We've always said that the Lord gave us the great honor and privilege of allowing us to watch Him work among the Chinese people, because that's exactly what happened. You know, we had a lot of ideas and things, but the truth of the matter is, for the past 26 years that we were there, we watched Him work, and we watched Him work miracles, and watched Him work in life. And as I was thinking about the theme for. this year's retreat, my life verses, of course, came to mind first, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Of course, that's what I thought about at first. And, you know, these are some of the first verses that we learn as a baby Christian. But then, as I began to think a little bit about my life of learning to trust the Lord over the last 37 years that I've been saved, I realized really just what a wonderful process it really is of the Lord's mercy and grace and long-suffering, His love, His tender mercy and tender care every step of the way. As we read the Word of God, over and over and over again, the same verses that we've read hundreds and hundreds of times, they take on new meaning with each trial that we go through. And as we grow in the Lord, it's like these verses just become so much deeper because of the experiences that the Lord brings us through on every level of our Christian walk and our Christian growth. I want to just take the word trust and make an acrostic with it and talk about several different things. The first letter, of course, is T, and I wanted to talk just a little bit about thoughtfulness. Let's turn to Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4. 2, 3, and 4 says, Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in loneliness of mind, that each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. And then 1 Peter 3, 8. 1 Peter 3, 8 says, Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." And you know, in this busy, all-about-me world that we're living in, thoughtfulness has almost disappeared. Let's turn to Proverbs 25, 11. The Bible says, Proverbs 25, 11, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold and pictures of silver. How many times have we been so encouraged, maybe not by a gift or maybe not by anything material, but maybe just by the right word spoken at the right time? Maybe it was a retreat, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was somebody, the Lord laid you on somebody's heart, and they had just the words that you needed to hear at a certain time. And I remember, you know, there were several times in our lives as young missionaries, many times, but I remember one time in particular that we had decided, this is it. You know, of course, first of all, we were going to a country that was closed, You know, there was just a lot of negativity, and I understand that, but there was just one point where we had just decided to give it up. And so it just so happened that at that very time, Brother Linton had a meeting with an older preacher, an older man of God, that talked to him and asked him, Who was the one who had called him to go to China in the beginning? And if it was indeed God, then he had better stay with God's call. And I think back, and I'll never forget that, several times along the way, just words that people said that just made all the difference in the world, night and day. The Lord answered a very specific and special prayer Mom, I'm sorry. The Lord answered a very specific prayer and allowed us to go back to China the middle of last November until the middle of last month. And just to put it in one word, the trip, it was just, it was definitely ordained of God. The church in China, it was to a point where they really, Brother Jimmy and the preachers really needed Brother Linton, just his presence, just his counsel. It was for both sides, but it was a very, very special answer to prayer. But I really have no idea why, but the strangest things really begin to happen when I start to try to pack to go back to China. I almost never pack what I need, which was the case this last time. I think I had forgotten, totally forgotten how cold the winters are over there. So this time we found out that we were going to be living in the church in one of the Sunday school rooms. This also, by the way, is another story in itself. Lots of people have keys to the church. So the whole time was full of surprises. We never knew who was going to pop in just at the right moment. So when we left Alabama, it was 70 degrees, and I had on culottes and a light fleece jacket. And the whole winter in China, it never got over 30, about 32 degrees. So you cannot imagine the horror that was on the faces as I walked. Everybody was at the church, you know, here we were coming in off the airplane and everybody was standing there and they just looked at me like with this horror in their eyes. If there is one unpardonable sin in the Chinese culture, It's that of not wearing enough clothing in the wintertime. Indeed, Grandma would have turned over in her grave. No self-respecting Chinese would have been caught in the winter without at least two pair of wool long underwear on. It just doesn't happen. I mean, you don't even try it. So I had started a fiasco. I had not brought nearly enough clothes. I had brought some long underwear, but they were really thin. And as soon as I got there, I thought, boy, I have really messed up. So I was given two pairs of fur-lined long underwear, men's size, extra, extra large, because that is the size I wear in China. that barely fit, with extra fur around the knees and the stomach, of which I wore every day that I was there. A total of six scarves, two pair of wool socks, two hats, and then they started rummaging around in the storage rooms and found four of my old sweaters. They were so worried that I needed a heavy coat, and so Brother Jimmy insisted, okay, so here's the scenario. Here we all were, 8 o'clock at night, at a clothing store. Now, you know, we've already lived there 25 years. I know that nothing in any Chinese clothing store for a woman will fit me. Forget it. But they were determined, and so here we were, and it was at night. And so we were standing there, and there was, of course, a crowd of Chinese onlookers around. And they said, give us the biggest size that you've got, and we're going to try it on. So here they were. They put the coat on me. And here was Brother Jimmy over here pulling this side. And here was Miss Lee Sheen over here pulling this side, trying to make it meet. And so finally, they realized that it wasn't going to meet. And so then, They finally gave up, and so then they just looked up at me and said, do you think you could just wear it open? But then, thank the Lord, they suddenly remembered that they had given my old heavy coat to another lady in the church who had moved to another province, and they promptly called her and told her to bring the coat back the next day. But this is the Chinese people. They are the most thoughtful, sweetest, most thoughtful people in the world. We had the privilege of seeing folks that had gotten saved 15 or 20 years before, that came from another province, specifically from another province during Chinese New Year, to see us and to have fellowship and to talk about their lives in the Lord, what a blessing it was. And it's also a very common thing for us to get invited out to eat, you know, in so many homes. I have a very dear, dear friend who is about my age, and we call her, in the Chinese, her name is Jianzi, but they call her Ji Laoshi, Laoshi means teacher, and so we call her Teacher Ji. And Teacher Ji is a very, very dear friend of mine, and she had, always always wanting us all of us to come eat with her. So this time she really wanted Brother Linton to come over too. And so Brother Linton came over too and there were about 20 or so of us at her house. And everything was ready and it was time to eat. So the table was full of the traditional Chinese dumplings. They're called jiaozi. It's like a kind of Chinese ravioli. Different vegetables and all so we were you know getting ready sitting to sit down to a wonderful dinner And so then the last dish they brought out and sat on the table. I Looked at it, and it was kind of hard to describe the feelings that I had I think the feelings were pretty much the same as the time when I knew that I was going to have to eat the scorpion well this time this dish that she sat on the table looks like June bugs fried up with scrambled eggs. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I thought it was June bugs. And so, and so I was trying to keep my composure this time because I thought, well surely, you know, the scorpion incident is in the past, you know, so we're not going to have to worry about that again. But, so then I kept asking them what kind of bug it was. And they kept telling me the Chinese word for it, but I didn't recognize the Chinese word. Lo and behold, it was silkworms. And not June bugs after all, see? But it was silkworms fried up with scrambled eggs, see? And if we had been in anybody else's house, you know, I might could have wiggled out of it, but I knew that I had to eat these things by the grace of God, which I did by the grace of God. And another surprise on our arrival was that Brother Jimmy had bought me a cedar bathtub. The kind you see in spas. The Chinese usually take a shower. They have an open shower or they, you know, do a thing outside with a can, you know, or however. They don't, you know, they're not big on bathtubs. So this was a big deal. Brother Jimmy had bought me a cedar bathtub because he knew how much I love to take a bath. It just about broke my heart because these people don't have money for things like this. And the cedar bathtub was set up in the little bathroom, and he had bought a heat lamp and put a heat lamp above it. And as I'm sure you can relate, I just wanted to go find a hole and crawl in it and cry. But I guess one of the points I just want to make is that what a blessing Here, it's like we get in such a whirlwind, but especially, I just really feel that one of the things that I know for myself is thoughtfulness, that I just let go sometimes. The Chinese people are some of the most thoughtful people in the world, and when they get saved, they're even more so. One of our preacher boys, Brother Timothy, had brought Brother Linton some roasted peanuts, and Brother Linton had made the comment of how fresh they tasted and how good they were. Two days later, Brother Timothy had gone to his hometown and bought a 50-pound bag of roasted peanuts back to the church, just because he knew that Brother Linton loved those. They never asked for them or anything and the Lord just spoke to my heart and thought and said to me, wouldn't it be, it would just be so wonderful. It's just the things that I thought would really please the Lord without them having to force me or to make me, you know. But thoughtfulness considers others and gives care and attention to their feelings first. It helps us take the focus off ourselves so that we can see the needs around us. It's a form of love that seeks to uplift and do good whenever possible. It's the opposite of selfishness. True thoughtfulness, of course, comes with the leading of the Spirit of God. Also, last month, Brother Linton got a visit from a Mr. Leo. At first, he didn't remember this man, but he reminded him that he was in one of his Bible classes in 2007 for several months. Mr. Leo had told Brother Linton that the Holy Spirit had kept dealing with him long after we had gone back to America, and that every day as he passed, our old apartment where they studied the Bible, that every day that he went to work, he said that the Scriptures, the Word of God, kept coming back into his mind, and all the things that Brother Linton had said to him. And he said that both he and his girlfriend, who was also in that class, had both gotten saved after we had left. And he found out from another church member that we were there, And he felt that he just had to stop and tell Brother Linton how thankful he was. And Mr. Leo was thoughtful because he was thankful. Okay, the next one is the letter R. And I've used the letter R in trust for remember. Let's turn to Psalm 106 verse 7. I want to focus on the middle part of the birth. Our father's understood not by wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude of God mercy, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. And the part I want to focus on is they remembered not the multitude of thy mercy." You know, do you ever think back and just let yourself think about the time that you were saved and the time shortly thereafter? Remember how happy, the joy, just the joy after we received the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior? And you know, if somebody stood up and asked us to think back on all the trials that the Lord has brought us through, and all the mercy that God has shown us, it's impossible. It's impossible. We can come up with some things in our mind. We come up with, you know, maybe some things that really stick out in our mind. But from the person who is only one week old in the Lord up to the oldest person in the Lord, it's impossible. His mercy, the grace and the mercy he shows us, it's just so magnificent. Because moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, year by year, God brings us through joyous times, hard times, all these things because of His abundant mercy. And however many we may recall, there are so many others that we have forgotten and perhaps we're not even aware of. How many times a car goes through an intersection and it's hit by another car just ahead of us, but for the mercy of God, in the space of a few seconds, it could have been us, or we get ourselves in a big mess You know, we pray, Lord, Lord, would you please, this time, would you please get me out of this one more time? And it goes on and it goes on and on and on. And how many times has this kind of thing happened? And how many prayers has he answered for us? Just thinking about one day, just one day in our Christian lives. And how many times do we go through just one day realizing being a Lord just had mercy on man and we'll throw up a, thank you, Lord. And many times we just go on our merry way, you know, without even considering how much the Lord loves us, how much He protects us, and we ask Him for things, and He answers, and many times we don't even stop to take time to thank Him. Several years ago, after a time of fasting and praying for an answer to a specific prayer, The Lord spoke to my heart also about fasting and praying, a fast of nothing but thankfulness for what He had answered for me. Now just for a moment, This part, the Lord had given me this because there were some problems and some things that were going on in the church in China. I don't know if anything that I'm going to talk about this last part for the letter R has anything to do with anybody here, but I still felt like the Lord would have me to go through this. I would like to make a contrast with what I call the big picture. and our daily walk with the Lord. And Ms. Jones touched on some of this this morning. We all know that we are commanded to put on the new man, to put on Jesus Christ, to walk in the Spirit, to reckon ourselves dead and even to sin. And we know that this is all done by faith. But it has nothing to do with our feelings. It's because of the fact of God's Word. If we, in our young Christian life, we need to really get a hold of the difference between facts, faith, and feelings. And these things are facts, and it has absolutely nothing to do with our feelings, but when we don't do what the Lord has told us to do, and when we don't yield ourselves to His control, we get busy, we don't read our Bibles, we don't pray like we should, and so then we don't walk in the Spirit, and we allow sin to creep in, and then we don't deal with it, we don't deal with the sin. And then what happens is this sin begins to take root in our heart, something that starts out very small, then grows into something so big that we can't handle it. Somebody hurts our feelings. They're a misunderstanding. And then, like my husband always says, why are your feelings hurt? You can't hurt a dead man. They're a misunderstanding, envy, pride, unforgiving spirit, a critical spirit that develops in our daily life that never should be Because if we were truly walking in the Spirit and doing just the things that God has told us to do, these things would never even come up. But even in our daily lives and even during these times, we know that the big picture is still there. And the big picture is that even though we are undeserving, worthless, wretched sinners, every second of our lives, God has mercy on us. He still has mercy on us. And he's waiting for us to draw nigh to him again. I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that sometimes after a few years as Christians, we may allow some sin to take root in our heart and we won't deal with it. And if we do, we may find ourselves so caught up in the sins of the daily lives that are not yielded to the Lord that it seems that the big picture fades away and we become totally consumed with the self-life, totally consumed of just living for ourselves instead of doing what the Lord has told us to do. And we allow hurts and pride and the self-life to completely take over and shut out the big picture. When we don't remember the multitude of his mercy, we become unthankful, we become bitter, resentful. We imagine things against our Christian brothers and sisters that are not true. We imagine things in our minds that are completely false. sometimes to the point of leaving the fellowship of those who have prayed with us, fasted for us, preached to us, helped us, and have only tried to do good to us. It was a very difficult thing this last time. We lost several strong Christians. The devil lured them away through some other Christians that had gotten disgruntled, and it almost broke our hearts. But anyway, don't ever forsake the big picture for the sin that comes from not walking with the Lord and yielding to Him. And you know, it seems like a lot of times, you know, we go through many trials. We go through things. We have victories, and then one day the big trial comes, then it's like we just throw God out the window. You know, where is God? Even though God has done this, this, this million times, then we're just, you know, where is God? So He has delivered us a million times. And then I would also like to say if we ever get to the point in our Christian life where we can't humble ourselves, to talk to or have fellowship with brothers and sisters who have taught, helped, and prayed with us, then there's a serious problem. Serious problem. The next one is U, and U stands for unconditional love. And, you know, I think, how in the world would I even begin to try to talk about the unconditional love of God? Let's turn to 1 John chapter 4, verse 10. hearing His love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. From the very beginning of our years in China, when we would open the Word of God and tell them the wonderful story of God's love for us, So many of them just couldn't believe it. The reason is because their whole lives they were told that there is no God. It was ingrained in them from the time they were born. But I remember Sarah, one of the little girls, I call them little girls, they were college students, who studied with us for several weeks. Her first reaction, like so many of the other ones, was, there's no God. Everybody knows there's no God. And after studying the Bible course for a couple of weeks, she looked at Brother Linton and said, but it's like a fairy tale. It's just too wonderful to believe that God would do that for me. But then within another week or so, Sarah was on her knees asking the Lord to save her, and she said, I always knew there was a God. I just didn't have anybody to tell me who He was. And there were countless, countless, countless stories like this in their hearts. They know, deep down in their hearts, the Bible says the law is written in your heart. They know. Even evolution, they're taught evolution from the time they're old enough to even understand. We never had one serious problem with it in 25 years. Why? Because when they were shown the Word of God, it's a whole lot easier to believe the Word of God than it is to evolution. It takes a lot more faith to believe evolution. I want to tell you a story that always reminds me of God's love. I've told part of this story before, but it has such a wonderful ending. A couple was brought to us one day. Their English names were Eddie and Joanna. Eddie was a Chinese hip-hop singer, if you can imagine such a thing. And he had the long hair, everything. He was living with Joanna, and Joanna was just a... If she weighed 70 pounds, I would have been surprised. The Chinese are small people anyway, but she was just a little bump. And they were both heavily on drugs and alcohol. They kept coming back to Brother Linton's Bible study, and the Lord saved both of them. The difference was just night and day in these two. And immediately, immediately they said, it's not right for us to be living together. So they didn't live together anymore. And they both had such a hunger and thirst for the Word of God. The change in Joanna was so great that her parents had thought she must have gotten into some kind of cult or something because she just was completely changed. And her mother wanted to know what was going on, so her mother lived in a province that took two days by train. So she got on a train, made the two-day trip from the west of China to our province right in the middle of China, and she stayed for a couple of weeks. And during this time of searching, the Lord was really dealing with her heart, and she spent a good bit of time with Brother Jimmy at our house. And during one of those times at our house, she told us that she now realized that what her daughter had was true and was genuine, and that the Bible indeed was true. So then she began to pour her heart out to us, telling us another story. She told us that one reason that Joanna was so very special to her was because that Joanna was not actually her biological child, that she found Joanna in a ditch in the countryside. And she picked her up and she took her home and she raised her. And it's not uncommon, of course, especially in the countryside, to find a newborn baby in the ditch or the rice field. And that's where she found her. She raised her from an infant, but Joanna never knew it. Joanna's mother got saved while she was there. She went back to the countryside and led her husband to the Lord. Joanna stayed faithful to the Lord. This has been several years now. And all this time in the church, asking Brother Jimmy how she could serve the Lord in the church. She asked if she could open and close the door of the church. This is a big deal in China. Opening and closing the door of the church is a big deal because you have to look for the peephole, you know, to see who it is and that kind of thing. So she asked if she could do that and handle the library. And within a three-year period, God had given Joanna the desire of her heart to be the wife of one of the preachers in the church. And they now have a one-year-old baby. So in November of last year, when Brother Linton and I went back to China, the Lord gave us the wonderful privilege of being able to attend the first graduating class of the Bible Institute. And there were 36 students that graduated in the first, the first graduation there. And it really, it was a wonderful experience, but it was really a heart-wrenching time for both of us. Everyone that went up there, we knew their stories. And so, you know, we were just about on the floor the whole time. And the trials, the temptations that God had brought them through. And as one couple walked to the front of the church to both receive their diplomas, holding their little baby and getting their picture made, Brother Lenton leaned over to me and he said, Who is that? She looks familiar. And I said, that's Joanna and James, her husband, who was sent to Mongolia the last time the church was torn down. And, well, my husband, who cannot cry softly, was blubbering throughout the rest of the service. And the Lord just pierced my heart again, the love of God, the love of God. Joanna will tell you that her story is a story of the love of God, and my story is exactly the same. God picks me up out of the ditch, He loves me, and He saves me. The next letter is S, and the S stands for steadfastness. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 15-58. The Bible says, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain, in the Lord. And we know as Christians we must steadfastly nurture our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And over the years we've been able to watch a lot of steadfastness among the Chinese Christians, from the baby Christians up to the older ones. It's amazing to watch their transformation and the trials that the Lord allows them to go through, even very early in their Christian lives. A couple of months ago, on a Friday night, there was a loud banging on the church door, and it was Sister John, her name was John, and she had been saved about a month, and she was standing there, and there were tears running down her face, and she was holding the remains of her Bible and her Bible study courses. Her husband had just beaten her up and torn every bit of the gospel material that she had to shred. This is very common, very common. Several brothers and sisters of the church were called to talk with her and to pray. We prayed with her, and we were amazed at the steadfastness that God had already given her, saved for two months. Her testimony was, In the short time that I've been saved, God's given me such peace that I've never known. I know my sins are forgiven and that my only hope is in the Lord. And another precious testimony of steadfastness was that of Sister Dean. Sister Dean was blessed with a beautiful soprano voice. She just sings very beautifully. And she wanted to use this voice for the Lord. She thought she was saved for 20 years. She had first gone to the state church, the government church. But of course, if there are any of you here that don't know about it, the government church in China, they don't teach salvation. They can't teach the Bible. It's strictly controlled. They have to teach what the government tells them to teach so you don't get saved at the government church by what they preach and teach. But that was the only church she knew to go to, and so she was the choir director there for ten years. But she had never heard a clear presentation of the gospel, and she wasn't saved. And so she started having terrible, terrible depression, and spent all of her money going to doctors and different things and trying to get help, but nothing seemed to help. Things were so bad that she had quit her job. and that she left the state church because she felt that she was getting no help. She stayed in this condition. She said, there's no church for me to go to. I'll stay at home and just try to worship the Lord in my home. She stayed there for eight years, getting more and more depressed, just trying to find the Lord, to seek the Lord, praying the whole time that the Lord would help her mentally and physically. And to make a long story short, The Lord led one of our church members to her, and Brother Jimmy told her to come to church to start at the very beginning of the new life in Christ, which she did. She realized she wasn't saved, thought she was saved for 20 years, and she got saved. And now the Lord has saved her, and she's in the church, her depression is gone, and she's now training the younger ladies to sing. This was another blessing. We got to meet and to talk with her when we were there this last time. The last theme that I want to talk about is the theme of what our retreat is about, and that's trust. This last story that I'm going to tell you is very, very special to me. In 1995, we were traveling back to China from the Philippines. Brother Linton had been preaching in several different churches there for three weeks, and we flew to the southern city of Guangzhou. At that time, we had to fly to Guangzhou and get on a get all of our luggage and get on a train and take a train up to our city for 32 hours from the south to the north. Now, I'm sure you've probably maybe heard stories about train stations in China, but you really can't appreciate it unless you've ever seen one. Train stations in China are just unbelievable. On any day of the week or any hour of the day, you'll see literally thousands and thousands of people in and out, sleeping on the ground, just everywhere, because that's the most popular mode of transportation in China. And so here we were, just come in from the Philippines, and we, by the grace of God, we had managed to get our 24 pieces of luggage transported to the train station. But before we went inside, there was an old lady that grabbed me and she pulled me to the side. And this old lady had a bundle in her arms that was covered. And she opened the bundle and she showed me the face of a baby boy. And the baby boy had some sort of skin disease. He was about two months old. or so, and she looked up at me, and in Chinese, of course, she asked me if I wanted to buy the baby. And she said, I'll sell him to you for 1,000 RMB, which at that time was about 150 US dollars. Well, of course, I was just standing there like this with my mouth open because I just couldn't speak. I didn't know what to say. I mean, it was, you know, I was just totally overwhelmed. And so she said, OK, OK, you want a cheaper price? I'll give you a cheaper price. You name the price. So I looked at my husband and we both knew that there was no way we could take this baby. And at that time, we would have never been able to get the papers for this baby. But as you can imagine, we were haunted by this for such a long time. And the Lord used this to start a work in my heart Every few months, it seemed that the Lord would give me, and Brother Linton Bowes, verses from the Word of God having to do with children. I knew that God had given me these verses, but it was never clear to me whether the Lord was going to allow us to adopt a Chinese baby, or if He had plans for an orphanage in the future. I have all of these verses written down in a journal. of different times. Just different things that would happen during the day and the Lord would say this. And I would go home and open my Bible and there was a verse. God gave it to me. I knew it. I knew it. But I just didn't know what the Lord was saying. And so we just put it in His hands. There were times in the church when women in the church would get pregnant a second time and they would have to go into hiding in the countryside to have the baby. One of those times it was arranged that we were going to take a third baby that one of the sisters was going to have, but the Lord worked it out for the family to keep her. So off and on. For all these years, I was always wondering what the Lord was going to do. Why did the Lord do all these special things that we knew were from Him, but we never really knew exactly what He wanted to do? Well, Brother Jimmy and Miss Lee Sheen, they had two biological children, Hannah and Isaac. But the Lord had truly burdened their hearts for special needs children, specifically children with cerebral palsy. For several years, they were working with an orphanage in the countryside, and it was there that the Lord had moved upon their heart to adopt Philip and Anna. They were very young. They were both close to a year old. Anna might have been a little bit older, but Anna's cerebral palsy was very severe. They were told she could never walk. She would never respond to any kind of stimuli, and that Philip would also never walk. And after prayer and a lot of fasting, they felt that the Lord was leading them to adopt these two special needs children. And without going into another two-hour story, the Lord has used the testimony of these two disabled children with police officials, where Brother Jimmy was arrested, and to leaders of the state church, to the Communist Party leaders, who could never believe that anybody would want or much less adopt a deformed child. The Chinese just leave them in the orphanages to die. And God has used this in a real big way. The Lord has truly given them a heart and a special ministry with this. And so within a year of physical therapy and leg massaging, Philip is perfectly normal. Perfectly normal. In fact, the orphanage found out about it, and they tried to get Brother Jimmy to give him back so that they could sell him. And this past time that we went back, if I had not seen Anna with my own eyes, I don't think I would have believed it. Her eyes are still crossed, but they've done physical therapy with her, daily leg massages, She's walking all over the house, wherever she wants to go. They have her potty trained. She can eat by herself. I taught Sunday school when I was there, and Anna was allowed, of course, just to walk around the room. They would put fruit on the table, and Anna knew when they put that fruit on the table, she turned right around, walked over there, and dove straight into that fruit. I just would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes. Brother Jimmy knew that the Lord wanted an orphanage, and little by little, the Lord started working out all the red tape and the details. A nurse and two physical therapists in the church had surrendered to work full time in the ministry. As they were waiting on the Lord to show them what to do, a sister in the church had told them about a perfect spot for the orphanage. It was about 40 minutes outside of the city, and it was in a resort area that was just being developed. It was a huge hot spring area, and this area was only for high Communist Party leaders and very, very wealthy people, and they were just beginning to construct apartments around it. But they had just opened it up for people, for the normal people, just to be able to buy these apartments. Brother Jimmy had been fasting and the church had been fasting and praying and said, Brother Jimmy said that when he walked into these, was shown these two connecting apartments, that God spoke to his heart and said, this is it, this is the place for the orphanage. This resort area still belonged to a countryside county that was going to be annexed to our county within the next month. and the price of the apartment after that month would quadruple in price. So Jimmy had laid all these things out before the Lord and put them in his hand. Two days later, Brother Jimmy and Miss Lee Sheen were visited by a lady that they had led to the Lord several years ago, and her name is Sister Lee. They were telling Sister Lee about this ministry and what the Lord had laid on their hearts to do, and what the next step of the ministry was. And they had a wonderful visit with her. But the next day, Sister Lee called them and asked them to come over to her house. When they walked in, She told them that the Lord had not let her sleep, had not let her rest the whole night, that this was God's work and that she wanted to be a part of it. And she wrote them a check for $250,000 U.S. dollars to purchase these two apartments for this ministry. This was three days before the time limit and the price would have quadrupled. The orphanage will hold 25 children. And the first baby boy was left on Brother Jimmy's doorstep. The mama had gotten saved last year, but the dad is still lost and he doesn't want anything to do with this baby. And Brother Jimmy's goal and the church's goal is not only to help the orphans, but to strive to get the parents saved and to try to get the family whole and back together again and in a real relationship with the Lord. So thank you for this time. Every year, if the Lord allows me to speak, I try to give you some prayer requests. And so the requests that I have for you this year, there are still several. quite a few unsaved husbands that the ladies have been praying for for many years. So please pray for them and pray that the Lord would work in the orphanage ministry and that the Lord would just get the glory and that the lives would be touched and the families would be brought back together and whatever the Lord wants to do with this. So we just want to say praise the Lord. Amen.