There are so many things to adjust to culturally, our heads are spinning trying to reorient ourselves. From being able to see everyone’s face (masks were still mandatory everywhere when we left Thailand), to understanding what everyone’s saying around us, to the small things like knowing you can ask anyone for information and they’ll understand you, it can be pretty overwhelming! The first day here one of our sons asked for water to drink, passing on the other options, “because you can drink it from the tap!” He thought that was so cool, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Lance and I even forget and find ourselves looking for a water bottle so we can brush our teeth.
Part of our photo presentation – soccer with the neighborhood kids in our last country.
We have been busy seeing family, reconnecting with supporters, updating our supporting churches and making connections with other churches. We are so excited to have new churches to speak at and the possibility of a few more to add to our support network. Thank you so much to those of you who were able to connect us with a new church or group to talk to and to our new supporters. We really need those connections and new support.
It has been great, as we’ve put together the presentation about our ministry, to remember all the different areas of ministry we’ve been involved in over the past 2+ years we’ve been in Thailand. During the initial covid shut-downs we were still able to lead a praise and worship evening at a missionary guest house as well as the Sunday morning worship there. We’ve hosted multiple gatherings during major (and some minor) U.S. holidays for single missionaries or couples who had no one to celebrate the day with. We’ve had kids events and ongoing interactions, soccer games and holiday parties for the youth in our neighborhood. We’ve hosted and walked with missionary families, couples, and singles going through hard times, planned events for them and walked with them through their struggles. One summer was spent helping two missions organizations set up guest house quarters for their training needs in Asia and short-term housing and welcoming in the first team to use the facilities. Lance has been involved with a young Thai men’s soccer outreach group and the local community through our visa organization the Future Foundation doing charity work that they’ve organized for a local orphanage, refugees and other’s in our city in need. And, of course, our latest focus of setting up and developing a homeschool helper internship program called Inspire (which has yet to become official – but that’s going to be the name).
Soccer with the neighborhood kids in our current country.
This weekend we head to a summer camp for a few days in Indiana and then on to Tremont, IL to see supporters at both places. The next weekend we’re back at two churches in Pennsylvania to give our update and then to North Carolina and the D.C. area the next weekend and following week after that. We’ll be in Akron, OH for presentations September 4th (Lakeside) and the 25th (an afternoon event) if you’re in that area and would like to hear us. (If you attend a church in the Akron area that would be interested in hearing our presentation, Sunday morning of the 25th we’re still available to speak.) We’re scheduled to speak somewhere almost every Sunday until we leave mid-October, so if you’re interested in hearing our presentation, contact us and we can let you know where we’ll be when. We have yet to nail down a date for our supporters in the Erie, PA area who don’t attend a supporting church but if you support us financially and are in that area we will contact you directly once that’s scheduled. If you know of a church or group who would like to hear what we did when we were in Ch-na and our ministry now in Thailand, we do have one or two Sundays left open and we definitely have many weekdays, Friday evenings or Saturday afternoons or evenings when we can schedule something for a church or small group. Please contact us (lanceandruth@psmail.net or Lance: 814-737-3262) and we can make plans.
Thank you for all of you who have so warmly welcomed us and have joined us in the ministry through prayer and financial support. We so appreciate your partnership.
– Ruth, for the Baker family.