We wanted to give you a quick update on our current situation and needs. We’ve had sort of a perfect storm of expenses come up quite unexpectedly. Three weeks ago we had to take that emergency trip to Cambodia for 10 days, which wasn’t in our budget. And we’ve now been told to expect to be required to do another visa run to a neighboring country after 90 days. At the same time, the car we’ve been driving for four years is showing it’s age, our boys have outgrown the backseat and we find it difficult to fit our family in for trips. We’ve been looking around for other options with the idea of upgrading to a minivan or a van so we can better transport others along with our own family. We just found out one of our good friends who is a missionary here is selling their Hyundai van; it’s perfect for us, and buying from a trusted source is really important. Thirdly, the computer we use for homeschool is now fully 10 years old, which is not a bad run! Unfortunately, it’s reached the point where we can’t upgrade most of the software, and the battery has to be recharged almost constantly, so it’s really time to get a new one. Anyway, while we do maintain an emergency fund, all this together is more of a hit than can readily be absorbed. In March, two people gave an extra one-time amount, and we hadn’t even made these needs known yet! Praise God. We’d like to put the request out there though, to ask that if you feel led to do so, could you consider giving an additional amount this month? There is a special link below that can be used, or an additional amount could be sent straight to the Central Missionary Clearinghouse (where all of our support funds go) in order to get a tax-deductible receipt. Just click the "Support Us" tab above to go that route. Thank you for your prayers and support, -Lance, for the Baker family Emergency Visa Trip and Extra Needs
$25.00 - $200.00
Thank you for helping us! Donating here will help replenish our emergency fund for the next emergency after our unplanned trip to Cambodia to work on our visa issues. Our vehicle needs upgraded so we have the space to transport the homeschool helpers as needed. Lastly, our homeschool computer is ten years old and starting to have functionality problems. We appreciate you joining us in our ministry through your financial giving. Thanks again!
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We got visas! Not the ones we requested, unfortunately, but better than being tourists. We received a combination of “employment” and “volunteer dependent” visas, which is a strange combination and might cause us some trouble in the future, so probably not a tenable long term solution. However, it gives us 90 days to think and pray before we have to renew them. We’ve felt since this started that God had some major change in store for us, and apparently the timing of that change is now.
We ended up being in Cambodia for a total of 10 days, which is crazy since a week before that we had no intention of going anywhere, more less a brand new country which we know nothing about. It was an anxiety inducing situation due to the visa unknowns, but also because of the uncomfortableness of being in a brand new country where we don't know how to solve basic life stuff like transportation and shopping, nor did we know the potential danger points we needed to watch out for. We are incredibly thankful for the one family that we knew in the city. We had met them briefly seven years ago at the Juniper Tree guest house in Thailand, and then “accidentally” ended up reconnecting with them a week before this trip. Turns out, they live 15 minutes from the airport in Phnom Penh, which is 15 minutes from the Thai embassy, and they informed us about the C&MA guest house nearby where we were able to stay for the duration of our time there. We struggled with sickness throughout the trip, but were able to venture out of the guest house to get the kids to an English-speaking youth group, play ultimate frisbee, and visit an international church. We also took “homeschool field trips” to the Museum of Cambodia and toured the Royal Palace. We got home in Chiang Mai Thursday night - praise God! -Lance, for the Baker family Hello! This is Ruth! We've devised a system of projecting the computer onto the wall (which is a continuous light source), so I can use a computer again despite my brain injury. It's awkward, but we desperately needed to get this update out, so it's good enough!
We have so much news to tell you - about our Stateside trip, the SEA (Southeast Asia) Missionary Kid Retreat our boys just attended, the status of Inspire (our homeschool helper program) - however, we are now in crisis mode this past week and need to update you about that, so you can join us in prayer for the current situation. First, a quick recap so you know briefly where we are in life. We were in the States from mid-December through the end of January celebrating the holidays with family and traveling to gap-year discipleship programs to present the Inspire missions opportunity. (future blog post to come) Two weeks after we returned to Thailand we drove our boys, two days driving south of Bangkok, to a retreat specifically designed for missionary kids. (so awesome - future blog post to come) Then, the day we returned (this past Monday) Lance received a call from the foundation we have our visas through to let us know that our visa renewal was denied for this upcoming year. Thus, we've spent the rest of this past week in crisis-mode trying to figure out what now. Last year, many, many families on our visa type had huge problems when trying to renew their visas and are still trying to figure out long-term solutions even now. We (praise God) had no trouble and since this is our fourth year on the same visa, we assumed we wouldn't have trouble. Also, we had already passed the yearly interview at City Hall showing all the volunteer work we do, had gone through all the other check points and were just waiting on our approval letter from the governor's office which you (usually) automatically receive once all your other paperwork and interviews are finished. Except in our case this year apparently, so this took us completely by surprise. - Ok, this is Lance now. The projector is better for Ruth, but not a good enough solution for extended computer use. Anyway, our annual visa expiration/renewal is March 7th, so this situation has left us with little to no time to plan and get everything booked for a visa run/border run to a Thai embassy in a nearby country. The places other missionaries have gone include Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore. The lady from my Foundation called Laos, and they said they won't issue our type of visas, so we've settled on giving Cambodia a try. The odds of success are low, so it's probable that we'll have to return on 60-day tourist visas, and then figure out a better long term solution. One of the most viable options seems to be to start a business here in the city, and then we'd get permanent visas through that (future blog post to come). But for now, we head to Bangkok tomorrow, and then depart for Cambodia on Monday morning. An interesting God thing - last week at the youth event in Prachuap KhiriKhan we reconnected with a family we met six years ago, and they're now serving in Cambodia, and they happen to live 20 minutes from the airport, and they've offered to pick us up and help us secure housing and transportation, such a blessing! We'll be staying at missionary guest housing, and we'll even have access to a kitchen. We don't know how long it will take to work the visa situation out, but we've been told anywhere from 3-10 days. So we're bringing homeschool books, and I guess we'll get a crash course on how daily life in Cambodia works... (or doesn't work, as the case may be). Please pray with/for us as we travel, and that God would go before us to prepare whatever visa solution He wants us to have. -Lance & Ruth, for the Baker family Hi! It’s been quite a while since we’ve posted an update, so we have a number of things to fill you in on. First, I wanted to follow up on our health concerns that I had mentioned previously. Alex is doing much better, and has been able to return to his normal activities like school and youth activities at church, so we’re super thankful for that. Ruth, on the other hand, is still in the process of slowly recovering from her head injury. She is working through post-concussion syndrome and still struggles with nerve-pain and daily headaches, which we’re told can take upwards to a year (or more) to heal from. They’ve prescribed her a medication to reduce pain caused by nerve inflammation, and that has been helping a lot with the pressure and headaches. She’s able to drive on short trips now, and do most regular activities, but certain things still cause an immediate headache and new things are still hard for her. TV and computer screens still give her headaches and too much sequential thinking causes problems, though she has been doing some specific cognitive exercises (which are sequential thinking), and she’s steadily improving in that regard. Some of you may have heard that Josiah had a bit of a health scare as well, but as best the doctors can figure out, his diagnosis is “classic migraine,” which is causing headaches and vision problems. They’ve also ordered a follow-up MRI in 3-6 months to monitor an abnormal vein cluster they found in his brain, just to rule out any other issues, but will hopefully prove to be just a birth defect without any adverse health repercussions. On another subject, we’d like to share our upcoming travel plans. We will be making a brief trip (six weeks) to the US for the holidays in December, then staying through the end of January. We’ll be holding meetings and doing some presentations at Christian discipleship training programs. The goal is to increase awareness and interest among graduates in coming to Thailand as homeschool helpers. We have families here who are contacting us in need of homeschool assistance, but the two potential young folks we had lined up to arrive for this school year were not able to come. One thing we’re passionate about is doing what we can to help keep families on the field long term and addressing homeschooling needs can be a huge part of that. Just last week a missionary family who recently welcomed their seventh baby called me to inquire about getting a homeschool helper to just do science experiments with their older kids. By the time I got finished explaining what we hope to offer, they were asking what they had to do to qualify and how to get to the top of the waiting list! Despite the quick planning time, the trip details are coming together pretty well already. Last time our friend, Khun Lek and her daughter, stayed in our house while we were in the States. This time a single missionary named Greg will house sit for us. It’s not generally a good idea to leave a house sit vacant here due to possible insect/small animal infestations and mold growth. On the US side, Lily Shurance has offered to lend her minivan to us for the duration of our time, so that’s a huge answer to prayer! We won’t have time to visit and update our churches on this trip due to the holidays/special services, the short length of the trip, and because our focus will be meeting and speaking with people and organizations about bringing young folks over to Thailand for a year for Inspire. So if we don’t get to catch up with you during this trip, we’ll make it a point to do so on our next trip to the States. We hosted our July 4th celebration with some missionaries from the States that we’ve invested in here in Chiang Mai. We had a group of singles, and one larger family, 18 people in total. (I won't post photos for their privacy). We special ordered legit hot dogs and had them delivered frozen, so we had hot dogs, baked beans, corn, jalapeño poppers, ice cream and apple pie! A not-too-shabby American-style meal. It was a great time of fellowship, and we were able to make great use of our hangout/game area, as well as our grill and food hosting set up. The parents wrote afterwards and said how much their children were blessed and were already asking to come back again. In other news, I’ve been volunteering each Wednesday at Police Station zone 5 here in town. They have an “English club” of sorts, and they ask all kinds of questions about communication, but most of our time is actually spent helping them prepare different community involvement events. This past Sunday the police force rented a section on the 1st floor of the mall and had “Driver’s Safety” displays set up, educational materials, giveaways, complete with music and various styles of dance (in typical Thai fashion). The deputy governor of Chiang Mai showed up to give a speech. It was quite the experience.
-Lance, for the Baker family I’d like to follow up on our request for prayers for health and recovery. We really appreciate your prayers in this area. Ruth is improving incrementally each day, though definitely not yet 100%. She still has trouble with sequential thinking which gives her a headache, and with car trips which make her dizzy and nauseous. Since there are still signs of improvement, we’re just waiting and praying that she continues to heal, as we’ve been advised. We’ve been greatly blessed by some of the folks around us who have brought us meals and supported us through a difficult time. Alex is also improving over time, and has more energy than he did previously, but again, not back to 100% unfortunately. Despite the struggles, we’ve got homeschool back up and running, and have been able to get most of our boxes unpacked and the house mostly set up. The “youth hang out” area is complete with ping pong and pool table. We even had our first group over, which was a birthday party for Josiah who just turned sixteen! Four neighborhood teens, one missionary family, and an older couple came (17 people in all). The driving age for cars in Thailand is 18, but it’s only 15 for motorcycles, so we decided to send Josiah to a motorcycle safety driving course, and he passed the written and driving tests to get his motorcycle license - growing up! We took another trip to the orphanage in May. This time, among other activities, the girls all decorated their own cookies with icing and sprinkles (then ate them of course!). They all have their school uniforms, and two of them are going to be able to move on and start college this fall. It’s uplifting to us each time we go visit, and I hope/pray that it is just as much or more so for all the girls. -Lance, for the Baker family Our end-of-month post for April is mostly a request for prayer for Ruth and Alex. The good news is that we’re in our new house! Unfortunately, about three weeks ago (the night we were scheduled to spend our first night in the new house), Ruth had a bicycle crash and besides being all bruised and scraped up, she also suffered a concussion. We assumed she’d recover in a couple week’s time, but it has now been a full three weeks, and she still gets headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, and nausea, which the doctors have said could take two to three months to fully resolve. The treatment includes vertigo medication, and instructions to rest and not do problem solving or critical thinking. Of course moving into a new house is almost constant problem solving and decision making about where things should go and how the house will operate, so that’s been really challenging. At the same time, Alex has been weak and struggling with fatigue for the last couple months. We took him to a doctor before the move, but didn’t get a real clear picture of what was wrong, so in April we took him to a different doctor to get a second opinion and discovered he is anemic. He had an iron infusion (IV), and is following up with a regime of iron and other supplements, but just like Ruth, the process can take two to three months to resolve. As if all that weren’t enough, the hot season in northern Thailand is also the “burning” season, when all the local farmers burn off their rice and sugar cane fields, which has made the air quality really bad for the past couple months. Micah has historically not done well with poor air quality, and that has been true this time around too (he’s had headache, cough, and very low energy for the past couple months). Thankfully, burning season is ending right now, and the air is already much better, and Micah has been really perking up. In other news, since Josiah and I have been up and functional, he and I had the opportunity to volunteer at another orphanage in April. This one was a believer-run girls orphanage with girls ranging from age 5 to 18. We did games, taught some English, brought lunch, and just generally hung out and spent time with them. We’re both looking forward to going back again next month. I’ve put some photos here - though for the children's safety and anonymity I’ve used photos where they’re wearing masks or I’ve blurred their faces. Blessings, -Lance, for the Baker family Happy spring to you all! We’d like to update you about an exciting change in our housing situation. After a little over three years in our current house in Chiang Mai, we’ve started to really outgrow it (we have two teenagers now!), and have found it difficult to host the various groups we want to host on a regular basis. Also, we found ourselves torn between the idea of moving closer to the international church we attend across town so we can invest more there, and the desire to continue building the relationships here in our neighborhood which we’ve really seen developing recently. So we started praying. A few weeks later, we met up with a missionary family we knew from our previous country of service who were now living in our current neighborhood. They were moving, and needed someone to take over their lease. Their house met basically every requirement we had for hosting groups, as well as having overnight visitors (which we’re also unable to do very effectively in our current house). At that same time, our church said they were looking for volunteers to host a weekly small group on our side of town to bring the church body together mid-week in a way that wouldn’t require everybody so much driving! We felt that all this was a clear direction from God, and a confirming answer to prayer. So we met the landlady, signed the lease, and are moving as we speak! We have until April 15th when our current lease ends to be totally moved out of our current place, so we’ve got a bit of overlap which is a nice added blessing. The house we’re moving out of was mostly furnished by the landlady, but the one we’re moving into is mostly unfurnished, so we’ve had to buy a number of furniture items to get the place functional, and also do a bit of renovation in the upstairs bathroom. Another expense we’re looking at is how best to set up the big downstairs room for hosting. We want to host a weekly “Life Group” of church members, so we’ll need child-friendly activities so the younger kids can play while we lead an intentional time of sharing with the adults for that. We also would like to host kids from the neighborhood here as well as the boys’ youth group, so we want to provide some activities like maybe building a corn hole set, or finding a used pool table or ping pong table that older kids would enjoy. And then we need dining and living room areas that will accommodate 15 people or more for our holiday meal celebrations, Ruth’s monthly women’s nights, and my impromptu men’s gatherings that I have. There is an outdoor area at our new place too which might open up some new options - I’m considering inviting the Thai guys that I play soccer with over for a BBQ-type gathering. They’re in the “young professional” stage of life, and it would provide a way to interact with them off the field in a different context. Also I’ve gotten to know some of the dads in our neighborhood and might do a similar thing with them. Anyway, setting all this up involves quite a few one-time costs on the front end, so if you feel led to jump in and help with any of these up front costs, we’d be most appreciative! Blessings, -Lance, for the Baker family So, we’ve successfully hosted our first visitors in Thailand! Back to back no less. First to arrive were the Gregorys, a couple from Barnabas International who serve as our missionary mentors/sounding board/accountability came to visit for a week. They wanted to see and experience our life here. We were able to show them some of the more interesting places and restaurants, visit our church fellowship, and introduce them to a number of people we’ve worked with and who have impacted our life here. Also, since one of our interests is to put on missionary retreats in the future (perhaps even in conjunction with Barnabas) we visited one potential location where we could hold such an event. We actually had the privilege of attending a Barnabas event in Michigan in 2019, and were greatly blessed by it. In the end, this was a whirlwind of a week, and went off pretty smoothly overall. If you’re interested in learning more about Barnabas International’s vision of supporting global workers, visit their site here - www.barnabas.org The day after they left we immediately had our second-ever visitors, my parents! The pace of events was a bit slower with them since they stayed longer (one month). They got to see our everyday life, and the boys had a list of things they were hoping to show them, and we were able to do almost everything we set out to do while they were here. There is something truly unique about having someone from your home culture show up and experience daily life in Thailand. You realize how many things seem normal now because you’ve gotten used to them, and you see things from a fresh perspective. My parents had visited us in our previous country as well, so they’re really becoming world travelers in their older years here!
Signing off for now, -Lance, for the Baker family
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Lance & RuthOn a journey following God and working to be a blessing to everyone we come across here in Thailand. Prayer Requests- Concussion recovery for Ruth.
- Young people to sign up for the Inspire homeschool program to arrive next fall. - Travel arrangement and details. Archives
March 2024
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