwood to make a flat tree for the wall all laid out. And last but not least was the quest to make a table top Christmas tree out of drift wood.

I don't feel very artsy, so the projects can intimidate me a bit.  I love to acquire all of the materials, but don't always seem to get the project started.  This is the case for all of the above listed projects...except... the driftwood Christmas tree.

So I am happy to say that I did more than just hunt down the materials.  Here is my first attempt at a driftwood project.

The next step will be to find a drill bit small enough to drill holes in some of my shells so I can run fishing line through them and hang them on this ginchy little tree.  I will update you when I get that far.  

I have even managed to decorate it for a couple of Christmases so far.  I love my little driftwood Christmas tree.

A Real Kitchen after 2.5 Years (6/28/17)

In the past few weeks I have been trying to make this apartment feel a little less like camping and a little more like a normal home.  If there is such a thing as NORMAL based on this life that we lead. (Which we love, by the way!)  We have been back in the Philippines long enough to get back in the groove of ministry duties and we are waiting on some bigger projects on the horizon.  Because I don't do "idle", "little to do", or "down time" well I started reviewing some personal projects that I have wanted to accomplish for quite some time. (Some from as far back as June of 2014.)

These pictures show what the kitchen looked like for the first 2.5 years we have been in the Philippines.

As you can see there is no place to cook..  We have been cooking on a 2 burner gas cook top and using a toaster over all of this time.  That has gotten really old because we have to move everything around just to cook.  I don't like to cook any way, so that didn't help things.

In September (2016), we acquired one of the stoves that Threads of Hope purchased along with all the belongings in two apartments that belonged to some Americans in Olongapo who were running a birthing center who moved back to the States.

Once we acquired the stove we had to acquire trays to bake on.  So of course we need a place to put them.  So we decided to add a couple of pieces to our existing cabinets and rearrange many things to make things more functional.

Because we have this amazing group of people to help us to build things, we designed the cabinets, acquired the materials and worked along side them for the cutting and basic assemble of each piece. Then they finish up with patching, priming and painting. They are really good at what they do.

In November (2016), when I started this blog post, we had just added the stove, the section of shelving to the left of the stove on the floor that holds our water bottles and the section above the stove for contains, cookbooks, and our toaster oven (which we still use regularly).  The exhaust fan was over to the left and we put a shelf there instead and designed the exhaust fan to actually sit over the stove.  Now, I believed the kitchen was complete.  Or so I thought.  

Anyone who remodels know that there is a domino effect that occurs when you start changing things. One change leads to the next good idea, which leads to the next change.

After we got the stove and the organizing cabinets made and got them painted, it was time to take the next step.  We designed a cabinet/larder for dry and canned goods that we had been stuffing on another shelf.  It is a pretty sophisticated unit.  I has slanted shelves so the cans roll to the front.  It turned out really well.

Now if we could just have doors.  I think I ask for too much.  A girl can dream, can't she?

What it Takes to begin the Journey Back to the USA (5/11/19)

The first leg of our trip back to the States is complete but we are still in the Philippines. At 4:30 AM today, May 11th, 2019, we headed for the roro (Car Ferry...Roll On Roll OFF) to Luzon. At 5:30 am we started the water crossing. (What a gorgeous sunrise!) 

By 9am we dropped off a shipment of product that will go on a boat to WI. (Well most of the way on a boat.) 

Our new dog collars are in that shipment!
Stay tuned!
They are pretty cool! 

Now we have a couple of days to make sure our bags are packed properly and finish up a few things in Manila and we fly out on Monday night the 13th at 6:30.

The first flight is about 5 hours. Then an 11 hour layover in Singapore. Lord willing, we will see a bit of the city with friends while we are there. Then 15 hours and 15 minutes to San Francisco. We arrive in San Fran 15 minutes after we leave Singapore. OH how I wish we didn't have to make up for the 15 hour time difference on that flight and it really were a 15 minute flight. One more hop to Nashville and after a mere 49 hours of travel (excluding the 6 hours of travel this morning) we will arrive at our destination.

We will stay in TN for a few weeks, then to WI for 1.5 months, then back to TN for another few weeks, then back to the Philippines early September.

Any prayers you can send our way would be appreciated. Please pray we can get some sleep on the plane and in Singapore and that we can remember our names by the time we get to Nashville.

We hope to see y'all relatively soon!

Christmas 2018 Updates

Merry Christmas! / Maligayang Pasko!

Hello from the Philippines!  We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from our hearts to yours!  We can’t thank you enough for your continued partnership with us in our mission to help bring hope to hundreds of families that are at risk here in the Philippines.  We were so incredibly blessed this last summer through the Perkins family who opened their home and their hearts to us by allowing us to live with them and share their lives.  Words can’t express our deepest love and appreciation for your kindness and open arms!

We have had a very busy year with many struggles and frustrations but also many wonderful examples of love and warmth from so many others.  There are two separate areas of this ministry about which we would like to share our experiences, frustrations, successes and failures in the last year or so.   These areas are the business / software side of Threads of Hope and then the people side of Threads of Hope.

In regard to the software side of TOH, there were two separate software implementations we were working on (mostly Julie).  We were implementing a new Shopping Cart called Shopify (with a LOT of enhancements from a consulting firm).  That software was finally implemented in August of this year.  It went live with very few issues and continues to work fairly well.  We do have a list of enhancements that we would like to implement but at this time we don’t have the funds to make this happen.  The other software we implemented was Any Time Collect (collection software).  This is an automated emailing system and tickler system to help us collect our outstanding Accounts Receivable balances.  This software is being implemented in stages because of the size of the customer base and the number of outstanding open balances.  We are starting with the most recent customers to remove any future overdue balances going forward.  Then we will attack the older overdue balances.

We are working on prototype / samples of our newest product – dog collars.  These will be collars only – not leashes for bigger dogs and collar/leash for smaller dogs/cats.  We are currently working on getting all the parts necessary to make the collars and then we will work on the sewing piece of the puzzle.  Julie is working with Alfie (our camera strap seamster) to make this happen.

In regard to the people side of Threads of Hope, we are about to implement a change to our attendance policy and its connection to the church attendance.  We have wanted to remove this process for quite some time and we are about to make that change.  There have been problems with the sign-in/sign-out process for Wednesday and Sunday services for quite a while.  We are about to disconnect the mandatory attendance to church with the ability to get orders.  We have always wanted to make sure that the people who need the income the most were the ones getting orders but at the same time we have wanted to make sure that the people attending church were being fed properly with no distractions.  We believe we are going to be able to accomplish both goals starting in January.  

We are going to make the leaders (23 of them) responsible for their groups and we will monitor their lists on a monthly basis to verify that the people on their lists are alive, living in the area and in need of orders.  Church attendance will be heart-driven.  The people who want to be at church and study Scripture will be able to do that with no strings attached.  We are praying that this change will make stronger disciples who can share the Gospel more to help the Kingdom grow.  

We are currently helping 17 students with expenses for college and we are always open to anyone who might feel led to sponsor a young person by giving them a scholarship to pay for their schooling.  It is considerably less expensive here in the Philippines.  Please contact Chris Kuhlow if you are interested in being a sponsor.  Her email is kuhlcrew2@hotmail.com .  There are many students who could really use the help with any amount you could offer. 

Aninuan Christian Training School (ACTS) has been going very well.  We are in the last steps to being recognized by the government and eligible for grants for each student.  We have been through the interviews and it is now up to the waiting game.  Ben Coltrane and his staff have done an amazing job with the school.  Please pray that the school will be funded to take away some of the financial burden from TOH to keep the school running.

We have had sad notes here in the Philippines where people have passed away, both old and young.  It really highlights the importance of assurance of salvation and the need for a savior!  We are about to celebrate the birth of that Savior – Jesus Christ and we invite anyone who does not know Him to learn more about Him and His love, grace and mercy as well as eternal salvation that is free to anyone who wishes to have it.  May the Lord bless you at this time of celebration and into the coming new year ahead.  Again, we want to send you our love and deepest appreciation for your support and partnership with us here in this ministry.

God Bless you all!

Jim and Julie