Home Church and Help Needed

We have found a church to call home here! As public places start to open again, churches are starting to meet in person. We were prepared for a time of searching, but by God’s grace, He directed us to a local fellowship right away. We are so excited to have a group of people to meet with, who have their own ministries they’re involved in yet are committed to nurturing a church family for their families’ spiritual growth as well. 

Through this church family, multiple ministry opportunities have already opened up for us. Lance has joined a soccer group that meets twice a week led by men who have a soccer ministry with students and juvenile delinquents in the city. As the group is mostly Thai, this also gives him an opportunity to practice language and develop relationships with some locals here. We have also met many families who have had to leave the country we were working in previously because of the rise in persecution there and have resettled here like we did. Whether God led them away before the government told them to leave like He did us, or they were forcibly made to leave, we can relate to their stories and they appreciate having someone to share them with. There are also many families we’ve met who are living here temporarily, waiting until the country they minister in opens up again for them to be able return. Some have been here as long as six months, but came expecting to be here two weeks. Talk about a change of plans and needing to be flexible!  

Our original plan for this year was to intensely focus on language while we had someone help us homeschool our kids. After that we’d start to add in ministry while we continued language learning, increasing one as the other was less needed. As usual with our plans (and most missionaries’ plans), nothing is going to plan of course. In this case, it’s not a bad thing, just a different thing. As you know from previous posts, our homeschool helper couldn’t come over when Thailand closed it’s borders. We’re still hoping she can eventually come, but as we’ve had to readjust our homeschool plans and haven’t been able to have an intensive language learning time yet (both from time constraints and classes being canceled) we have also been able to add in ministry a lot faster than we anticipated or even foresaw as possible. This is super exciting for us to be already doing the work God has burdened us to do. In this, as we see more and more avenues to encourage and strengthen missionaries on the field here or waiting to return, we have already started to identify ways to be more effective and able to do this.

• This is where you come in – we need your help! One of the main ways we’ve started to encourage other missionaries is by having them to our home for the evening. This gives them a night of fellowship, a safe place to share uninterrupted and, if they have kids, a break while their kids play with ours. For singles we love giving them a night with family and have already made plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations with some of the singles we’ve met, so they have someone to celebrate with the day or morning of. We have quickly realized our house, while the perfect set-up layout-wise for hosting, is not well equipped in other ways. I won’t go into all the details, but the house came with one burner to make meals on and no oven. It also came with a temperamental microwave that usually works, so I’ve developed a slightly convoluted way of making a few meals for a group with one burner, and reheating most of it in the microwave so the meal is hot when served. It’s working, but it could work better. We’re also limited to the number of people we can have which could be quickly solved by being able to buy a bigger table with more chairs. All that to say, we do not have the funds for these upfront costs so we’d like to ask you for help if you’re able. Please pray about a one-time gift or adding to your monthly giving for a time to help us with these costs. We estimate the need to be around $1750 for the furniture and appliances needed. Thank you so much in advance. 

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Also if you’re wondering, yes, we are still battling waves of cockroaches in our kitchen. Massive amounts of mint, planted around our perimeter, is my next plan. Surely something will work to save my sanity and lessen the shrieking. Ants have also moved in (to cupboards without food, how does that make sense?) but as they were expected all along, really they’re just 5 months late. The lizards in the house rarely make their appearance in the kitchen but have developed the unfortunate habit of laying eggs in bags of toys. We are currently in the process of outfitting the whole house with plastic, latched, lidded bins for any and all storage. (If you want to give towards this endeavor, we’d take that too.) These also have the added benefit of lessening the aforementioned cockroach-induced shrieks. As I very thoroughly learned in our last country (which also had cockroaches), there’s nothing worse than rummaging around in a lid-less bin of school supplies and seeing a cockroach run away from your hand. I want to shriek again just thinking about it.

Thank you for your prayers and considering helping us with these new ministry costs,
– Ruth, for the Baker family.