January 2014

Happy New Year to our family and friends!

We had a wonderful, yet busy Christmas (probably similar to many of you). We celebrated the end of the Thai/English DTS on December 16th. 13 students from Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, & USA. We are proud of the students, the staff and all the teachers that came to serve this program.

The Christmas season was filled with get-togethers, baking and plenty of eating. I think we all gained a few extra pounds this Christmas. Elias, now 3 years old, is beginning to understand the whole idea of gifts and he enjoyed getting new toys from friends and family. We had a special Christmas Eve dinner for our community that was fun and filled with foods from around the globe. Rob was also privileged to be the official at a wedding ceremony between our previous staff members.

With the New Year comes new things. We have recently expanded our base leadership team (BLT) from 4 to 9 people. We now have North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Asia represented in our leadership team. God really enjoys it when the nations gather to work together for the furthering of His kingdom. We had a 3 day retreat for our new BLT to pray and plan together the direction that we are going in. This change was led by God to expand leadership opportunities for our staff and also to relieve us as a couple from too many responsibilities that we couldn’t carry on our own. We thank God that He has raised up a new generation of leaders to help us move forward into greater things.

We’re in a season of transition with Cy having passed the leadership and responsibility of the School of Biblical Studies to another qualified young leader, Jonathan. She is both sad to see it out of her hands, but proud to be able to entrust it to a capable leader. She is now serving the community in practical ways, including helping to plan community events, help the logistics of running the base get better and stronger. She’s also spending more time with Elias, who has recently started going to a Thai Pre-school. Rob has been working together with the new leaders, helping them to understand their new roles and equipping them to lead well. Both continue to serve as teachers in the different YWAM training programs that are offered.

The base leadership has recognized our service in Thailand for the past (almost) 7 years. During that time we have planted the SBS, which was our original objective in coming to Thailand, and taken on the leadership of the entire base. We have gone from being just a handful of staff to almost 30 people. The BLT has given us the opportunity to get further developed as leaders through training and to visit our families and supporters for period of time over the course of 2014-2015. We have been invited by one of YWAM’s international leaders, David Hamilton, to serve a project that he is working on in the area of Bible Research (Link to one of David’s previous projects with a bio of who he is at the bottom). He has communicated his desire to have us work under his direct leadership for a few months. This specific Bible Research will greatly affect our own ministries of teaching, discipleship and evangelism in a positive way. We’re really excited about this opportunity to focus on some personal growth in this time, spending time with a great man of God and receiving new input from the Holy Spirit as we spend A LOT of time in God’s word.

Our general plan is:

• April – July 2014: go to David Hamilton’s YWAM base in Kona, Hawaii, USA
• July – September 2014: Chiang Rai, Thailand to renew our appropriate visas and continue leading the base along with our new leaders.
• October – December 2014: Kona, Hawaii to continue to serve in this special project.
• January – February 2015: Chiang Rai, Thailand. Leading another BLT prayer and planning retreat, helping our leaders accomplish our goals as a base and fulfill their specific responsibilities.
• March -May 2015: Visit both of our families in Canada and Chile. We haven’t done a trip like this since June 2011, so it will have been almost 4 years.

We’re excited about the new things that are happening in our personal lives, in the YWAM base that God has called us to serve at and in the local community in which we live.

We appreciate your prayers in the following areas:

• Relationship with our God: We constantly seek to know God and His ways increasingly
• Health: all of us have gotten sick or are still sick over the past month and a half
• Wisdom: as leaders (and parents) we can never ask for too much wisdom from God. We also need wisdom to solidify our plans and to serve as good mentors, disciplers and evangelists for the people we serve.
• Finances: God is inviting us on a journey to many places over this next year or so and we will need His provision to walk into all of these opportunities. Click here to know how to donate.

We are also still praying to see God’s provision come in for the Land Expansion Project and the Family Housing Project. Click here to know how to donate.

Thank you for all of your support in love, prayers and finances. Without the rest of the body of Christ, our roles could not be fruitful. We thank God for allowing us to have a great support base like you.

Blessings and once again Happy New Year!