January’s December’s Update

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.