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Greetings from North Bend, Washington! Several months have passed since our last update, and we apologize for that. The past several months have been for us ones of great adjustments and uncertainties, and I have succumbed to the silence of bewilderment.
In the following section, we will try to answer the questions you might have. If we leave out questions that you would like answered, please let us know, and we will do our best to answer them.
"Q AND A" WITH THE PILETS…
Question: Where have you been? And what have you been doing?
Answer: That's a good place to start. Since returning from Mongolia in March, we have been here in North Bend, a small community thirty miles east of Seattle. We have rented a home with a three-month lease, and the kids have enrolled in school.
Our container - the one we packed in February in Mongolia - arrived about six weeks after being shipped, and we unloaded all our belongings into our rental house. It took several weeks to unpack all the boxes and establish some sort of order.
In the meanwhile, Elim completed his evaluations with the developmental specialists and enrolled in a local "early-intervention" preschool. He also began weekly appointments with a speech therapist. Grace enrolled in the local junior high and Jonan in the elementary school. Both began the process of making friends and adjusting to being in a public school for the first time.
Question: What has the testing shown about Elim?
Answer: The results of the evaluations have been encouraging. Elim is on the mildest end of the autism spectrum. His primary delay is in the area of speech. He understands most of what others say, but he has difficulty putting his thoughts into words.
Question: What does that mean for his long-term prognosis?
Answer: All children are different, of course, and we cannot therefore answer that question with absolute certainty. That said, however, we have every reason to believe he will quickly gain the ability to speak. Our current hope and goal is that he will be equal developmentally by the age of six to other "average" six-year-olds.
Question: So how does that affect your future as missionaries in Mongolia?
Answer: This question, I think, touches the crux of the issue. If I myself had partnered with "the Pilets - Missionaries to Mongolia," I would want to know, "Hey, are you or aren't you going back to Mongolia? And, if so, when? And, what are you going to do in the meantime?" At least those are some of the questions I would ask. So, let me see if I can answer them succinctly…
Yes, we intend to go back to Mongolia.
We aim to return to Mongolia in the late summer of 2006.
We will conduct our normally scheduled furlough ministries from June 2004-June 2005.
We will take a year's medical leave from June 2005 to June 2006.
During the year of medical leave, we will continue Elim's therapy, engage in recruitment efforts for the ABWE Mongolia team, and pursue the completion of a master's degree in theology. Our prayer is that, by the summer of 2006, we will be ready to return to Mongolia, better equipped for the task of strengthening and furthering the Mongolian church.
Question: So, you say that the next year will be spent doing furlough ministries?
Answer: Yes. ABWE missionaries generally spend 80% of their careers on their fields of service and 20% in the United States. This time in the States provides them with the opportunity to report to their partnering churches and to share the things the Lord has done. We believe it is an important and essential part of the ministry of missions.
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