See you soon!

Hey, friends! We hope this finds you all cozy and enjoying the holiday season. 🤍

This month, we had the opportunity to attend a small missions conference a few hours south of us, which was a fun change to the routine. It was so sweet to praise God in English with other believers and be challenged and encouraged by the Word and how it should drive our ministry. 

After the conference was over, we flew over the border into Cambodia for a quick 2-night visa run! We had been on a 15-month volunteer visa, but when it expired we needed to get our passports stamped at the border to change to a tourist visa. It was so fun to get to experience a neighboring country in southeast Asia! 

Cambodia felt very similar to Thailand in many ways, but there were definitely some cultural differences we picked up on in the two days we were there. The roads are louder with more honking and tuk-tuks, and the people seemed a little less friendly and quick to engage than in Thailand. But vendors selling barbecued meat, fruit and vegetable carts, and little bubble tea carts are equally as abundant in Cambodia as in Thailand!

We had never had Cambodian food before, so it was fun to explore the menu there a little bit! The flavors reminded us a lot of the food in Thailand, but with some Vietnamese influence. Which, considering where Cambodia is located, makes sense. ;) 

We made our way around in Cambodia with tuk-tuks, as pictured above. This was the only form of public transportation we saw while we were there!

One day, we went to the site of the "killing fields" where the genocide took place in Cambodia in the 1970s. It was very sobering to be faced with the reality of literally millions of people killed there in the recent past. And especially since we know that Cambodia, like Thailand, has very few Christians, the reality of the suffering of those people felt even more heavy.

But aside from the exciting beginning to this month, our November honestly feels like it was filled with the constant grind and slow growth of continued language and culture learning. Though we see progress, and are so thankful for that, we also feel the growing pains of making language blunders day in and out and finding ourselves still unable to fully communicate in the ways that we want to. But we also see God's faithfulness in providing very patient Thai friends and church family who have been constant sources of fun, encouragement, and immersion into the Thai language. They are such a gift!

Pictured above is a birthday party for our friend that happened this past week. The man in the striped shirt, who is actually the father of the girl in the white shirt, confessed that he wanted to put his faith in Jesus after the party! We are rejoicing in this, and also felt burdened that there needed to be follow-up and discipleship offered to him, especially as he has had very little exposure to Christianity in the past. (His daughter came to faith just 6 months ago!) The Christians in our province are few in number, especially men. Though we feel very inadequate with language, his daughter asked Ryan to explain more to him about the gospel and encourage him in the Lord. So we are desperate for God's grace to meet us in this opportunity, and are looking forward to further conversations with this man!

Even though we moved to the other side of town, we still try to drop in and see our friends from our old neighborhood occasionally. Khun Yai is still as much of a character as ever, and has offered us a lot of advice about our pregnancy, which has been sweet. ;)

We are excited to be able to visit the States next month, God willing! We will be in GA for two weeks and IL for two weeks over the holidays to visit friends and family, and are so looking forward to that time to connect with you guys! We fly out of Thailand on December 19th and will return January 16th. Thankful to have the opportunity to spend time celebrating our Savior's birth together!

PRAISES & PRAYER REQUESTS:

- praise God for providing relational and gospel-sharing opportunities for us in this season!

- praise God for no more pregnancy nausea! Little baby Steffen is growing well and we are happy to be in the second trimester now. 

- pray for continued growth and endurance in language learning.

- pray for God's continued guidance regarding opening a restaurant next year. We have been developing recipes and trying them out on friends and neighbors this month with some good feedback! But feeling very dependent on God's leading for next steps. 

- pray for this man who has newly believed in Jesus (Khun Paw) and that we would be faithful in this opportunity to share more with him. 

"We should always look upon ourselves as God's servants, placed in God's world, to do his work; and accordingly labour faithfully for him; not with a design to grow rich and great, but to glorify God, and do all the good we possibly can." (David Brainerd)