April 2025 Newsletter

I want to start this newsletter with an affirmation of how amazing it is to be where we are right now. I also want to recap the last few years and how we got here. 

In 2016, we moved to Chiang Rai. I was not expecting to stay in Thailand, but I thought a two year term serving in an Asian country like Thailand would be a good experience for us as young missions-minded Christians coming out of college.

In 2018, my half brother (from my dad’s side), my mom, and a close aunt, all died within a short six month period. As I sat in the missionary house owned by my home church in Adamsville, TN and grieved, God spoke very clearly to my heart and told me we needed to move to Bangkok. I can count on one hand the times in my life God has spoken this clearly, but it was confirmed by the fact that within a few weeks, we had both been hired by a Christian international school in the city, not far from the church we already had a relationship with and were going to serve with. 

In 2019, Mary Ella was born in Bangkok, and in early 2020, we went back to the U.S. in the height of covid hysteria, and were promptly locked out of the country. But that turned out to be a blessing, because after a short semester working at a school in Arizona, we moved back to Tennessee as my health declined dramatically. We discovered that I had stage 3 testicular cancer, a 13-inch tumor in my back pressing against my kidney, and a leg full of blood clots (to put a nice bow on the gift). 

After finishing chemotherapy in 2021, we returned to Chiang Rai, but we had always hoped to go back to Bangkok to do mission work and plant a church (and maybe a school and foundation too). But covid hysteria continued to rage on in Asia, and we ran into more problems, namely finances and visa issues. (We were unable to move because our visas were connected to Grace Language School in Chiang Rai, where we served with Liz’s parents). 

By the summer of 2024, I was almost ready to go back to the U.S. and retire as “missionaries” to Thailand. Then Thailand announced a new remote worker visa, and we decided to give it a shot in applying for it. After a “sabbatical” in Tennessee, we came back to Thailand for a month, then flew to Vietnam for a few weeks (since we had to be out of the country to switch visas). It was a daunting process, mostly because of the unknown, but we got the visas and moved to Bangkok with a 5 year visa in hand. 

To say that every step of the journey here was a miracle is an understatement. I have seen God’s faithfulness in every transition, and even since arriving, I’m already seeing him prepare the ground for us to do work here. 

Has it been easy? Absolutely not. I am very careful to monitor my stress level since going through the cancer journey, knowing that I am more susceptible to it coming back since I’ve had it before, and I don’t want to do anything to compromise my health. That being said, there have been plenty of opportunities for fear and anxiety and stress along the way. But I have an amazing wife and kids, amazing friends, and more importantly, an amazing helper in the Holy Spirit. 

Easter at Lifepoint

This month, we celebrated Easter at Lifepoint, the church we served at when we lived in Bangkok from 2018-2020. It was great to reconnect with old friends, and for Mary Ella to meet people who she hasn’t seen much since she was born. It was also beautiful to hear testimonies that were shared during service from both Thais and expats. 

Thai Partnerships

We got to hang out with all of our Thai partners who are working on college campuses around Thailand this month. Boom, the dad of the family we partner with in Khon Kaen, Thailand, has been given a new responsibility that involves organizing quarterly events with the youth from all the churches in their province (a province of 1.7 million).

Bank is our new partner and he is on his way to serve full-time as a missionary to the college campuses in Hat Yai, Thailand. Hat Yai is a city in the South of Thailand, a place where many of the Thai people trace their ancestry through the Malay people, and where Islam has a prominent presence. 

Pray for both Bank, as well and Boom and Aom, and the work that all of them are doing around Thailand. Pray that we can always be a blessing and encouragement to them as they serve faithfully in their stations. 

While we are on this subject, I wanted to share a video from a Thai Christian broadcast about Boom’s grandparents. Their testimony is amazing, and I have added English subtitles to this video so that it can edify those of you who follow our newsletter. The subtitles were done automatically and can be hard to read in some parts, but I think it's clear enough to get the story:

Theo’s Birthday 

We celebrated Theo’s first birthday this month. He is now starting to gain confidence in walking and although he doesn’t speak many words yet, he is very good at communicating what he wants through grunts and babbles. He also loves to laugh and play with his big sister, and to put his head on our shoulders and “snuggle” up to us when we hold him. For his birthday, we played a Korean game where you let the baby “choose” his or her profession by choosing an item that represents it. Theo chose drum sticks, which is not a surprise considering how much he loves to dance! 

Prayer Requests:

• An old friend reached out to me asking for prayer for some issues going on in his life. 

• Pray for our transition as we continue to settle in Bangkok. I remember it taking a few months last time we lived here, and this month has been painful in a lot of ways as we grieve the nature, mountains, and “slow life” we enjoyed in the North of Thailand. 

• Pray for the government officials of Thailand to have wisdom to know what to do about the burning that happens every year between March and May. Cancer rates are spiking, and Chiang Mai is listed many days as the number one city in the world for pollution. 

• Pray for us as we strategize and see where God is already working in this city, so that we can join him in that work. 

• Mary Ella is starting to ask about getting baptized. She talks about Jesus all the time and loves church and reading the Bible and praying together. The other night the asked me to sing "Old Rugged Cross" to her when I was putting her to bed. She's also very interested in the idea of sharing Jesus with her friends here in Thailand who don't know him. Pray her faith continues to grow and that God makes her into a very effective missionary.

Books I'm Reading Lately: 

1. Boundaries with Kids: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Children - Henry Cloud

This book is an application of the well known “Boundaries” book by Henry Cloud, but applied specifically to parenting. This was a very solid book, and one of my biggest takeaways was seeing the difference between “bearing one another’s burdens” (which is good) and “stealing someone’s responsibilities” (which is bad). As parents, we want to help bear our children’s burdens because we love them, but that often ends up with us taking on their load of responsibility, and robbing them of the law of sowing and reaping, because we reap the consequences they sow, rather than allowing them to reap them and subsequently learn from them. 

2. Mere Christendom - Douglas Wilson

This book is about an explicitly Christian political ideology. As such, there are likely to be many opinions about it (sadly one other realm other than religion where unfounded confidence very often trumps competence, is that of politics). Whether you agree with every idea presented in this book, it’s a great one to read, especially because he challenges the notion that some Christians hold that somehow secular liberalism is better than an explicitly Christian body politic. 

3. Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Tools & Wealth - (also) Douglas Wilson

This one had been on my list of books to read for awhile, and it didn’t disappoint. I have read several books about productivity this year, including Atomic Habits, Eat that Frog!, and Deep Work. All of these books have been helpful and edifying in their own ways, especially as someone who has struggled a lot with procrastination and distraction and building habits over the years.

4. Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire - Andrew Wilkinson

This book was not what I expected at all. It was a journey of one man from starting as an entrepreneur as a teenager, to becoming a billionaire, and the lessons he learned along the way. We often think that if we could just “make it” to a certain level of wealth, all of our problems will be solved, but while money does solve a lot of problems, it also brings with it many new ones. If there was any great takeaway I got from this book, it was that I need to enjoy life more and stop worrying about money so much, because if even millionaires and billionaires can fall into a trap of worrying about money, then there is no amount that will ever make me feel secure. In other words, Scripture is right, money is not God, and only God can bring true security. 

5. Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Belief - John Frame

I just started this one, but John Frame is one of my favorite theological writers, and I’m looking forward to listening to it over the next few months (most of Frame’s books are about 800-1000 pages in length). I highly recommend anything from Frame.