A Time of Surrender

God guides our steps, he is sovereign over all. Our trip to the Middle East was no exception, nor was the last few months in Trang.

Hanging out with our new staff Jaz, together with the local neighborhood kid Samui!

Well folks, it's only been a couple months since I've last written, and it's been incredibly eventful! From getting in a car wreck to going on an outreach to a new region, there have been many twists and turns. Through all the good and bad, highs and lows, God has proven himself worthy to follow yet again. I've been brought to tears over and over by the kindness of the Lord. How despite small failures with huge consequences he is so kind as to protect and care. How he remains faithful after three and a half years to bring me to a place he promised. How in our pursuit of him he guards us against the enemy. The rubber is hitting the road in regards to ministry and gospel work here in Trang. The enemy hates it. Despite his attempts against us, God is all the more glorified.

January 20, 5:26pm

Braden's poor car. The impact was on the passengers side.

That Monday I was headed home from Surat Thani. The sun had begun to set and it was the end of a long two day trip to learn more about university ministry in Thailand. Seated in the passenger seat was a friend from the States. Joy had come to scout our location as a potential place to move long term. We had a good trip so far and were excited to get home and share everything we had learned, as well as give Braden's car back to him after he let us borrow it for the weekend. At 5:26pm, I took a right turn across traffic and Joy cried out. As I turned to look, I realized that I had completely failed to see a pickup truck coming full speed towards our car.

It took about 20-30 minutes for us to get to the hospital. Once we were there, Joy and I got a lot of tests done, figured out Braden's car insurance for the hospital, Joy got 20 some stitches, and we got settled in for the night. I thank God we weren't hurt as bad as we could have been. Joy had a concussion, stitches, and the gnarliest collection of purple bruises I've ever seen. After we were let out of the hospital, we moved into Braden's house. Don't worry, we didn't wreck the house too. We actually tried to leave it much better than we found it.

The truck that hit us, naturally repairs were quite expensive.

The following days were full of tasks to get things settled with the other driver. We called our police officer friend to help us navigate the situation. He was more than willing to help! The other driver and I agreed and settled for me to just pay the cost to fix the car. At first, we all thought it would only be about 60,000 baht (1,800 USD). But as we were talking and took the car to a mechanic the price kept going up and up and up. We finally saw that it could cost around 150,000 baht (4,500 USD). When the mechanic got a number back to us, it was over that by another 20,000 baht. Thankfully, we negotiated with the mechanic back down to 150,000 baht for repairs.

At first, there was a lot of mercy from the other driver, and I think that they were still much kinder than they could have been. More often than not in these situations, and especially when I was actually at fault, the foreigner gets taken advantage of and has to pay more than what is fair. There's still a potential that happened, but even if I had to pay a little more, I was able to share with them how God kept us safe and how he provided for the situation. It's hard to say what their takeaway was, because of all the back and forth surrounding the final cost of the truck, but I pray that I was able to share something of value with them- the care that God has for his children.

By God's grace we survived! Read on to hear where Joy is going next!!

Over this whole situation I was so touched by all of your generosity! The final cost of the entire situation was roughly 7,500 USD. This included towing fees, the truck repair costs, and the costs for Braden's car. The medical fees were covered by the car insurance, and Joy had insurance to cover her medical costs as well. Two weeks ago I finally paid off the last bit for Braden's car, so now everything is finished. Thank you all for your incredible generosity! It's crazy to see how quickly everything was provided for in this situation!

Off to a Land of History

Three weeks after that whole ordeal, myself and one other family hopped on a plane to go on our Middle East scouting trip! It was a pretty quick turnaround, but again thanks to your generosity I had all the finances I need for the trip. That, and my team helped take some of my responsibilities so I could process the accident as well as continue to prepare to leave. Quite honestly, this was probably my favorite outreach yet. There was so much culture to love and adore, the people and teams we met on the ground were so on fire for Jesus, and the things God is doing amongst the nations that could hardly be believed.

Headed off as on outreach team!

The First Country

Due to security reasons, I will not be posting any pictures, names, or locations regarding this first country. Any names used are a pseudonym. I would LOVE to tell you more in person, so if you are interested, let's have a more personal conversation. That being said, God did so many things during this trip.

About a month before we left for our trip, we had our second location in this country fall through. The hosts actually recommended we avoid that region entirely due to intense conflict. With that information, we then reached out to our first contact, John* and asked if he had other contacts in country. He gave us three locations, so we prayed and felt like we were to choose the second option. However, when we reached back out, John informed us that none of those contacts were going to be able to host us. So we prayed. God spoke to us that we were to remain surrendered to him. Even if we didn't know where we would go next. When we hopped on our plane on February 12th, we knew where we would be for about a week, but after that? We had no clue.

Arriving to our first location we met up with the team for a staff meeting and got clarity on why John's contacts wouldn't be able to host us. In January of this year, roughly half of YWAM in that country was kicked out, and even more missionaries who weren't YWAM. The second location we had planned to go to all got kicked out by the government. Except one man, Paul*. Paul had moved from that location to go and serve with John's team. He arrived just a week before we got there! Once again, my team discussed where we aught to go next. We decided to split our time as tourists in two big cities. We sat down and booked an Airbnb for our next location, but I'm not joking when I say, two minutes after we book the house I get a call from John's wife, Junia*.

She begins by letting me know that her and Paul were taking a humanitarian and evangelistic trip for four days to a demolished area of the country with some young adults from the Netherlands. However, they needed one more single girl to go. My team and I discussed and prayed over whether we were to split or not, and God gave us the green light. I chuckle a little when I think about it. We had been planning this trip for an entire year at that point. How is it possible that we could have arrived at just the right moment to go? If we had arrived even a day later I wouldn't have been able to join them.

Those four days were packed with delivering food, sanitation packets, drinking tea, praying, worshipping, and joyful fellowship. We shared the gospel with entire villages who were eagerly asking to hear the gospel. Villages who had never heard the Good News of Jesus were asking to hear who this Jesus was! Many people got to hear the gospel for the first time, and they were hungry for it! I never get tired of seeing people hear eternally life-changing news. Tears welled in the eyes of grandmothers who have seen both their child and grandchild die in the devastation from years ago as they heard of the Jesus who is himself a man of sorrows. Who empathizes with our suffering and loss. Mothers received hope after losing children. Men found something secure to hold onto when their world has been shaken. The people's hearts have been changed to love both man and Lord.

I have much more I could say. What I will say, is that the harvest is ripe. In this nation, both young and old are tired of the illusion of promises of Islam. They want what is real. What is lasting. What is unshaking. What will not fade with time. The Lord knows if I will be back in this country or not, but even if not, my prayer is that workers would be sent out in my stead. That this harvest would not spoil. There are some faithful still in that country. The Lord has kept them there despite governmental efforts. The locals are being raised up to go out amongst their own, but the prayer of the international workers there is that these people would join the call to make disciples of all nations. They have been blessed with the gospel so that they can be a blessing to the nations around them.

(*names changed)

The Second Country

The warmest welcome into the country of Pakistan!

After we arrived to this country, we found out that the need for security wasn't actually because of the government. In fact, our hosts told the immigration officers that we were with YWAM! That being said, our second country was Pakistan!!! I'll keep names out, but I will show you some pictures here. This country had an entirely opposite feel to the first country. Our need for security in the first country was because the government didn't want us to be there, but in Pakistan, the locals don't want Christians there. On Open Doors Watchlist (A Christian website that highlights the statistics of the persecuted church) Pakistan is listed at number 8. In other words, it is a country that highly persecutes believers.

Wearing traditional Pakistani dress with our host.

Our host actually did her DTS in Chiang Rai a number of years back. When we felt like God was leading us to that country, we prayed and reached out to her via Facebook. There was a lot that we needed to learn about that country, especially what the religious status of that country was. It was incredibly helpful and necessary to be there in person to learn what we needed to know. Clearly, God had led us there too.

Passing out rice at a brick kiln.

While we were there, we got to learn so much about Pakistani culture, about the slavery going on in the brick kilns, and about the persecution that Christians are facing. We had the opportunity to share some messages about God's purpose for his disciples while we were there. Unfortunately, there is a lot of biblical teaching and understanding that is lacking amongst the Christians there. It broke my heart to see third generation Christians in the brick kilns as slaves, with little understanding of their purpose as believers. They need a lot of prayer, join me in praying for solid biblical education and for application to follow their learning.

There is a lot to love about Pakistan. Despite the difficulty being there, we saw a culture that honors their guest in such a beautiful way. I didn't even wash a plate while I was there! And believe me, I really tried. The kids in the house loved to play with the two kids on our team. Our week there was spent in good fellowship, with good food, in a good home. And our two security guards.

Our two awesome security guards

YWAM Trang's Pioneering Pyramid

Outreach Teams Ministry

At the beginning of this year, our base eldership team sat down to pray and clarify the season of pioneering YWAM Trang is in. They shared with us a "pyramid of pioneering". Basically, it's a description of the timeline of pioneering this base. It's a way for us to remember what has been established already, and remember the goal to which we've been called. This is year three, so this year we are pioneering our two main ministries, Outreach Teams Ministry (OTM) and our Discipleship Training School (DTS) paired with our DTS Prep Course.

YWAM Montana Lakeside joining us here in Trang.

In YWAM Trang's third year, we have already hosted two OTM Teams, and now we have a third team on base, another team from YWAM Montana Lakeside! In May we will receive a team from YWAM Bangkok, Thailand as well. In fact, both teams will be here at the same time for a week and a half in May. This will be the first time that we've hosted two teams at the same time, and it's going to be a good test to see if we will again. It's likely we will, but that's the fun of pioneering, nothing is certain!

To finish explaining the pyramid diagram, the fourth year is likely going to be more focused on officially starting local ministries. Right now we do have some ministries in the works, but our staff team is already focused on OTM and DTS. In order to do these other ministries well, we need more Thai staff, as well as staff that will be designated to those ministries.

YWAM Louisville joined us in February.

Somewhat finally, in year five we hope to begin sending long term teams to the rest of the neediest red! This includes sending teams deeper south in Thailand, as well as to the North Africa, Middle East, and Asia regions. Thailand is being blessed with the gospel, and this blessing is for the purpose of blessing others! We pray to see Thai's sent as missionaries. Not just them alone, but anyone who comes in contact with us to see the need and respond! It is more blessed to give than it is to receive, and this is applies to the Gospel as well.

I've begun to notice a trend amongst the neediest red, being this; the few who have been blessed with the gospel are being raised up to go out and bless other unreached nations. Believers are beginning to be sent from the unreached to the unreached. Now, this is something just beginning in prayer and discipleship. The long term cross-cultural workers are discipling the locals in their area to be sent out as missionaries. At least in the nations I've been to, the workers there echo this trend. "Locals need to be sent to the nations!" It may only be a few now, but in the years to come I pray that there are waves of people from the unreached to the unreached. This missionary calling wasn't told to one nationality alone. It wasn't commanded to only those who are rich, or educated, or American, or Baptist, or anything else. It was, and is, in fact a calling to anyone who would follow Jesus, to work towards the goal of making disciples of every people group. For the whole church to engage in reaching the whole world. To bless with the blessing we've been given.

Other New Things in Trang!

Jazlyn, PKwan, PThaksin, and I enjoying mango season!

Last month I told you that we had a new staff coming, and she's here! Jazlyn has joined our staff team, and has become my new roommate. She's been here about a month and is doing well. Two weeks ago she officially began her Language and Culture phase, as well as starting the top Thai language school in Thailand. It has been so fun to show her around to all of my favorite places. I have high hopes she will do well here on the field, so join me in prayer that she would be able to grow in her understanding of Thai culture as well as our Kingdom of God culture.

Joy will be coming back to Trang!

Additionally, in June, Joy will be coming on staff! I have to give her props, even though she got hit by a truck she still determined to follow the Lord's calling. I can't tell you how excited I am for her to be back in Thailand. She's become a great friend of mine, and it will be such a joy (pun intended) to serve with here amongst the unreached in Thailand. Please join me in prayer for her support raising and planning over these next few months!

Prayer Requests

• Unity amongst our team in this busy season of OTM. Especially, but not limited to our time with two OTM teams on base.

• Jazlyn's L+C and adjustment to Thai culture and Kingdom of God culture.

• Joy's support raising and preparation to move here to Trang.

• Finances for me with the upcoming DTS and visa renewal in June.