Life has twisted and turned once again and we will be in the States this summer! Hurray! Most covid restrictions for entering Thailand have lifted so there are very few requirements for us coming back in, no long-term quarantine on re-entry and someone sent us a very generous donation to help with flights, so we will be in the States July through mid-October. 

​Our goal for this time in the States is to update our current supporters and to add new ones through networking, to bring our monthly financial support up to being fully funded by the time we return in October. Please pray with us during this time as we focus on this need.

If you attend a church that supports us, we are working with your leadership to come and do a photo presentation for you of our ministry. We also plan to do presentations at a few supporters’ homes in Erie, Pennsylvania, the D.C. area, and Tremont, Illinois for our supporters in those areas who don’t attend a supporting church. If you would like to see our presentation and aren’t in those areas, please contact us and we can make plans with you to come to where you are.

​If you’re able to host an evening in your home with people who may be interested in supporting our ministry, please consider this as a way to help us raise the support we need to go back to the field. Or if you think your church might be interested in supporting a new missionary family, please put us in contact with your leadership so we can share our ministry with them.

We’re so looking forward to reconnecting with our supporters and seeing our new family members we have yet to meet – three nieces and one nephew! We are doubly blessed as my sister Katy, who is a missionary in Brazil, will also be home for part of the time, so we can see her again too. It’s been over two years since we’ve seen any family members, so we are excited to have the opportunity to come back. Our first few weeks will be spent with family, but we will start visiting churches and speaking by the end of July. 

Thank you for your prayers as we focus on raising the support we need before heading back to Thailand. Being fully funded, instead of living partially supported, will be a huge stressor lifted in our everyday life on the field. We know nothing will be accomplished without prayer, so please join us in praying for this need while we’re here.

Thank you for your prayer and financial support,
– Ruth, for the Baker family.

​We had the privilege of being involved in a home church in the Saraphi district for about seven months, starting last September, while our current church was closed again because of Covid restrictions. Lance had connected with the husband of a family who had just moved here from Brazil for the soccer ministry. Since we knew all the churches were closed, limiting their opportunities for fellowship, we invited them to get together with us one Sunday and found out during that visit that they had decided to solve their fellowship problem by hosting a home church at their house starting the next week until the churches opened again. We expressed our interest in joining them, as getting people to come to our house had been only sporadically successful. The first Sunday we had a wonderful and truly unique time of fellowship comprised of four families: Brazilian, German, Japanese/Thai and us. Lance and I volunteered to do the morning worship time using the portable electric piano one of our supporting churches, Lakeside Christian Church, had gifted us for just such an opportunity. We led the singing, the Brazilian husband taught from James, and we finished the service by sharing prayer requests and praises then praying for each other. This was the pattern for every week that ended with lunch and great fellowship, either bringing food or ordering Thai food and sharing the cost. The group grew to over 30 people towards the end, but in April, as the established Chiang Mai churches reopened, the decision was made to return to a permanent group of worship. It was a treasured time of community and worship with families that we may not end up seeing as often anymore, but will always value as friends. Lance and I thoroughly enjoyed doing music every week. We look forward to travel starting in earnest again so there will be more guests at the missionary guest house here, and we can start up weekly praise and worship evenings there again.

Though hard to classify, another ministry we often find ourselves involved in is one of encouragement. Although it’s not as quantifiable as the previously mentioned 2FoEMLNaMH (still not trademarked), its becoming an ongoing ministry with many of the missionary families and singles we connect with. Having gone through many stressful and overwhelming situations on the field, we have felt how needed and what a substantial blessing it is to have someone take interest in what you’re going through and help in small ways to take some of the burden away. We can’t solve the problems or take away the exhaustion or emotional ramifications, but we can be available to meet for coffee or an evening out to take their mind off the pressures they’re facing. Lance meets more often one-on-one or with a few men in small groups, while I’m more attuned to seeing a family who might have a need we can meet. Throughout the past 2.5 years since being here, we can look back and see this definite pattern emerging, often weekly, throughout our time. Please keep these times of encouragement in your prayers as we seek to know how best to help others. 

Thank you again for your prayers for us and Josiah and for all the financial help you’ve given us during this time.
– Ruth, for the Baker family.

Josiah safely got through his 6th surgery! We haven’t yet seen the doctor, so we don’t have any details, but the nurse said everything went well last night during surgery. Praise God and thank you for all who were praying!

This surgery was unexpected as we thought we were done with his last major one in December, 2017 and the again with a follow up surgery in May, 2018, for a slight correction. We found out recently that part of the surgery done in 2017 wasn’t successful and so necessitated this surgery which will hopefully be his last. 

​As with most things in Asia, nothing is as we expect it to be as Westerners. We had to be to the hospital by 2:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon, for a surgery scheduled for 8:00 p.m. By 3:00 we were checked in, Josiah was hooked up to a large bag of IV fluids and we were in his room. We paid for a private child’s room so that we could stay and sleep with him overnight, so thankfully it was a really nice room with a table and couch. We past the afternoon by playing games and watched a movie to distract us the closer we got to the surgery time.

They took him back for surgery at 9:00 and we waited in his room to hear from them. At 11:15 PM they called to say he was out, everything had gone well and they would be bringing him back to his room for us to see him in two hours after recovery at 1:10 AM, which is what happened. We were told the doctor would come today to check him and give us an update. 

He slept well and has been pretty groggy all day but seems to be doing well otherwise. He’s tired of the bed already but hopefully will be able to sit in a chair or at the table soon. At Josiah’s initial visit, the doctor said he’d be here three to five days, depending on what he found once he started the surgery, so we’ll find out more about how long we’ll be here once we talk to him. Hopefully it will be a short stay!

Thank you so much for your prayers!

The doctor came in around 3:30 this afternoon. He said the surgery went well, so that was good to hear; they did 3 different repairs. Unfortunately, though, he said the stay will be at least 5 days and maybe 7. This was surprising and discouraging for all of us as we didn’t even realize that more than 5 days might be an option. In our minds 3 days isn’t too bad and 5 is no fun but doable but 7 is a serious stay! He’ll check on him again in 3 days and then have a better idea of 5 or 7. He also said he has to be on complete bed rest, so no moving to a chair tomorrow like we hoped. 

Thank you for all your prayers.

Josiah was in the hospital for 8 days before he was able to go home on the 17th. Unfortunately, the first day home on the 18th there was a problem with the surgery site and he had to return to the hospital. He’s now attached to some tubes for two weeks while his surgery site heals but is able to be at home. 

The 19th, was his 15th birthday which was kept very low-key just spending time together, after he fainted in the morning trying to navigate around his tubes. This is highly stressful for all of us, especially as we didn’t anticipate such a long and rough recovery time but thought we’d be finished with this all two weeks ago. He has one week left of being hooked up and on bed rest before being evaluated to see if he needs another two weeks or can recover normally.

Thank you for your continued prayers. 

Josiah is now recovering normally at home. He has to stay calm and not run around or do anything jarring (like wrestling his brothers) but we are glad to be getting back to a normal routine not centered around hospitals or doctor’s visits. 

Thank you to all who prayed for us during this time, his surgery and recovery. We really appreciated it. 

If you’ve followed along with our blog this past year, you might remember us mentioning the idea of wanting to develop a homeschool assistant program for the missionaries here in Asia. The longer we’re on the field, the more missionaries we talk to and discuss the idea with, the more we see the need for this ministry. 

​Our vision for this is two-fold. First, to aid established missionaries on the field by taking on some of the homeschooling burden so they can be more effective in their ministries. This can be needed for many reasons, such as, so the family has more flexibility to minister, opportunity to learn the language, ability to work on a new project that requires more time, to allow greater space for recovery after a particularly hard season on the field, or to provide help with kids who have special needs. 

The second goal is to provide an opportunity for young people or retirees to experience Asia and the realities of living on the field, while also being of immediate service to an established family. Many young folks want to explore whether long term missions might be a direction God is leading them in, but they only have opportunity to take a short trip somewhere, which doesn’t give them the “real” experience of life in another culture; the joys, the struggles, the discomfort, and the rewards of seeing God move, and of having their worldview expanded beyond what might have been possible had they not left their home culture. 

Who this is for: Any believer commended by their home church (college age up through retired person) who is interested in serving missionaries already established on the field as a ministry to them, and thereby indirectly joining them in their work. Someone prepared to make a one-year commitment to live and work in Thailand helping a missionary family with their homeschooling.

What’s required: A willingness to step out of your comfort zone, be flexible in your thinking, and consider new ideas. Willingness to raise financial support through church members, family, or others who may be interested in helping with the financial requirements of the year. Willingness to live on your own or with a roommate paying rent and utilities, shopping for and making your meals and directing your life beyond the homeschool ministry. Willingness to intentionally plug into the community available for fellowship and everyday life beyond the family you’re serving, approach daily life problems with an adult problem-solving mindset, and to strive daily to be a blessing to the family you are paired up with.

What ISN’T necessarily required: People trained to be teachers or who have curriculum prepared. People with previous experience homeschooling. People who have already lived in a foreign culture.

What we provide: We will assist with visa application for the year, financial budgeting, matching the assistant with a homeschool family, help with choosing rental housing, showing how to get around Chiang Mai and get groceries, where some church locations are, and where/how to potentially get connected with peers for community. We will encourage the homeschooling family to help you with these adjustments as well, providing resource options for your interests and even ministry beyond their family. 

What helping looks like: You will work out with the family you’re helping what helping looks like for them. In some cases it may mean teaching alongside the parent, watching the younger kids while the parent schools the older ones (some families have a lot of kids), daily teaching of multiple children, working with one special needs kid while the others are in school, or many other situations as unique as each family. What it looks like for each assistant will vary depending on each family’s needs. The family will provide the curriculum for their children from which the assistant will teach and plan lessons in the style of homeschooling and class structure the parents prefer.

This is just a quick overview, but please feel free to link anyone who’s interested to this page, and then they can inquire directly via email at lanceandruth@psmail.net for more info to move forward in the process if they feel led to do so!

Blessings
-Lance, for the Baker family

Hello! This month I was hoping to update you further about the progress we’ve made with the homeschool helper program and more details about what it involves. However, unfortunately, our whole family came down with Covid this month. Thus, meetings were cancelled, and I’m just glad I have a few minutes right now with my brain functioning in hopes of getting this update written before I go back down again. It’s been a rough past week, one of our kid’s temps spiked to 105° at one point, but thankfully the kids are now mostly back to normal again. (What passes as normal for them…) Lance says he’s about 80% better and I’m hoping since they’re all recovering, that I’ll start to do so soon as well. Thanks to all of those who were praying for us, who heard we were sick from our families. So, since I can’t give you the homeschool helper update I had planned on, let me share with you the other prayer request and ongoing concern we have on our hearts. 

​Here’s the deal: Two years ago we were able to come to the field through a one-time generous donation from a church close to our heart who had to sell their building. Though we weren’t at our full monthly support level, this gift made up that deficit and allowed us to come to the field for two years, at the end of which we planned to return to the States to update our current supporters and raise more support. We would still like to do this, however, with the current Thailand restrictions for re-entry, (which change constantly) the cost is beyond our reach for a family of 5 needing to quarantine on the way back in after a trip to the States.

Anyway, what we’re up against is this: We live on about half the monthly support level as all the missionary families we’ve talked to around us. This greatly restricts what we can do on a daily basis. We also know that families that are under-funded don’t have much longevity on the field compared to those who are appropriately-funded. Additionally, now that we’re moving towards getting this homeschool helper program up and running, we need to make sure our monthly support level is where it needs to be, so we can be confident about the ability to follow through on our commitments and be here for those who depend on us.

Here’s how we could use your help:  1.) If you’re reading this blog and don’t already support us, please consider it. Any recurring amount makes a huge difference!  2.) We need help networking. Most people aren’t interested in supporting missionaries they’ve never met, without a personal recommendation from someone they trust. Would you be willing to think through your circle and consider if there’s anyone you could put us in contact with, who might be interested in joining our ministry through financial support? Definitely we’d like to connect with more churches, but beyond that, any Sunday school, homeschool or small group, bible study, or individuals looking to support a family in Asia working with people who focus on reaching unreached and unengaged people groups would be a great connection for us. If you do know of someone who might be interested, you could tell them about our ministry, connect them to our blog, and send us their contact info so we can follow up; we would really appreciate it. 

Finally, to those of you who do support us financially and through prayer, THANK YOU SO MUCH. This ministry God has us doing physically is just as much your ministry through your finances and prayer. Those called to stay in the States and use your financial resources to send people to the field is just as important as those called to go, otherwise (obviously) we couldn’t go. I hope you feel that. I hope you know your willingness and involvement is just as much needed as ours. We don’t see this as our ministry that you help support. We see this as a cooperation between some of God’s family to do some of the work He wants done using the individual resources He’s given each of us. Us to go, you to send. So, thank you for your work with us.

Thank you for your consideration in this. God knows who He wants to join with us in this ministry and we look forward to seeing who He has set apart for the task. 

– Ruth, for the Baker family.

If you’re not sure what to tell people potentially interested, this is a quick summary you can use: We work with missionaries on the field serving in closed countries or with unreached people groups as a “first line of defense” to support, encourage, strengthen and equip them on the field in ways their sending churches and supporters at home aren’t able to do because of distance and logistics. Our current project is working in partnership with an organizations to bring in short-term homeschool helpers to Asia who want exposure to living on the field and can be of immediate service to an established missionary family, giving the family deeper and more flexible ministry opportunities. We also have a neighborhood ministry with the kids in our area and are able to reach out to their parents and relatives through this as well. For more information you can send them to our blog: www.lanceandruth.com and if they want monthly updates they can ask to be added to our email list through this email address: lanceandruth@psmail.net.

Do you know anything about homeschooling? If so, you know what a full-time job it is for the parent teaching. Whether you have one or many, homeschooling is never easy long-term. Add in regular life, household management and parenting and you can very quickly get overwhelmed. Now, add in ministry, living in a foreign culture and no easy access to, well, anything in English actually (from libraries to supplemental material to actual curriculum) and you quickly have a recipe for very high stress levels. High stress in one parent leads to high stress for the other, the kids, the whole family, the ministry; life and ministry can quickly spiral down from there. In an effort to alleviate this stress and support families on the field in their ministries, we are developing a homeschool helper program.

Our second homeschool helper, Sarah, arrived recently through the organization TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission). We are so excited she’s here! She is a sweetheart and good fit for our family. She flew into Chiang Mai (our city) February 9th after a 7-day mandatory quarantine period at the beach (not a bad deal there), and we have spent this past month getting her set up with all she needs to live here and started with the boys’ lessons. If you’ve followed our blog this past year, you’ll know we had our first homeschool helper, Amanda, here for 9 months. Through this initial experience and now with Sarah, we developed an understanding of some of the logistics required to do this with more helpers for more families.

As we develop this homeschool program, we need an organization such as TEAM to do the Stateside logistics (processing support money, medical insurance, references and all the other details that need to happen before they come.) Then, Lance and I will handle most of the logistics in Thailand (host family placement, housing, cultural acclimation, visas, etc.) Obviously all of this will take a lot of planning, refining and, most importantly, prayer. Please keep this new program in your prayers as we start this process. Pray for our planning, the people God would have come and those here who need the help. Pray that He would guide us in all of this and prepare everyone involved for this ministry.

Thank you for your continued financial and prayer support,
– Ruth, for the Baker family

January is turning into the month to give you details about December, since December is the month when we do our year-in-review post. However, now we also do a lot of ministry during that month, thus, the apparent advent of January’s December’s update post. 

​December 15th was Amanda’s last day here in Thailand and she was back in the States in time to celebrate the holidays with her family, and then will continue her college classes this coming year. Her last week was filled with the logistics of closing down her apartment, meeting with immigration to properly close down her visa (since she was leaving before it expired) and the myriad of other details involved in leaving a country you’ve lived in for an extended period of time plus following the covid requirements she had to fulfill to fly internationally. We had a really nice going away celebration with her and another family at a restaurant in the night market and enjoyed walking through the stalls together afterwards. Her last day was spent playing games with us here at the house before her plane flew out and we were glad to have one last time with her to enjoy hanging out before she left. Keep her in prayer as she adjusts to life back in the States with a totally different routine and way of life. Reverse culture shock is definitely something not to underestimate.

Much to our surprise, this December’s holiday celebrations (which I’m not sure why I don’t expect this as a matter of course already) were nothing like last year. While we intended to follow the same pattern as last year of having the singles over who don’t have family to celebrate Christmas with, many of them were out of the country or had ministry plans for the day with their organizations and couldn’t come. As is typical with our life, one thing led to another and while we did have one gentleman stay with us for Christmas Day, our biggest outreach ended up being a refereed neighborhood soccer game organized in the park across from us on the 26th with Christmas cookies and snacks in our driveway afterwards. This was a smashingly huge success and we met many adult neighbors, Thai and (non-missionary) Westerners, who had heard about the match and came to watch or cheer on the kids they knew. Many people thanked us for the work we’ve done to establish a community among the kids in the neighborhood, consequently bringing everyone together. Thai culture is not one of interacting with your neighbors (due to how they define politeness towards neighbors), so this is a unique thing to have developed here and they are enjoying it.

You never know who you’re going to meet here since many Westerners who have lived overseas through the military or other careers often come to retire in Thailand. The man who reffed the game (a retired British engineer whose nephew is one of the Thai kids that play with our boys) introduced us to another retired friend of his in the neighborhood about whom they are doing a documentary of his life. Among other things, he told us that he had flown for Qatar. We assumed he meant the airlines until he clarified, no, for the king, as in, he flew for Qatar the country as the king’s personal pilot. Oh, of course he did. His lady friend, who was quite a character herself, invited us over to stop in and visit someday, so we’re looking forward to furthering this friendship in hopes of spreading the light to them. 

New Year’s, again, turned into nothing like we assumed at the beginning of the month but was a brilliant evening, again with the neighborhood kids. After our other plans didn’t materialize, we scoured the surrounding stores for glow sticks during the week between Christmas and New Year’s (I told the boys next year we’ll plan ahead better, but can I really assume the same thing will happen again?) and planned games and fireworks in the neighborhood park. We started the games at 8 so the younger kids could join in the fun and after they headed home with their parents, the older teens played table games with our boys in our living room until midnight. It was such an entertaining time of wild games in the dark with the glow sticks (what could be better?), balloons, screeching and laughter. The boys got to include a lot of the younger kids who don’t usually get to join in the soccer games and we got to know the older kids better over snacks when they joined us inside before the other games. It was such a fun night and I hope we can turn it into a regular tradition for the boys – or if not, it is definitely a great memory!

As for all the bazillion Christmas cookies I baked earlier in the month, assuming to send them home with the singles after each celebration like last year, I was able to bless a few missionary families in the area who were new or unable to bake this year because of circumstances, so that turned out as well.

This year we hope to have enough ministry funds to seed our yard and get an awning so we can host the kids and others at our house (and not just the park.) Right now the yard consists of a small strip of dirt that turns into a muddy, sloggy bog during the rainy season. With proper drainage and grass it would be a useable area and we could host things that can’t be done at the park. As Thailand is mostly hot year-round, without an awning over some area of the yard, it also can’t be utilized because of the the extreme sun here. As a reference, Thailand sits on the same latitude as Sudan, Mali and Belize. Please pray with us for our neighborhood ministry and future planning.

Thank you for your ongoing prayer and financial support,
– Ruth, for the Baker family.

It’s December again! How did we get here so fast? We use our December blog post for a review of the past year. If you want a quick overview of our ministry, you can read all our December posts, starting with 2015 (’15-’18 are password protected because of the location of our last ministry; contact us for the password if you’re interested in reading those).

​This year we’ve been able to participate in a wide range of ministries, some of which we wouldn’t/couldn’t have foreseen. We love having the ability to volunteer our help wherever we see a need, with whomever needs it. We absolutely see the need for the people here who are ministering within prescribed job descriptions through their specific organizations, but we’ve also clearly seen how we, and other families like ours, are so helpful in assisting these ministries, and are free to be able to, since we aren’t constrained by a specific job title. It has been a great year of networking, helping, encouraging and supporting the ministries around us.

​The beginning of this year was spent working out logistics and details for getting multiple visas. We needed to get two visas for Amanda, our hopeful homeschool helper, one for her to get into the country and then another one to let her stay longer than 30 days. We also needed to find a permanent visa solution for our family since our student visa expired in March. With studious effort and the fortitude it takes to work out the ever-changing logistics of Asian governments, Lance was able to find practical solutions for both situations. We are now on a permanent volunteer visa with The Future Foundation established by a local believer here in Chiang Mai.

After a year of waiting because of covid, we were able to get Amanda here to be our homeschool helper for the year. She was a huge blessing to us and boys and we were privileged to share this time of her life. She arrived in March and after a few months with a roommate, we found her an apartment close to us that she stayed in for the rest of her time here. She made great friends with other young singles in the Christian and Thai community and had the opportunity to serve in many areas beyond our family. Her service with us in homeschool allowed Lance and I to be involved with Frontier Ventures and other ministries that we otherwise wouldn’t’ve been able to consider. She went back to the States on December 15th and we miss her already! (I feel like I’ve misplaced my niece or something. It’s strange to not be considering if she’d like to join us for something or how we need to coordinate schedules.)

Our huge project this year was helping the organization Frontier Ventures (FV) establish their Asian headquarters here in Chiang Mai. They not only will be the Asian hub for FV bringing in and supporting their missionaries throughout the Asian countries they reach but also a resource for other organizations who are bringing people in by housing, training and offering support alongside FV’s own work. After setting up the office and boarding rooms, we worked with FV to help coordinate and house a short-term team coming in through another organization, TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission). Through this collaboration we connected with the next young lady, Sarah, who will be joining us in 2022 as our next homeschool helper (Yay!) and are in discussions with TEAM about a possible collaboration between us and them to develop a homeschool helper program in partnership with them that we will lead to help support other homeschooling families on the field. Please pray for this possibility that God will lead us all as we seek His will and guidance in this endeavor and collaboration.

Our house has seen an enormous amount of hosting this year, especially during major holidays as we use those times to encourage the single missionaries or missionaries new to the area who don’t have anyone to celebrate with. This year we had major events at Easter, Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s as well as other events scheduled throughout the year to encourage missionaries or reach out to the neighborhood kids that weren’t centered around a holiday. It’s too much to cover each one here, so if you’re interested in details and missed them the first time around, skim through our past year’s posts for an overview.

We’ve built a ministry with the neighborhood kids that we’ve worked on to develop since we’ve arrived. This year we’ve watched it finally come together into somewhat of an ongoing interaction/outreach opportunity as we have conversations and play soccer (which we’ve been fully subverted into calling football) often on a daily basis. Through intentional decisions that initially gathered in the kids, we’ve established our house as the center for the activities, giving us ample opportunities to speak further into their lives through everyday interaction and planned events. See our upcoming January post for more details about our latest planned activities with the kids in December.

Finally, for those of you who have supported us this year through prayer, monthly financial support and one-time or year-end financial gifts, we can’t thank you enough for your partnership with us in this ministry. Obviously, we couldn’t be here without you, and in this you are just as much an integral part of this ministry as we are. May God richly, richly bless you for your partnership with Him in His ministry with us, as we all seek to serve Him in the specific ways He’s equipped us to do so: us by going, you by sending. We can’t adequately articulate how blessed we know we are to be on the field serving. We are humbly thankful for this call on our lives and your partnership with us as we serve Him together. Thank you again; we can’t ever repay what your support means to us so we can only be glad that one day He will. 

– Ruth, for the Baker family.

What would you do if you found yourself in Asia, having never been in your life, two days before a major holiday that revolved around food and you didn’t yet even know where to buy groceries? I think I would cry if it I hadn’t thought about it ahead of time, wanting to be able to bless my family, but knowing I couldn’t accomplish it. That’s pretty much the response our new friend, Ann, had when she realized that, now that they were out of quarantine, it was only two days before Thanksgiving, she was just landing in a new city with her family and had yet to even see where they were staying, let alone know where to buy food if she even knew how to navigate around! Thankfully for them, God had arranged for us to find out about their arrival the day they flew in. I “happened” to run into a friend of ours as he was on his way to the airport to take them to their temporary housing until they find a permanent place to stay. I asked him what the family was doing for Thanksgiving and he gave some sort of half response about when he asked that of their supervisors, they thought the family would probably be too tired to celebrate anyway, something, something… What?!? One of the big things you hear about longevity on the field is to try and keep your traditions and culture within your family for positive mental health. You came from a background unique and special to you, remembering and celebrating that is an encouragement when everything around you is so foreign. I realize sometimes I get more excited about holidays than some, but for a family to be stuck in (not even) their house for the day knowing that everyone is celebrating at home and probably around the city but not knowing anyone to celebrate with or have the ability to do so on their own sounded like a terrible idea to me! So, of course, I told our friend to let them know they were more than welcome to join us for Thanksgiving, but to let me know as soon as possible and we’d just “add more water to the soup” as my grandpa always said. …then I went home to tell Lance I’d invited another family bringing our total up to 18…

​They did come and we had a great time getting to know them and celebrating all together. Most of our single friends were busy or out of the country but that ended up working out well so that we had room for the extra family. Besides two singles, we also had another family who I’ve mentioned before who are still stuck in this country still unable to return to their country of ministry, their life still in limbo. It was a great night of fellowship, sharing outrageous or typical (and still outrageous) or unexpected, or what-to-expect stories of Asia with the new family. Amanda (our homeschool helper) had great experiences to share being the newest to Asian culture and I loved hearing things from her perspective and being reminded of Asian uniqueness that I now see as regular life. She has been to places in Chiang Mai we have yet to visit and four of us ladies were able to plan a trip to one of the night markets here for Korean barbecue and shopping with her. 

The evening ended with lots of leftovers sent home and the blessing you get from a great time of fellowship. The new family was so thankful to be invited and we were so blessed to already have the plans in place so we could include them in our celebration. We offered to help them get settled as they start to learn how to navigate life here, and we have already been able to help them since then with a few things. Despite it being a completely different day from last year, we once again had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Thank you for your continued prayers and financial support.
– Ruth, for the Baker family

An exciting ministry has developed with our neighborhood kids. When we first arrived, we weren’t sure a neighborhood ministry involving our boys was even possible as we only saw small kids and adults. We started taking walks around the area to see if we could meet anyone and after a few months we finally met two boys our kids’ age and talked to their families a few times. We also started playing soccer as a family in the grassy area across the street from our house, hoping to invite any kids as they went past. The first few times the kids declined, but eventually one joined in and we were excited when he began joining more regularly. With persuasion a second boy joined, the group slowly grew, and thus started what is now a complicated but exciting ministry. 

​From the first two boys, others started showing up to play four square on the street in front of our house or soccer across the street at the park. We bought soccer balls, playground balls, frisbees and other outside toys to encourage the kids to get together. At first we also bought snacks and bottled water for our boys to share, but quickly realized we couldn’t maintain that since they ran through them too quickly for us to afford. We switched to a water station outside on a table under our overhang and installed a water cooler with paper cups for the kids to use even if our boys aren’t outside. With the heat, it is a much used commodity and there’s something irresistible about free anything for the kids, so even those who used to bring water bottles to the park now come and get water from us. It is not uncommon to come home to a driveway full of bikes, skateboards and kids all drinking water and hanging out with our two cats.

​We also set up a foot washing station for the kids for when they get super muddy in the ditch across from our house so they can come and hose off. We’ll also come home to muddy barefoot prints all over our carport and know that the neighborhood kids must’ve been in the ditch while we were gone and needed to clean off before they went home. Almost daily we have boys of all ages buzzing at our gate to see if they can play with our boys and little girls (a cute group of 5-6 years olds) buzzing to see if they can play with our cats. (At least they’re not buzzing for the boys yet!) Having cats as pets is fascinating to them. Some of the kids are scared of them, and then we’ve seen Thai parents posing their little kids with our cats in the park to take pictures. I shouldn’t be surprised since they have cat cafés here where you can buy a coffee then pet a cat for an extra charge. Micah uses the kid’s skittishness to his advantage and will hold a cat while they’re playing tag to keep from being chased…

From all this our house has become the center of activity for the kids in the area and whether or not our boys can come play, our driveway and street in front of us are usually littered with bikes, toys, balls and kids. Thankfully there are only 3 other houses on our street, and since we don’t get through traffic, it’s a safe place to gather. We’ve gone from 3 kids coming to our Easter egg hunt last April to an average group of about 10 or more kids hanging out playing soccer or tag ranging in ages from 5-16, and ethnicities just as diverse. One boy is Thai adopted into a German missionary family, two are adopted from Nigeria into an American missionary family, a group are Thai nationals, some are Chinese, and a few are half Thai/half Western ex-military non-Christians making for a very interesting dynamic as we seek to help our boys navigate real life and ministry among a diverse group of kids from varying and sometimes opposing cultures and belief systems. Besides his regular interaction (soccer games and sometimes teaching soccer drills), Lance makes sure to go out and join a game when we hear of a new kid joining the group to make sure we know all the kids and so they know us, and I’ll bring out a batch of cookies when they’re all gathered around our gate so I can meet them and get to know them better too. 

Interesting, scary, exciting, challenging, all of these words simultaneously apply when I think of my kids interacting with these kids. After gaining the password for our wi-fi from a shared group Minecraft adventure, we’ve had to figure out how to deal with kids sneaking digital devices from their parents to then sit outside our house using our wi-fi with out permission (which ended up crashing our system, keeping us from being able to get Amanda onto it and took months to straighten out). On more than one occasion the boys have run home to tell us about what the other boys are setting on fire (from string to aerosol cans) and asking if it’s safe. Through their conversations the boys discuss their beliefs and learned one kid believes in all gods: Buddha, Christ and the ancient Greeks. And we’re currently trying to navigate and talk them through dealing with one kid and his dad who’ve become bullies to the group. Being only eight years old, the kid isn’t much of a physical threat yet, but his dad is another story who threatened to beat up a 13 year-old when his son accidentally got hit with a ball during a game. Our whole supper conversation last night was about how to handle this situation, the various mindsets of adults and kids, interactions and likely outcomes between said mindsets and how it applies to bullies, our family, and the larger group. I wondered what their response would be to this latest development. My boys surprised me when, eye’s glowing, faces excited, their agreed commentary was that they are excited to have a ministry with the kids that is their own, instead of just watching us do ministry and occasionally being able to help. They literally verbalized it that way – I was surprised at their vehemence and proud of their desire to do ministry! Increased life complications from random neighborhood kids notwithstanding, that made it all worthwhile.

​Thank you for your continued financial and prayer support.
– Ruth, for the Baker family.