Prayer/financial need
We also want to share a one-time financial need that we have. Our mission in Chiang Mai is to encourage and support missionaries, and to help them stay on the field long term in various capacities. One of the things we encourage missionary families to do is be intentional about self care. Many families attend a debriefing retreat at the front or tail end of their furlough trips; we’ve been remiss in that we haven’t done one of those since 2020 when we transitioned to Thailand!
That in and of itself is one thing, but beyond just “normal” missionary debriefing, Ruth and I (and also our boys) have been through a number of traumas and stresses over the years that we really haven’t processed or grieved well over. Some are things that tend to come with the missionary life, like moving repeatedly, switching countries of service, homeschool difficulties, goodbyes, missing weddings and funerals, etc. But then there are unique things like the missionary training we did in 2014 which was as much a boot camp setting as it was training; isolation and team difficulties when we first landed in our original restricted-access country of service; relationship breakdown with our original sending church (which we ended up leaving) and having to start over again in 2019 with new sending/home church, support raising, etc; surgeries for our son that we had to fly to other countries for; Ruth’s head injury in 2024, etc. Another thing that has really impacted us recently is the death of some dreams we’ve had, like adoption. When you put it all together, we’ve come to realize we really need to do some emotion/soul care work, both for us and our kids.
As we’ve sought counsel with an older more experienced missionary mentor here, he has highly recommended Link Care in California to us. They specifically work with pastors and missionaries doing a four to eight week program for not just debriefing, but in-depth counseling for the entire family, including the kids. We reached out to them, and we feel solid about them being an answer to prayer, but we didn’t budget for this expense and we don’t have the funds for it. It’s expensive (over $10,000 when all is said and done including an on-site apartment, assessments, counseling, etc.). We’ve reached out to supporting churches first, and since we got a positive response, we’ve prayerfully decided to step out in faith and commit to going to the program.
We’ve been counseled that it would be best to add this onto the front end of our furlough trip, so we’ll be starting in late April—which is really soon! Based on the responses from churches and a couple individuals, we’re expecting we might receive enough funds to attend for four weeks, but our desire is to do six weeks, which is what they have recommended for us. So we’re writing here to make this need known, and see if perhaps you, our prayers partners, would feel led to help us with the remaining needed funds. If this is the path God has for us, we know He can provide. If we only have sufficient funds for four weeks, then we’ll go ahead and do that.
If you feel led to give, our preferred avenue for funds is through our support organization—The Central Missionary Clearinghouse: https://cmcmissions.org/donate
Alternatively, go to our Support Us page (upper right) and there is a special link at the bottom for donations towards Link Care, and also on that page you can find the address to simply mail a check to Ruth’s brother if you’d rather go that route. Thank you in advance for praying for us about this, and for standing with us over the years.
In Christ,
-Lance, for the Baker family