December 2025 Newsletter

Dallas Vaughn
Dec 29, 2025
7 min read

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)

This is the last newsletter for the year of 2025, and as I write this, it's hard to believe where we are now. I don’t mean physically, although that’s a factor too. What I mean is, God decided, in his sovereign will, to teach us some of the most important lessons about biblical wisdom we've ever had. Chiefly, I learned that I cannot make a martyr of myself, no matter how much I love and want to help people, and that above all else, I have to take care of my family first, and then serve others from a place of health and peace. A stressed out servant is an attraction to no one. These concepts sound simple enough. Many of the lessons I've learned over the last 10 years are. So it's easy to fall into self-criticism. Why did it take me so long to learn such basic truths? But I have to give myself grace. I was a child of addiction, divorce, and at times, homelessness. Growing up, I learned more from church and the internet than I did from my parents or my public school education. So I have to extend the same grace to myself that I would extend to anyone else in my position. At the end of the day, I'm a broken man stumbling towards wholeness. Now we're back in Chiang Rai, serving our neighbors, helping at Baan Athitaan Church, and starting to teach again at Grace Language School. We’ve had new difficult realities this year, namely Theo’s seizures, of which he has now had 2 episodes. And while this is not what I expected, I am more grateful and more excited for 2026 than I ever have been about a new year.

The last 2 months, in particular, have been full to the brim with activities, which is why I still have yet to reconnect with all of our partners personally, and why I took so long to write this December newsletter. (I have to apologize for my failure in this area. I'm trying to get better.)

Missions Teams

We had 2 teams come and serve with us from America. One team was from Gulfport, MS and the other was from Florence, MS. We are always so glad to have our teams here. Between the 2 teams, we were able to organize about 6 outreach activities related to English education and the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas). One of the teams also went down to Phayao, the province just south of Chiang Rai, to help Doug and Paulette do some scouting, activities, and prayer walking. I want to ask you to specifically pray for Doug and Paulette by name. They moved here almost 2 years ago after having led many team trips from Mississippi. They felt God leading them to work with Pastor Michael (Liz’s dad) to train and eventually start a new church and English language center in Phayao province (which is just a bit smaller in population than Chiang Rai). They have been studying the Thai language and putting a team together, and in the coming months, they will be moving down. Pray for the success of the church plant, English school, and them as the missionaries.

Family Events

Outside of the team, we have had almost too many events in the last 2 months to name them all. As you may already know, Liz homeschools Mary Ella, so she is with the kids full-time. But I want to emphasize that our kids are not “homebodies." They are always out making new friends and going to do activities and events, whether that be through the city, the local homeschool community, or the church. In fact, one of the most beautiful parts of this year has been how many kids we’ve been able to invest in. We have had more kids in our house and at our dinner table this year than I ever expected. Another beautiful thing that has happened is that a single mom and her daughter from our neighborhood have started coming to church with us on a regular basis.

One more fun thing we did in the past few weeks was to organize Christmas caroling in our neighborhood. We were able to sing Christmas songs to 5 families around our neighborhood, and that’s not including the kids and parents that actually came and sang with us. Afterwards, we gathered at our house for Christmas cookies and hot chocolate. I love being the “fun house” in the neighborhood. In fact, a Chinese boy in our neighborhood who had come to our Halloween party in October, showed up at our door on Christmas day, and asked “do you have a Christmas party today?” (He meant for the neighborhood kids.) I told him no, and he said “but it’s Christmas day!” 😂

Thanksgiving & Christmas Celebration

As we ramped up to Christmas, Liz not only taught music lessons for one of the Thai staff at BAC, but we also helped with three of the performances out of 7 at the Christmas program. (The kids also had a special at Thanksgiving.) This year, we had hundreds of people at the Christmas program, and several of them indicated that they wanted to place their faith in Christ for the very first time.

Baptisms

We had a few more baptisms in the month of December! Here are the pictures:

As the year comes to a close, would you consider giving a one-time gift to Transformation Ministries? Your donation goes towards ministry work and proclamation of the good news of Jesus in Thailand and beyond. If you’d like to become a regular monthly partner and help us give generously to work happening in Thailand, you can do so here.

Mary Ella’s 6th Birthday

Mary Ella celebrated her 6th birthday this month. As a dad, it was hard to come to terms with the fact that she is not a little girl anymore. Six feels like the official end of being a “little” kid, and she has definitely stepped into “big kid” status. That comes with its own unique challenges, but also joys. For example, she is so much more fun to play with now and understands my “dad jokes.” But at the same time, she still has a lot of childlike innocence and wonder. It’s a beautiful thing.

Disasters at Home and Afar

One of the hardest parts of this month was dealing with another weekend of being in the hospital, because Theo had another seizure on Father’s Day here in Thailand (which is December 5th). He had just started to fall asleep in Liz’s arms, while nursing, when he began shaking. Liz jumped up, laid him on the bed, and we got a rag to help cool him down (since his seizures are fever related). By God’s grace, this seizure was shorter than the first, and he recovered faster, but when we got him to the ER, he had some kind of second attack after they hooked him up to the IV.

The doctor said later that it was something like a panic attack, but it was scary in a different way, and I almost fainted in the ER. The whole weekend was very stressful, but again, by God’s grace, we got through it. Please continue to pray for Theo, that his body will get stronger and that we can get through fevers without a seizure every time. To end this section on a high note, I will say that he just got through ANOTHER fever in the past few days (yes, it was only a few weeks after the last one), and we managed to get through this time with no seizures. We hope and pray these two that he had will be the end.

Unfortunately, nature also struck the southern part of Thailand in the last few months. As you can see in this video, the area was hit by very dangerous amounts of flooding. Our church was able to raise money from a special offering and send it to some churches to do disaster relief.

Family Pictures

One of my “dad gifts” for Christmas was getting some great family pictures made. I was very happy with how these turned out.

Prayer Requests:

We have a friend who is getting married and then moving immediately from her parents' home in South Carolina, to Madison, Wisconsin. She has expressed how nervous and excited she is (interestingly, those are actually the same word in the Thai language), which is very understandable.
I have another friend who was part of a multiple car pile up wreck in South Florida a few weeks ago. She was saved miraculously, with only some pain in her back, but her car was totaled.
Coincidentally, one of my closest Thai brothers here in Chiang Rai also had a wreck in the past month. By God’s grace, he is also safe.
We know of 2 families that unexpectedly lost a mom/grandma, right before Christmas (one in Tennessee and one in Alabama). Please pray for these families. Both women left behind husbands who have been married to them for decades, as well as adult children and grandchildren.
Some of our missionary friends here in Chiang Rai, who are in the process of planting a church out in a local small town, have a son who has been sick lately. The mom posted on Facebook today, “Titus has been dealing with sickness for about 10 weeks. I’ve lost count. He woke up on Sunday morning itching all over and it hasn’t stopped yet. So we are back in Chiang Mai at more doctor appointments. I’m proud of him for being a trooper through it all. He’s missed out on a lot, and we’re praying he is better soon! ”
As mentioned, please pray for Theo, specifically that he will not have any more febrile seizures.
A very sweet Chrisitan Thai lady we know in Bangkok, lost her brother this month due to an unexpected seizure (those seem to be a sad pattern this month), and then her family in the South of Thailand was affected by all the flooding happening. Please pray for her as well.
Pray for peace along the border of Thailand and Cambodia, as tensions in that area have once again escalated. We heard of one Thai girl who went to do missionary training in Cambodia and ended up coming back because of the danger there now, at the border.
Please continue to pray for Christians in Nigeria as well. This has continued to be a top story in the news, and rightfully so. I have a number of acquaintances in or from Nigeria, and they are wonderful people.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

By God's grace, we have witnessed many lives transformed, and some family legacies changed forever. But the story is not over yet, and we are anticipating and believing for even greater things moving forward. Consider becoming a financial supporter so you can play a significant role in sharing the gospel, serving those in poverty, and creating Christian resources.