Meeting with the South American Frontier Ventures team at the FV facility for prayer and planning. O’B is the gentleman on the right.
We have been partnering with an organization called Frontier Ventures and have a lot of news to share about them. The story of how we’ve come to be involved with them twists and turns like any typical God-led story so I’ll give you the brief overview. When we moved to Thailand in March, 2020 we stayed at a missionary guest house while getting our house ready for us to move into. This was during the initial covid lock-down here, so we were at the guest house with a group of other people either stranded in the country or newly arrived like us but with no place to go. While there, we met an older gentleman named O’B (for O’Brian) who was newly arrived in Thailand and we learned he was setting up a hub in Asia, for an organization called Frontier Ventures, in order to better support their missionaries in the surrounding closed countries reaching UUPGs and
FPGs (technical terms missionary-types use to denote people groups and tribes who have no gospel influence, search it for more details). When we initially talked to him, he focused on the ministries they do with the people they want to reach, not the missionaries they’re trying to help, so at that time Lance and I had no idea his goal was so aligned with what God has called us to do. He focused on talking about
The Joshua Project, which is one of Frontier Ventures more well known ministries.
Another day of work at FV with O’B and a family he knows from Ch/na. The lady made us a Ch/nese meal for our lunch, complete with Durian pizza. Durian is a smelly fruit that they love to put on pizza. I like it on pizza as a novelty, but some of us aren’t as keen.
Fast forward a year later and O’B called Lance up to get together for lunch. Since O’B is one of our regular single guests at our holiday celebrations, we assumed he was just calling to catch up, and we had come to mind since we had just invited him to our Easter celebration. Imagine my surprise when Lance came home from lunch to tell me that O’B said he’s had us in the back of his mind for a year while getting his org established here in Thailand, and he’d like to pursue partnering with us. When Lance started to describe the work he’s establishing and where he hopes to go in the future I couldn’t believe how perfectly what he’s doing aligns with what we want to do to help missionaries.
O’B is establishing a base here in our city for Frontier Ventures to use as central hub for missionaries going out or already established in the surrounding closed countries of Asia. Through this hub, FV will advise, network, support, train, encourage and work with missionaries from their organization, as well as partnering with other sending organizations, to offer them the same assistance with their missionaries.
Lance getting 14 sets of keys made for the FV office. In Thai culture it is very rude if you don’t take your shoes off before entering a building. This man takes his shoes off (right of picture) before entering his little business.
Among other things being discussed and prayed about, a large part of the work O’B is focussing on right now is prayerfully moving toward cooperation with CMA churches in South America, with the help of another family here from Ecuador and a woman here from Brazil, to be the catalyst and first stop for their missionaries as they come to the field in Asia.
During this time of set-up, we are helping O’B get his office established and up and running. He has already set up a partnership with another org here, TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission), and will be hosting a short-term team they’re bringing in for the summer. Lance and I are helping him brainstorm and solve all the details this will involve, as well as purchasing all the supplies needed to do this. It’s literally an empty set of offices that we’re turning into a bunch of rooms for the people to stay in with a meeting room and a dining room. We’ll let you know how that’s all working out next month.
Thank you for your continued prayers,
Ruth, for the Baker family.