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East Asia News!

Newsletter of the Tom and Chris Bracken Families

March/April 2012

To all of our Friends, Family, and Supporters,


Good things are happening in Taiwan. Rejoice with us for the following report:



* A very blessed Turning Point 2012-Taiwan National Conference was held February 17-19. Pastor Don Hyler, of Atwater, California, was with us this year. What a blessing! We are thankful for his anointed preaching and for at least 17 receiving the Holy Ghost!

* Saturday, March 24th, marked the beginning of a new semester of Pentecostal Bible College with 25 students! It was an awesome day of teaching and learning!

* We are now in the last week of preparation before beginning the purchase of our building. We had an architect come and make a safety inspection of the facility and are awaiting his report. We are still short of the goal. Our hope is that some last minute offerings will come in for this over the next few days.



Thank you for your prayers and giving for this major undertaking. We are praying that all of the sacrifice by God's people will translate into many, many souls spending eternity in heaven!



Home of the Pentecostal Bible College of Taiwan and the Tainan Pentecostal Church



Pastor Collins, of Twin Falls, Idaho, handing me a building offering check for $50,000.00!




A former Taiwan Naval Captain, James Ho, who was just baptized-standing with wife, children, and pastor



Pastor Hyler Preaching during our National Conference


Pastor Chris Bracken teaching in the Bible School


Education Dynamics Asia | 6541 Paxton Road | Vicksburg | MS | 39180

The Sticker that Was

Yesterday was interesting. If you follow on Instagram, then you already know this story. Yesterday was spent in the hospital. All day. Because of a sticker. Things started off normally, but took a turn around 6:30. Ethan had a shower then headed off to Abbey's room to get dressed. I assumed that he could handle that himself, so I went off to fix Abbey's hair. The next thing I know, Chris is coming in asking if I have tweezers because Ethan put a sticker in his ear. It seems that instead of getting dressed, he decided to explore Abbey's room and found a sticker. He is six and his sister's room is not a place that we normally let him hang out in alone. For reasons only know to God, he found a sticker and put it in his ear. No parenting manual prepares you for this.

Well, after determining that he could not remove it, Chris and I headed off to the hospital. We dropped Abbey off at the bus stop and dashed over to the local hospital. We thought that they would quickly pull out the sticker and we might still get him to school on time. A small bit of our hope was stolen when they said that we needed to head to the University hospital in our town because they had the doctor that was trained to use the "special tweezers for children's ears". We joked in the car on the way over that he must take them home with him at night because they were so special.

Our first moment of real seriousness came when the doctor, after looking in Ethan's ear, said that if it was too painful for Ethan that they might need to put him to sleep to get it out. We strongly encouraged Ethan to hold still and let the doctor get it out then. He, of course, screamed when the doctor tried to remove the sticker. They sent us down to wait in the ER. Well, the doctor thought that maybe they could just give him a sedative and that might be an easier route. Ethan took the sedative and then woke up fighting when the doctor tried once again to remove the sticker. Except that this time, because of the sedative, he didn't know where he was and why was so many people looking at him and why did his ear hurt. It honestly was a tiny bit funny, because after the doctor quickly determined that they would need to put him all the way under, Ethan still dealt with the sedatives effects for about 20 minutes. He would dose off and they wake up and ask me where he was at and why did he feel dizzy. I would explain and he would then discover the stickers for the heart monitor on his chest and ask about those. After explaining this, he would then tell me how Franklin in one of his books had the same thing. Then repeat 5 more times.



We then waited for three more hours for his stomach to clear out so they could give him a general anesthetic and get the sticker out, once and for all. Silly us fed him breakfast not expecting him to stick something in his ear. He headed in about 12:30 and I was getting nervous when he still wasn't out 30 minutes later. I mean, just pull the sticker out. When he was in recovery and they brought us the sticker, several things suddenly became clear. It wasn't really a sticker. It was a small rhinestone. A small, round, hard rhinestone. To a six year old boy, that is a "sticker". And he had pushed it quite far into his ear trying to get it out before letting us know about it.



We ask him over and over why he would stick something in his ear and he seems to have no idea. At one point, I ask him, "If you could go back, would you stick that in your ear?" His answer? "If I could go back, I would go back to breakfast and tell myself to just go brush my teeth!" That would have been a great idea!

Bee Stories

A friend of mine recently wrote a story about an encounter with a bee. You can read it here. It is a great story! And it jogged my memory about a great bee story that never made it on to this blog. As you have probably noticed, lots of stories about the kids make the blog, but ones about me, not so much. Most things that are blog worthy, I am actively trying to forget. But, here's a little story about how Thanksgiving 2011 went down.

All of the Brackens in Taiwan decided to have a little fun for Thanksgiving. Not the traditional turkey and lounging around the house Thanksgiving for us. We are missionaries. Adventurers. Conquistadors! We planned to head up to the mountains to "Bracken Hole" and BBQ beside the river. Since November is nice and toasty here in Taiwan, we also planned to swim in said river. Well, about two years ago, a typhoon came through and causes massive flooding in the mountains. Unbeknown to us, it wiped out part of Bracken Hole. So, when we realized that place wasn't going to work, we set off to find a new place to BBQ and swim. This actually should have been an easy mission. Except for the flat we got on our car. And the two lug nuts that broke when we were trying to change it. Chris and Dad Bracken set off for the nearest town to get it repaired and Mom B and I ended up setting up an picnic/BBQ area on the side of the road. I think we all thought that the guys would be gone for about 30 minutes. They ended up being gone for close to three hours. Finally, they returned and we attempted to recover the day. Chris grabbed a piece of BBQ chicken and headed over to where the kids were playing to watch them. I joined him to ask all the details concerning the car. Remember that piece of chicken. It comes into play in a moment. Well, while we were chatting I heard a bee buzzing. Not thinking, I casually swung my hand over my head. That was the last thing I did casually for about two minutes. I must have scared the bee, who was sitting on top of my head, because he stung me. Then he got stuck in my hair in an effort to escape. So, during our normal conversation, I suddenly screamed and started hitting the top of my head. Just as Chris was starting to ask me what I was doing, the bee flew out of my hair and straight at Chris. He threw his piece of chicken in surprise. Then he started yelling, "IT'S OUT! IT'S OUT!" in an effort to get me to stop beating myself to death. And that day I learned that bee stings to the head hurt. Really hurt. For three days hurt. And that quite an impression can be made on children if you will scream and beat your head. Also, sometimes God test our thankfulness on Thanksgiving.