HEY! August 2020 update from the Filbrun Family

First of all, we want to THANK our Heavenly Father for taking such good care of our family. He provided almost five months of needed rest. His provision and love for our family leaves us amazed. He is so good. Even during these uncertain times, He is still moving. His love has forever changed us. 

As you know we have spent the last few months in America. This was not our original plan. It seems we find ourselves telling our children often that we make our plans but God determines our steps. And our unexpected time in the States seemed to be a good reminder of that phrase.

God blessed us with SO many memories to last for the months ahead! 

We stayed in Ohio. Brittons parents were so kind to offer us a place to stay. They graciously opened up their home and space to our family of six! They never complained but went out of their way to entertain and love each of us! Mom and Dad Filbrun, thank you so much for your hospitality! We will miss you while we are apart.

Gracie enjoyed seeing many of her friends again! She was able to spend extended time with many of her dear friends! Thankyou to everyone who went out of their way to spend time with her! Fifteen is a great age to be with friends and living overseas, apart from her friends, can be sad. Rekindling friendships was a gift from God.

Carter turned 13 while we were in the States. 

Brysen celebrated his 11th birthday in May. Both of the boys spent many days working for both of their Grandpas or their Dad. They enjoyed extended time with their Filbrun cousins.

Savanna enjoyed spending quality time with her Grandmas. She looked forward to the days when her little cousins were coming over to play. We left for Cambodia when she was 4 so she had a hard time remembering people or "things" about America. 

We enjoyed so much American beauty! 

Sunday morning after Church was opened back up

Four members of our family spent time in Urgent Care while we were in the States. Some made a couple visits. We think our family has contracted a bacteria while working with some infected children in Battambang. We hope to get a culture taken soon and get on antibiotics to hopefully get rid of our infections.

Tashayla spent a few days with the children. We are already missing her presence in Cambodia. We are confident our relationship will be lifelong. She was such a blessing to our family and we thank God for knowing her! 

Several trips to the lake or river was made. Thankyou to a dear Uncle and Aunt for making the above trip possible.

Kristy and Savanna made the trip to California to visit Kristys parents and Grandparents. Above is a four generation picture.

Thankyou to Mom and Dad Fisher for bringing us out to California and spending blessed quality time with us. The day at Pinecrest will always be a special memory.

A gift from God to see Grandparents again. Grandmas Rumbles rose garden brought memories and refreshment.

We celebrated our fifteenth anniversary the end of June. We were able to go to Tennessee for a weekend away in Gatlinburg. Thankyou to Grandparents for helping with our children! 

The boys and their Filbrun cousins

We enjoyed every Sunday that we could join our Castine Church family! We want to specifically thank our Castine Church family for your outpouring love to our family during our time in the States. We feel so loved and encouraged by many of you! Thankyou for your generous giving. 

Cambodia finally opened up its borders and so we were able to book our tickets. Praise God! The travel restrictions are quite high for coming back into Cambodia. We needed health insurance, negative Covid test results within 72 hours of arrival, visas and a $3000 deposit for us adults. While the days ahead looked daunting our calling God has on our life is sure. Above is our first round of Covid testing.

This was the hardest part of getting back to Cambodia for us. No one quite knew how to answer our questions as far as where to get our tests taken, where we could get our children tested, and if they could get the results back to us within 24 hours. Plus the Covid test hurt!!!!! It was quite daunting for our children. It did not get easier with each test.

Here is our first try leaving out of Dayton on July 7th. We were turned down because we didn't have the Covid paperwork back. They rebooked our tickets for July 16th. 

On July 16th we tried again in Cincinnati. We were turned down again because we didn't have a Doctors signature on our paper. We had asked the Doctor to sign it but they wouldn't even print the results back out for us. We were stunned to be turned away again. All of us had a moment to cry. Such disappointment and questioning if we should even keep trying. We sat our children down and asked them, "Should we try again? Should we still go to Cambodia?" They all responded with a hearty yes. The doors started opening up. A call into the Emergency Room to have our Covid tests taken again for the third time, a ER doctor who would sign our papers and a notary that would stamp our papers. 

These papers are pure gold. We spent many many hours in efforts to get these papers in our hands. With Gods faithfulness and help, we did not give up, but kept trying until we could think of nothing more. 

FINALLY! Three negative Covid tests later, we made it through! What a blessing! We were reminded to never give up on a dream or calling that God has placed in our lives. No matter how difficult or discouraging. God was so good to allow us to go back. 

When we arrived in Cambodia we had our Covid tests taken again at the airport. Unfortunately one Khmer man tested positive on our flight into Cambodia. We were issued by the government to at a hotel of their choice for two weeks. Although this was difficult to stay in our hotel room, we still had many reasons to be grateful! 

Every morning and afternoon we were required to go down and have our temperature taken. At the two week mark, we took another Covid test and were released the next day.

On August 2nd, we took the 6 hour trip to our house in Battambang. We had an uneventful trip and arrived back to a clean home by our neighbor Carol and a few of our Khmer friends! 

The past week has been spent cleaning, organizing and preparing to start homeschool. On August 10th we started our new school year.

We are easing back into ministry and will have more details next month.

*We have some specific financial needs:
1) We need more monthly sponsors. We lost some monthly support while we were in the States and we would appreciate if you wanted to be apart of what God is doing through us here in Cambodia. 

2) Our family ALL took 5 Covid tests to get back into Cambodia. We also had some unexpected expense because we had to stay in quarantine for 2 weeks in Phnom Penh. We could use a one time financial gift helping with those unexpected costs.

3) It will be time for us to renew our visas in September. We could use financial help with visa expense for the six of us. 
THANKYOU everyone for your continued love and support! 



PLEASE PRAY WITH US:
*for our marriage
*for our children
*for our health and safety
*for continued fruitfulness in our ministry
*revival in Cambodia

CONTACT US:
*BrittonFilbrun@yahoo.com
*KristyFilbrun@yahoocom

FOLLOW US:
*Monthly updates will be posted here on this blog

GIVING:
*Online at Cten.org/filbrun
*or mail a check to:
Commission To Every Nation
PO Box 291307
Kerrville, TX 78029-1307
*Phone: 1 (830) 896-8326