Dear Family and Friends,

God is good. We were spared the worst of Irma, and we are praying for the folks down south where the Category 4 hurricane hit, mainly the Keys and then the Governor’s home town of Naples, on the southern mainland coast. People on the Florida east coast had been prepared for the worst, but she decided to go up the west coast. Tampa and St Pete were expecting major chaos, but instead of going westward as predicted, she went straight up the peninsula to towns between here and Tampa. So we in Orlando area really got it from what was now a category 1, at 80+ mph with gusts over 100.

Good Morning, Family and Friends,

Reporting from NTM Homes, Sanford, FL. Irma has landed. The category 4 hurricane is bringing winds of sustained 130 mph and they have hit the Florida Keys. As it hits the mainland later on, it will still be a Cat 4. It will make a bee line along the west coast to Tampa/St. Pete. Praise the Lord, the eye of the storm seems to be off shore, but the winds will reach out for miles, and of course that includes us in Central Florida and even counties on the east coast. Already they have rain and wind and warnings of tornadoes there.

Dear Family, Friends and Faithful Supporters, 

We think of you all more often than we write and wonder how life is going for you these days. Some of you probably have some physical complaints as we all seem to have as we age. Still there are better things to talk about, but we do wonder how best to pray for each other. We all have concerns for different ones in our families, especially as the Lord’s coming could be soon. That coming surely can’t be very long now. It does inspire hope during these days of dire warnings—the collapse of the dollar, the government wanting to confiscate our retirement funds, also seeming progress toward the evil “one world order.”

Dear Friends and Family,

New Year’s greetings to you all; the Year of our Lord 2017. I returned from Papua New Guinea just before Christmas, so we missed getting out a Christmas letter. We do hope you had a blessed Christmas with family, lifting up the Name of the Reason for the Season. I’m glad to hear so many more people these days saying the full name, CHRISTmas. No matter what else they might call it, it all comes back to HIM as the purpose for and the object of the celebration.

Dear Family, Friends, and Faithful Supporters,

We think of you often but have been waiting on more definite news before writing a news letter. Corinne’s hip replacement is doing fine. She is able to cope fairly well, so I have peace about pressing ahead with plans for my trip to Papua New Guinea.

Dear Family and Friends,

Now that we have Email and internet connection back we have no excuse for not writing and bringing you up to date on our doings and happenings.

On Saturday the 18th at 4 PM we had a monstrous storm and the lightning was getting closer and closer to us. I, Tom, was in a hurry to leave the house for quartet practice and managed to unplug our computers and that was all. While I was gone a tremendous crack and bang occurred, and Corinne said it sounded like it hit in our attic, it was so close. Well, it did affect our house and many other houses in the neighborhood. Our TV was put out and had to be repaired, telephone was cooked, must replace it. The modem that controls the phone and internet also burnt out and that is under order. All the keys in the key of “F” on the organ were knocked out. I discovered that the lightning had hit the top of a pine tree behind our house, took a narrow strip of bark off, all the way to the ground. The tree is OK, but sadly, our pawpaw (papaya) tree, heavily laden with developing fruit, broke in half and fell to the ground – so there went some future papaya for us and our neighbors. Well, Tom Bittner, one of our maintenance men here, used his Sunday afternoon to help all of us in any way he could. Thank you, Tom.

I’m sure many of you are wondering what these Palmers are up to, and are praying for God’s direction and blessing in our lives. We do appreciate every one of you and covet His blessings for you.

On April 19th we celebrated our 60th anniversary. We would have liked to have a family reunion at this time, but we knew that Jim and Judy would already be back in PNG. So we got together for a precious, enjoyable time in July last year – 28 years since our last complete family reunion. At that time we included all our grandchildren – Judy’s and Joel’s. David and Duane were still single. This time we had only our 4 children with 2 of their mates, without our 16 grands and 7 greats.

Dear Family, Friends and Faithful Supporters,

Prayer and praise points are underlined.

We think of you all more often than we write and wonder how life is going for you these days. Some of you probably have some physical complaints as we all seem to have as we age. Still there are better things to talk about, but we do wonder how best to pray for each other. We all have concerns for different ones in our families, especially as the Lord’s coming could be soon.

Tom’s second brain surgery

Greetings to all. You all know about Tom’s first brain surgery, but I have not yet told you of his down turn and need of a second surgery. (Read the July 26 update if you want background information about the first surgery.)

Just after I wrote the good news of how great Tom responded after his surgery I received the bad news. About 8 the next morning the hospital called me and told me that Tom had a down-turn and I should come immediately. Lynne White drove me to the hospital right away. During the night all seemed to be fine. At 6 Tom was able to take his medicine for his restless leg. But right after that he became unresponsive. They could not awaken him or get any response from him. That is when they called me.

Tom’s brain surgery

Greetings to all.

I think it was about the night of the 18th that Tom had a bad headache and vomited his supper. We did not go to church the next day. Tom slept all day and then again that night. The days following he had severe headaches and more vomiting. He seemed to be a bit better but on the 23rd we tried to see our primary doctor. He had just returned from vacation and was all booked up. We were told to call the next day to see if there was a cancellation.. There was the next afternoon. The doctor checked Tom over pretty well, had a sample of blood taken and gave him containers for a stool specimen. He said he would probably get the results on Monday, the 27th. We called him before 5 since he had not called us. He said the results had come but he had not had time to look them over. He said he would that night. The next day the nurse said they wanted to redo those 2 tests. It showed his iron was slightly low and to go buy some supplement that had iron in it. He was to come get another container for another stool test. However, Dad’s headaches were not improving and our nurse neighbor wanted to ask some other questions and went with me to pick up the container. Tom was going to go but he just kept falling asleep in his chair and was not washed or dressed, so we went without him. The nurse went with me to the doctor’s when I went for the container. I said I wanted to speak with the nurse so I could ask some questions. She finally said, “Just take him to the ER.” So we went home, threw a few things for Tom in a bag, took him in his bathrobe and slippers to the ER about 5:30 that evening. That was Wed. the 29th.

It is good to be Home Sweet Home again after 10 days in the local hospital. Now, we apologize that some of you have not heard about our latest health episode, so, I, Tom will review for everyone from the start. We praise the Lord for reasonably good health for our octogenarian years. All glory to Him. However, recently I was having problems with digestion and elimination so I went to our GE doctor for his help and begged for whatever checkup or test he could give me. There seemed to be some blockage. He decided to do the the full colonoscopy, even though the last one was only 3 years ago.

Dear Friends and Family,

My how the weeks fly by! Well, at our ages we are noticing how they pass so quickly in months, and even decades and… We could go on, but you know what we mean. Anyhow, with time marching on comes the consolation that the coming of our Blessed Hope is that much nearer. And with aging comes the realization that it won’t be long before we see Him either by death or by meeting Him in the air.