Health and Ministry Update

Everyone,

I had my biopsy today. It was fairly quick for the biopsy but I had to lay on my side for a couple of hours afterward so we arrived at the hospital at 7am and even thought they bumped us up earlier we didn't come home until around 1pm. I was still feeling the effects of the anesthesia so went right up to bed and slept for four more hours. I have to lay low a bit today an tomorrow but otherwise feel fine. We will get the results from the doctor on Monday, Feb. 3rd.



We now have a vehicle to drive thanks to your overwhelming generosity. In fact we have back up vehicles so are well covered. We are amazed at how God provides our every need but are well aware that he uses his people and their willingness to share in order to accomplish this. We are very humbled by this whole process.



The team is Greece is working hard. They are planning a doctors day on Feb. 13th. We have a team of dentists from Northern Greece who are bring down a fully equipped van in order to not just examine patients but to take care of the problems. We also have a team of doctors who will be seeing patients inside as well. This is all happening at a facility about 1/2 hour from us which is a nursing home/retreat center run by Christians. They have agreed to sponsor several events a year for us. They provide the building, transportation (a bus) and a meal for everyone. This is an incredible blessing for us and makes having these types of days possible. We have 1 intern man who has joined the team for three months and another who will be arriving in a couple of weeks - this will be a great help with both Kent gone and another couple from the team on furlough which makes us short on men. Once again the Lord is providing.



Thank you all again for traveling with us on this journey. We have been amazed at the outpouring of love toward us during this time and are SO thankful to serve with such an amazing extended team. Thank you for being a part of that team. We love you all.




Serving Him Together,

Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)

Myrna Health Update

Everyone -



We saw the oncologist today and as expected we won't really know anything for sure until the biopsy. The frustrating thing is that I have been taking Aspirin for my blood and Alleve for my joints and she thought I would need to be off both of them for a week before they could do the biopsy. Why my General Practitioner didn't tell me that so I could have stopped them earlier I don't know but there it is. Dr. Feilder was going to talk to the radiologist about how soon he felt he could safely do the biopsy but she said she thought it would probably be the first of next week. She said looking at my scans, reviewing my symptoms and looking at my blood work she feels it is likely that I have lymphoma - there is a marker in your blood for lymphoma and mine was elevated, the fever, chills and sweating are lymphoma symptoms, the tumors growth and the fact that I have been on Enbrel all point that direction. However she said once again that if it IS lymphoma it is very treatable. We just need to find out for sure IF I have it and what type it is so we know how to proceed. I will have a CT scan of my chest this week to reexamine a spot on my lung to see if it has changed. Kent and I are both very frustrated with not knowing how to plan because we still don't know how long we are going to be here but we do have to trust that God really is in control and is able to take care of: the team in Greece, our refugee friends, our transportation and housing needs long term if needed, our finances and on and on. Thank you again for standing with us in this time. We love you all.




Serving Him Together,

Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)

Important Morley Update

Everyone,



I apologize for being out of communication for the last few weeks. We haven't quite known how and when to share what is happening in our lives. As you know my (Myrna's) health has not been very good lately but I hadn't shared that increasingly I was running fevers almost every day and feeling more and more unwell. Kent and I kept holding on to the fact that I was scheduled to come to the states for some scans at the end of January and thought I could just wait until then.



Shortly after Christmas we felt we needed to get some advice from a medical professional so we consulted with an internist that we trust there in Athens to see if he felt this was something small that could be dealt with or if I needed to go to the states. After talking with me and doing a few tests he felt I needed to go to the states immediately and that Kent should go with me.



We bought tickets and left one day later on New Year's day. We stopped for a few days to see our kids and grandkids in MA before coming to OR and consulting the doctors here. It took some time but I now have the results from my first scan. There is an increase in the lesions in both kidneys which is consistent with lymphoma but could be something else. Only a biopsy will give us a definitive answer. I had made an appointment with an oncologist when I arrived here but the earliest she could take me was Jan 21st. After seeing my scans my primary care doctor is pushing to try and get me in earlier. Please pray that we will have answers soon. We will try to keep you informed as we go along and apologize for not letting you know sooner but we were hoping to have something definite to share. Thank you for you unfailing support and love to us.




Serving Him Together,

Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)

Morley Update 2013 #34

Everyone,

Sorry I have not been very good about my updates. We finished the Christmas parties and I intended to write about them and then came down very sick with an awful cold/ flu thing about mid week last week. Yesterday I finally felt well enough to shovel out the house a bit - I had done nothing for a week. I was pretty tired but decided to mop the floor because there were a couple of coffee spills that had been mocking me for days. This may have been a mistake or it may have happened anyway due to the fact that I have not been able to take my Enbrel for 2 weeks because of being sick but whatever the reason, my back went out. By the time I managed to shower, I couldn't even stand to dry my hair. I had some pain medication from my knee injury so took some which allowed me to get up and down without actually screaming - just a lot of sucking in air between my teeth and doing my Lamaze breathing. I am a bit better today but still taking pain meds - hopefully I will be better tomorrow because we are planning to have a houseful of team mates and refugee friends on Christmas.



Christmas Parties: There were a few near disasters along the way but the parties went of wonderfully with the refugees having no idea of the drama going on behind the scenes. The first problem came the day of the first party. Kent and I and Dirrims went to Jumbo (our version of Walmart) to pick up the 500 Christmas gifts (of about 5 items each) that we had ordered. They were to be ready by 10am. This is our third year doing it this way and it has been no problem. They are prepaid, so they just have them bagged up and ready to go. When we got there no bags were sitting by the door or behind the counter. The guy at the desk did some checking and finally said. " It's no problem - your things are here they are just downstairs and we need to get them together for you. We can have them ready by 1pm. " We said "No that IS a problem because we have to take them in to town which takes an hour and then wrap them all and our party starts at 5pm. We MUST have them by 12 noon at the LATEST". They said okay and Kent said now don't say okay and then decide you'll just have them later we need them by noon for sure! They kind of hemmed and hawed around but finally said okay for SURE by noon. When we arrived at noon - no packages. We kept bugging and bugging and finally at 12:30 they told us to go up to the cash register and our stuff was there. To get upstairs you must walk through every aisle of this huge store on both floors. They have made it so you cannot cut through at any point so we took off at a run dodging our way around Christmas shoppers. We got upstairs and there were lines stretching across the store at each cash register. We say them taking our stuff on carts down to the end where there was an unused cash register so we thought since we had already paid they would just print up an invoice there. We stood there for a few minutes and finally the manager came over and said "Now you will go through register #6." We said "You are NOT going to make us wait in line behind all those people after we have been here for almost 3 hours are you!?" But indeed he was so there was nothing to do but get in line with these huge carts. When it was finally our turn they rang everything up and it came out to the right amount but I mentioned to Lisa that they were ringing it up from a list not from what was on the carts. When we had the invoice they said "Now we must count the items" Come to find out these were just boxes of our items and needed to all be opened and counted to get the amount we had ordered. There were extras of some things, not enough of some things, and some things were missing altogether. What a nightmare! At 1:45 we asked if we could start loading the stuff that had already been counted into the cars. He said No - just wait a minute. At 2:00 our Greek director got on the phone with him and said we MUST load the things that were ready and he said it would only be a few more minutes. I grabbed a cart and Kent grabbed a cart and we just took it outside and started loading it up. We finally arrived at the ARC a little after 3pm. The gifts all had to be sorted and bagged and our church was coming at 4pm to set the tables and prepare the food. The doors opened at 5. We finished the gifts at sometime after 4 but miraculously by the time we opened the doors at 5 the room was beautiful and serene with candle lit tables and soft music playing.



Our second disaster happened on Thursday night. There had been some miscommunication with the church and they had not brought sodas so some of our men had gone out to buy and carry back 24 large bottles of soda. Other than that things were going okay and Ilir (who is our general maintenance guy) said "I'm going to go out and run an quick errand with my wife since there is nothing I need to do here" I said "Sure". About 5 minutes later someone came running out of the kitchen saying "Where's Ilir?" I told them and they said "The oven isn't working" This was a problem because we were serving chicken and to cook enough for 180 people we do 3 batches of 60 pieces each. The last batch was about 1/2 way done cooking. When Ilir got back he got the repair guy and called the parts shop and asked them to stay open late - he was then running back and forth for parts in order to get the oven fixed so we could use it the next day for the party then. Out in the main room once again the candles glowed, the music played and refugees relaxed and smiled. Inside the kitchen the stove was pulled out in the middle of the kitchen while the kitchen workers madly fried the rest of the chicken in a big pot of oil, dished up salads and served desserts. We always tell people flexibility is key in this ministry and we prove it over and over!



Despite our near disasters this is always such a special day. One young girl told Tasha - This is the best day of my life! Another women said "I will keep this with me always". Their lives are so hard and if even for this one day we can give them something to remember all the hustle and bustle and frantic planning just seem to melt away. As I tell the Christmas story and relate it to THEIR story - the long journey, the need for rest, looking for shelter - in short remembering that Jesus was a refugee, I am always reminded anew that these people understand much better than I do what Jesus gave up and went through - for us. Kent dressed as a shepherd this year to talk about how Jesus came as a Shepherd to carry us home to God.



There is one last party this week in Patras - some of our men go up regularly and help out at a church that is reaching out to refugees in this port city about 2 hours from here. Kent and I were able to help with buying the gifts for the about 40 men expected at this party. Each month we set aside a small part of our salary to go for something special for refugees - this is what we used for this. We also bought a warm coat for a refugee friend of Kent's, helped with groceries for a family and rent for another friend. This is another way that you, our financial supporters supply the needs of refugees here in Greece. Thank you for making this possible. Thank you again to all of you who gave for Christmas and for sleeping bags. We love you all.


Serving Him Together,

Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)

Morley Update 2013 #32

Everyone -



Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in America. This was always a day when we gathered as a family. Sometimes it was just the family in our area. Sometimes we traveled to be with family who lived away and sometime people came to us but always there was family. There was food. LOTS of food. I always cooked a turkey of at least 20 pounds, often getting up at 5am to get in in the oven to be ready at 1:00. People made their signature dishes and Kent always sculpted the mashed potatoes into something amazing. The kitchen was a busy place and "too many cooks" only made it more fun. There was laughter and reminiscing - my mother always managing to say to me "don't drop the turkey" bringing back to mind the year this actually happened. I miss my family. But God has also given me a family here. On Saturday, 22 of us gathered at a friend's house to have Thanksgiving dinner together. I cooked one of the turkeys (we had two). I didn't need to get up early to put this bird in the oven in fact it was done in only 3 hours. The largest turkey you can find here is 3400g or about 7 pounds. People made their signature dishes, Tasha's grandma's potatoes, Lisa's rolls and even though McCracken's have moved back to the USA their broccoli casserole still appeared on the menu. The kitchen was busy, there was laughter and reminiscing and it was good to be together. I'm thankful.



This week we are gearing up for our Christmas Parties. On Monday we decorated the ARC. It was fun to see the kids excitement as they entered for family meal day yesterday. Next week we will be closed for our regular programs and we are having 3 parties with 150 guests at each. That's 450 meals, 450 gift bags and 450 smiles. We will also have a 4th party for believers with about 50 guests. There is still much to be done. I need to get the puppets out and costumed. Kent needs to prepare his object lesson. We are practicing our Christmas songs in Farsi and we will have a long day setting up for the parties, packing bags etc. In the midst of this there has been a sore throat/ cold bug going around and Lisa our Christmas Coordinator has been hit with it. Please pray that she and all the members of the team will be able to stay well these next weeks and that everything will fall into place. I have also been feeling a bit "under the weather" for a few weeks. When you have a compromised immune system it is sometimes tricky to know what to be concerned about and what is just "the way it is". Please pray that I will get back to feeling 100%. Several of our staff are leaving following the Christmas parties so we will be a bit short handed in the two weeks before Christmas, pray for God to send those who will "stand in the gap".



It is still not too late if you would like to donate toward our Christmas parties. You can do so by following the instruction at the bottom of this letter on How to join our support team. Only INSTEAD of designating For the Ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley designate Helping Hands Athens - Christmas. Thank you all for your faithful support and prayers - have a wonderful Thanksgiving whether it is filled with family or a time to reflect on your own. Our daughter wrote that our grandson (7 years old) made a list of the things he was thankful for. #1 A head. She asked him about it and he said "Well if I didn't have a head I would be dead!" No matter what our circumstances we can find something to be thankful for!





Serving Him Together,

Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)

Morley Update 2013 #31

Everyone -



It was a good week. Friday was one of those days when I think - THIS is why I love what I do. We had a great day in the kids room. We started out with playing some games, then singing some Farsi songs and having a lesson from the wordless book. We watched a video of the miracles of Jesus (it seemed funny to me because the audio was in Finnish but to the kids it didn't matter because they can't understand anyway) Liisa translated into Farsi. After that we set up to do a craft. We had several new families that day and one of the girls was in our class and seemed very happy to be there. She was not quite finished with her craft when her parents came to get her to leave. She wanted to finish and often parents are insensitive to this and will just make their children leave anyway but they told her to finish while they waited. We were helping her to hurry and we encouraging her sayng "Khali zeba" (very pretty) and "ah fa reem" (good job). Her parents seemed so happy that we were helping her. When she finished Liisa told them in Dari that she could either take it home or leave it on the wall (most kids leave theirs) they said "Take it home!". They seemed so happy and grateful with all we did and kept saying "Tashacoor" (thank you) as they left.



After the children's room closed I had a chance to sit with some of the women (which I don't get to do very often). I was trying to practice some of my Farsi (often much to their amusement). I know the words for "sit down" "listen" and "be quiet" from working in the kids room. Tasha was doing something crazy and I said to her in a fairly loud harsh voice "Bishi, Goosh Ga, Sarket!" I looked up and several men around the room were looking over to see what in the world was going on in the women's corner - we got a good laugh out of that.



This week Dr. J went on an out of town trip for a few days and when Kent took him to the airport he asked Kent if S and the kids could maybe stay with us because she hadn't been feeling very well and was a bit nervous about being alone. Our house is full right now (we have two intern girls staying with us) so we called our pastor who lives at a sports center (think playground, soccer fields etc) to see if maybe she could stay with them. Fotis, our pastor was gone but his wife Mary felt the Lord asking her to have S come anyway so Kent picked her and the children up after school and took them there. Mary said that the Lord's hand was really in it because she had forgotten that they had a family from India staying there as well and the wife and S spoke the same language and spent quite some time talking. The other couple also had a little girl so the children had a wonderful time playing together. God is good - please keep praying for Dr. J and S.



We had a busy weekend getting ready for and welcoming a short term team. They are a church called Glad Tidings from Omaha Nebraska and come each year about this time. The team leaders are the same so they know what they are doing and it makes it very easy for us. They are a great team and spent their first day with jet lag doing a bunch of heavy duty cleaning and clothes sorting.



We are gearing up for our Christmas programs which are coming up the first week in December. This is such a great time to share with refugees who might not normally stay to hear the message on a Tuesday who Jesus is and why He came. Along with their other small gifts the adults receive the Jesus DVD in Farsi and the children will have a coloring book with the Christmas Story in Farsi. If you want to donate toward our Christmas programs or towards sleeping bags for the winter please see To join our support team: at the bottom of this page and follow the instructions except instead of designating for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley designate Helping Hands Athens - Christmas OR Helping Hands Athens - Sleeping Bags.



Thank you so much for your prayers and support, we are so blessed to have such a wonderful extended team. We could not do it without you.


Serving Him Together,

Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)

Morley Update 2013 #30

Everyone,



I am going to try and get back into the swing of writing weekly. This week was a bit different because Thursday through Monday morning the team was at a hotel just outside Athens for our fall planning retreat. We have two retreats a year. Every month each person on the team contributes to our team fund - we use this money to pay for team retreats and a few other small items that we do as a team throughout the year. Our spring retreat is a time to rest and refresh, our fall retreat is a working retreat where we look at our ministries, our schedule, personnel issues, future plans etc. This retreat was a good time of reflecting on what the Lord has done in this past year in the ministry and in our personal lives. It was also a good time to tweak some things in the ministry and try to answer questions or address underlying issues that have come up. We have seen much fruit in this last year especially among the Afghan women with many coming to the Lord and those that have come to the Lord beginning to be more bold about speaking out. We talked about the need to disciple some of these believers (both men and women) and to make sure that they are getting plugged in to fellowship. Pray for Kent and I as we determine how to use our personal ministry time and who God is asking us to spend extra time discipling over the next weeks and months.



Monday on our way home from the retreat we stopped at the airport and picked up Janneke (pronounced Yanaka) the young Dutch women who will be living with us for the next three weeks. She speaks very good English and is easy to have in our home. She is looking for a place to serve long term so please pray that the Lord will guide her and the team here whether this might be the place for her. We had planned to go back to the airport at 6pm and pick up Aunie the young American woman who will be with us for 6 weeks but due to her first flight being delayed she missed her connecting flight so did not arrive in Athens until 1am in the morning. Kent went to the airport to get her and I got up to greet her and settle her in when they got home at 2am. Though she was exhausted she did not sleep well so stayed home on Tuesday to rest and settle in while Janneke and we were at Farsi Family meal and outreach.



It was a good day in the kids room Our story that day was Jonah, and "G" read from a Farsi children's book that we have. It does a good job of telling the story and the kids did a lot of giggling in some places especially with the illustrations. Afterwards we asked them some questions. One of them said Jonah was a prophet so we talked about how a prophet was a person that God used to speak to the people. I said that now we have the Bible to read and know what God says but they did not have that so God used prophets that he spoke to and told them what to say. One of the boys raised his hand and asked how God spoke to them. I told them that sometime he spoke out loud like with Moses and the burning bush but that sometime I thought he just spoke in their minds. BUT I made it very clear that these men were chosen by God and knew that it was God speaking, it wasn't just something they made up. I said that there were people that the Bible says were false prophets, people that pretended God was speaking to them so that they could tell the people what to do.



Later I also talked to the kids about Jonah getting swallowed by the fish. I asked them if that was usually a good thing - I said "When you are swimming, do you think 'I hope I get swallowed by a big fish'?" They said "No". I said but in this case what would seem like a bad thing God used to save Jonah. So sometimes God uses even things that seem like bad things in our lives to help us and to do good for us. When bad things happen we can always pray and ask God to help us through them and ask him if he can use this thing to do something good in our life. Not a bad lesson for any of us.



It thundered and there was lightening last night and it is supposed to rain today - I need to go grocery shopping (I walk) and I am getting a scratchy throat - there has been a bad cold/flu going around so I am hoping it is just a scratchy throat and will not turn in to something more. Thank you all for your prayers.



Serving Him Together,

Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)