Singapore International Bible Institute

Greetings from Singapore! Another month has just become history and so we give our report of such. March was primarily a month of preparation for the future in several ways… some of which is now actively the present.
Due to our soon to expire passports, we have gone through the legal requirements at the US embassy here in Singapore to get them renewed. The processing time was quick with only a week passing before the new ones were issued. I continued in preparations for two near future teaching responsibilities in which I will be teaching in the months of May and June in countries outside of Singapore. I will report later on the May trip due to security reasons. The June trip is an invitation extended to me to speak for the PP youth at the annual church camp to be held in Malaysia. We continued in our tax filing preparations which is a bit more complex because of living overseas. And finally, we were busily preparing for our two visiting teachers who arrived during the fourth week of March. Therefore, much of March was consumed with busy preparations.
Last month we reported about a second planned PP youth intern program while we have the blessing of two visiting teachers (Ed Wharton and John Massie) here with us. This series of studies started this past Monday through Wednesday morning and afternoons with another weekend SIBI course scheduled for a period of three weeks. We are just beginning our second week of the three week series. All combined, this is a six day a week study for those who will attend.

Ed Wharton (above left) teaching Scheme of Redemption, 50 different students have attended this course.  John Massie (above right) teaching Historical Christian Evidences, 26 different students have attended this course.

Ed Wharton has been a Bible instructor at Sunset International Bible Institute in Lubbock, Texas for the past 45 years. He has taught Bible courses and preached on every continent of the globe. Ed is also the author of the book, The Case for Historic Christianity. This is the book that I have been working toward getting translated into the simplified Mandarin language. Ed has also authored several other Bible related books that encourage a deeper study of the word of God
Other news to report for the month of March is that the fourth chapter (of 12 chapters) of the historical Christian evidence book being translated into the Mandarin language has been completed. Also, after not visiting any doctors for many years, I decided it was time to get a routine physical exam done. It seems I am officially entering what many do in the mid life years…. a report of high cholesterol, slightly overweight and borderline high blood pressure, so adjustments in diet, exercise and other preventative measures are in the works.

Family News & Notes

It has been 10 months since we arrived with our suitcases and smiles in Singapore.  Since then we have accumulated much more than our suitcases could ever hold and God continues to multiply our smiles through all the special people He brings into our lives. Although we continue to miss family and friends in the states, being here reaffirms the fact that when you are a Christian, God supplies and blesses you with family all over the world. We are grateful for the hospitality that has been showered on us and the opportunity to experience the closeness and common bond God gives us with brothers and sisters not only from Singapore, but also from, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, India and Indonesia. God‟s family is amazing and our God is even more amazing!

Speaking of family, Shayla woke up a few nights ago—whimpering. I heard her so I went into the kids‟ bedroom to check on her. When I asked her what was wrong she said, “I‟m sad. I miss grandpa and grandma.” Shayla and Jaydon both know of our plans to return for our first furlough in November and December, Lord willing. The only problem is, for little ones, this seems so far away (for big ones too . Months and days mingle into forever—and forever or large numbers are hard to wrap one‟s mind around and comprehend. Case and point—Jaydon asked me if I was close to the age of 100 the other day. He knew I was a large number and he knew one hundred was large. “Thanks buddy,” I said and thought… better talk to his math teacher…oops…that would be me. Cross that one off my list. Mission accomplished. I talk to myself all the time!

At any rate, the kids talk about family we‟ll see when we jump on a jumbo jet quite often now. They talk about things we might do while on furlough, all the people we‟ll see, toys they remember leaving behind, and movies they want to watch again like—“The Ugly Duckling.” We also talk about keeping positive and not getting too sad when things don‟t go as fast or exactly as we want. I tell them that even though we are missing people, we can be thankful that at least we have special people to miss and care about—we would be sadder if this wasn‟t the case.

Besides anticipating and talking about our furlough, another hot topic around our apartment is pets. Jaydon asked me one day,“Mom, does Jesus talk dog?” I told him Jesus could talk and understand any language He wanted to since He made everything and knows everything. Jaydon has been checking out books about dogs from the library and would really like to get a dog for our family pet. We told the kids pet fish would probably be the best choice for now. I don‟t think I mentioned the fact that we did have six pet fish a few months after we arrived. The kids named them all and watched them chase each other around the fish bowl. The fish were so lively. However, they lasted only one day and then sadly one by one they took turns dying. Jaydon said a few words of thanks to God for letting us enjoy each of them for a bit and then one by one we flushed them down our singing toilet (one of our toilets lets out a sort of high pitched hallelujah hum after it has been flushed—which seemed a fitting touch for a fish‟s funeral). Later we learned that our beautiful fish were young “Fighting fish”, something I didn‟t pick up when we were visiting with the pet shop owner in broken English. We haven‟t tried our hand at securing more fish yet—didn‟t want to traumatize the kids if all our fish died so quickly again. Instead Jaydon has had a pet spider for a couple of hours and he had a pet gecko for about 10 minutes. He decided to release his spider in the park and mom made him let the gecko loose. I told him geckos didn‟t make good pets. They are free range critters that hang around on the walls and leave messes that need to be cleaned up. Shayla said, “Maybe „genkos‟ would make good pets if you could train them to use the toilet in the bathroom instead of making a mess everywhere else.”—one reason Shayla stills believes cats rule. If she could choose our family pet, she would choose a pink sparkly kitty cat. We‟ve never seen a pink sparkly one and as long as Jaydon stays allergic to cats and pink sparkly ones remain elusive, we shouldn‟t have to worry too much about Jaydon and Shayla fighting over having cats and dogs—just fighting like them at times.

Well, that‟s the news for this time. May God continue to smile on you and fill your suitcases with not only the necessities of life, but also with the priceless, important things in life—which even the biggest suitcases could never really contain. Know that we love you and that God loves you more. He loves you the most!

Closing Remarks…
As our November and December furlough plans start to develop, we would encourage you to consider which dates would work best for us to visit so we can arrange a schedule that will allow us to see as many of you as possible. The last two weeks of December we plan to spend with family. If you can respond back to us by email with possible dates that might allow for us to meet with you, this will help us in arranging and finalizing our schedule. With all of the churches and Christians who help to support us, we may not be able to schedule a personal visit during this furlough, but we will do our best to schedule a visit during the following furlough. Thank you for your continued faithful prayers, encouragement and support in every way.

Prayer Requests…
* For God to grant us success in registering SIBI with the Singaporean government
* Safety and good health for our visiting teachers
*Recruiting success so SIBI can equip many workers for Asia

Overseeing church:
12th Street church of Christ
P.O. Box 1476
Seagraves, TX 79359
Contact person:
Kenny Smith
Cell Phone: (432) 209-1735
Home Phone: (806) 546-2336
Our Singapore Information
Tom & Nancy Goracke
BLK 60 Teban Garden Road
#17 – 462
Singapore, 600060

                                                                                      Our Love to you… Tom, Nancy, Jaydon &  Shyla 

Tom‟s mobile phone:
(65) 83683213
Nancy‟s mobile phone:                                                                                                                   (65) 83683214                                      

Home Phone: (65) 64981864
Email: twoservants2002@yahoo.com