There is always something happening here to keep us busy, usually something I would’ve never guessed had I thought about it the month before. This month I’ll update you with the things we’ve been doing lately in ministry and next month I’ll go into the major direction God has led us. We’re so excited about it! (All of it, the randomness and the focus.)
Amanda and the boys doing school.
Update on language: We’re learning language best we can in the Covid situation. How successful this is changes month to month (and often week to week) whether or not we’re allowed to have class or meet with a teacher privately. Because of this constantly varying situation, we have decided (and by necessity have had) to learn the language as we go and ministry has become our focus more than language learning this last year. While we still hope to pull back from ministry to focus on language while Amanda is here teaching the boys, we have not yet had the opportunity as no one is currently taking on new students since the Covid numbers are in flux again. (Our last teacher is no longer able to teach us for health reasons.) Hence, we are studying and taking a course on our own, while ministry dominates our time. Since we are mostly involved in working with other missionaries (with English as the language used in common) and we live in a tourist town, we are able to get by with less Thai than we’d otherwise need. However, as we are living in Thailand, we still plan on learning the language, we have just had to accept that it won’t be on the timetable we were hoping to keep (as is ever in life).
We have been hosting non-stop lately. Churches still aren’t allowed to gather again because of number restrictions so we have been having church at our house every other week for the past few months. Lance and I lead worship and then we watch a sermon on Right Now Media. We are so thankful for the electric piano one of our supporting churches blessed us with last year since we can lead worship at our home whenever we have people over for church and events, as well as enabling us to practice for leading at other locations whenever we have the opportunity to serve that way. Sundays at our house have been a great time of fellowship as we have lunch after the service and spend time in discussions about life and struggles. Sometimes the conversations last so long we end up hosting supper too. The boys love those days! One of the families we usually have over is still stuck here in Thailand after coming for a planned two-week trip last March, and are still unable to return to their host country due to Covid and political hindrances. We’re able to relate to their predicament of not having their homeschool supplies with them and having to make do with the resources available until you’re back with your belongings again. At least when we were delayed in the States two years ago we had English libraries available to us and had packed for a three-month stay instead of two weeks!
The boys decorating their bags for the Easter egg hunt we had for the neighborhood Thai and missionary kids.
I forgot to mention the Easter celebration we hosted last month. It ended up being such a large group that we had to completely rearrange our downstairs and bring in a second table. We had our usual group of single missionaries, a few new singles and a couple that runs the missionary guesthouse here in town. We spent last Easter with them when no one was allowed to gather because we were still at the guest house and we reminisced about how life-giving that celebration was for them amidst all the Covid turmoil. We also had an Easter egg hunt at our house (on a different day) for the neighborhood Thai and missionary kids. The kids had fun decorating bags and then searching for eggs all around our house. I had a spread of breakfast baked goods and drinks out so any parents that stopped by had a reason to stay, to give us the opportunity to visit with them awhile. Inevitably, all the eggs weren’t found (though presumably the lizards or ants have found them by now), but everyone had a lot of fun and it provided a great opportunity to build deeper ties to the neighborhood kids and parents. We have had further relationships develop from just this one event which has been super exciting.
Another hosting highlight we had this month was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day on Mother’s Day. Um, yes, you read that correctly. I know, different months and all, but since we were picking up Amanda from Bangkok to Chiang Mai around St. Patrick’s Day and didn’t get to celebrate to the boys’ dismay, we decided to combine the two celebrations with a family who needed a break, giving the mom (and her family) a day off and our kids the StPD celebration they missed. (St. Patrick’s Day is big at our house, being Scotch-Irish on my mom’s side.) It was super fun with games and a ton of food and I know the mom, who’s been through a lot lately, really enjoyed the day with her kids and my kids didn’t miss St.PD after all, so it worked out really well.
My boys made me a Happy Mother’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day sign – bet you don’t have one of those!
One item of business before I sign off: Amanda, our homeschool teacher, is here until December 15th. I will finish teaching the boys for the rest of the year but that means we have the fabulous opportunity for someone new to come over for the ’22-23 school year to homeschool our boys and experience missionary life in Thailand! Aren’t you excited to let everyone you know about this amazing opportunity?!?! Clearly there is only one good answer. Besides homeschooling our boys during the day, Amanda has had opportunities to become involved in ministry with refugees and local Thais while here. So this experience not only gives someone an experience of life overseas and in Thailand but also mission opportunities here beyond our family. If someone is interested in learning through experience more about being a foreign missionary or seeing if that is a direction God is leading them in, living here, with us helping them get settled in for the year, is a way to experience missionary life without having to first determine what organization or direction they want to go in, while still being able to be involved in ministry in a foreign culture. We are actually discussing this opportunity with an organization here about developing a program for young people coming over as a way for them to be involved with missions as an exploratory trip while also supporting the missionaries already on the field in a substantial and widely needed way. If you know of someone who would be interested or would like more information about this opportunity please pass on our email address or contact us at lanceandruth@psmail.net.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support,
– Ruth, for the Baker family.