Dear Friends,

Many things had taken place since we last communicated with you.First of all, we had thoroughly enjoyed the summer break that Justinspent with us. Over all, he had a good year at Dalat and is lookingforward to another good semester there this fall. Despite of manytransitions, we’d managed to take family vacation times, visitingother sites within Cambodia and some missionary team mates. Andsecondly, we are so thrill to finally have our Poipet missionary teammates back! Both the Copeland family and Kandi Lay are all moved inand settled down into their new places. We’re not only having ourteam back, but it is an extra blessing to have the Copeland as ournext door neighbors! There were lots of things to be done, but God inHis merciful way, had sent us helps and resources along the way inorder to make things possible for their moving. And in spite of heavyrains, our missionary team also enjoyed a good week of Field Forum atthe beach. Last weekends, we took Justin to Bangkok Int. airport where he flewback to Penang, Malaysia, with our MKs, to start his second year thereas an eighth grader. He started school on Tuesday, the 11th ofAugust. Since then, we spoke with him a couple times on the phonechecking on his moving in and adjustment there. He sounded happy andis glad to be back in school. Now that he knows the routines and theexpectations from school and dorm life, this year’s adjustment doesnot seem as hard as it was the beginning of last year. And we are sothankful about this. His three roommates are boys of 13 years old,missionary kids also. One of them is new to the school, but the othertwo are his roommates from the previous year. Justin has new dormparents this year and we have yet to meet them. They are ChineseCanadians with two small school age kids. The parents’names are Lillyand Herald Chan. We appreciate you praying for them with theiradjustment and new roles as dorm parents to our son and to many otherchildren. And pray for Justin to have a good semester at Dalat. Lordwilling, we are planning to visit Justin in October... Our seven- year old son, second grader, Jonathan is quieter withouthis big brother around. Most of the time, he seems content playingsolo with his robot or Lego toys. Home school was resumed last week. So far, things are going okay... We appreciate you praying for wisdom and discernment as we are in theprocess of transferring ministry responsibilities among our team. Praythat we will be wiser in balancing times well with ministry and familyand personal times. This October, we hope to begin the building project at the new land.The fence is completely built. Please pray for “green lights”, aswe’ll need to make many more contacts and government requestsconcerning the building plans. Pray that we’ll find contracts andtheir workers who are with good and honest integrities. And pray forgood weathers as well. All construction goods will need to betransported to the working sites. Bad weathers can delay the workingprocess… Recently, one of our missionary team mates, is sick and was recentlysent to Bangkok for medical evaluation. There have been many peoplein church are sick with flu or cold like symptoms. Please pray forhealing for all… With heavy rainy season, the snake population seems to be increasinglately. Last Wednesday evening, I (Syna) killed a cobra right by ourback yard, underneath the swing where Jonathan usually goes out toplay… It was 41 inches long and it was heading toward the back doorof our house! It was just about a few feet away from the back door!Normally, as soon as he finished eating meal, Jonathan would hurriedlyexcuse himself and would head straight toward the swing. But thistime he seemed unusually delayed. While he was still washing hishands, I heard a dog barking nonstop. Thinking that we might havevisitor, I went to check it out, only to be faced with a live cobra!It was hissing at our dog! Normally I would run and yell for help;but at this very evening, there were only me and the boys home, asSoeuth and everyone else was not around, and so I had to do it.Fortunately we always kept a stick nearby the door, and with just onestrike, I killed it right one the head! And, just a few days early also in our yards, on a Sunday afternoon,one of the youth almost got bitten by a green poisonous snake! It washidden in the plant and her fingers were just a few inches away fromthe snake! I killed that one as well. Lately people have been teasingme as being a “snake killer”! Personally, I don’t likesnakes. And we treat any snake that we see as it was a poisonous one,thinking that if you don’t get it, it will bite one of us or someoneelse, later… And this morning, our guard also killed another snake,not poisonous, but it was 54 inches long! And so, of today, the snakecount is up to # 35 since we got here, a year ago… This number isonly for the ones we killed, by our house, many snakes had gotten awaysince then, and we don’t include many of those that other people hadhad killed nearby us… Please pray for safety and protection fromsnakes and other dangers… The Copeland family, live just next door tous, are beginning their collections of snakes as well… Lately manyvillagers have been bitten by snakes… We sincerely appreciate your prayer ministry to us. If nothing elsecan get through, it was your prayer! We know that many a time when weor the church people had come so close to contact with all kinds ofdangers, but somehow we were miraculously protected, and it wasbecause someone somewhere out there is praying for us... Thank you! The next monthly Poipet youth event is scheduled for August 29th atour house. Since this is summer break for public school students, weare expecting much a larger group, (normally we had about 80 to 100youth each time). A team from New York City is coming to Poipet, Aug.23- 31. They will be helping us with the youth and some otherministries as well. Please pray for a good outcome and for safetraveling and protection for all. Lastly but not least, we are so grateful for your partnership in theministries in reaching the lost souls for God’s Kingdom. We areaware that the economic crises have been severely affecting everyoneat home as well at overseas. And yet, you keep on giving to the Great Commission Fund! Your faithful supporting to the GCF allows us tokeep on serving here. Please share with us what God is doing with your life. Thank you.

In Him,

Soeuth, Syna, Justin and Jonathan Lao