2 Years in Trang | July Newsletter

In celebration of two years in Trang, Thailand, Erik and I worked together to make a video showing you the city we serve in. We are so grateful the Lord has called our family here. Our prayer is that this video makes you feel as though you're right here with us seeing a glimpse into our daily life and the people we love and serve. The idea behind this video was to showcase the beauty and innocence of life here (depicted through children) contrasted by the reality of spiritual darkness and poverty of spirit the Thai people face every day. Lastly, we pray you enjoy watching this video and that seeing their faces stirs your heart to pray for the people of Trang.

Updates

2 Years!!!

This month we celebrated two years in Thailand! We are so grateful to God for sustaining us this long. This is a huge feat as 80% of missionaries have returned home by this point. We praise God that no one on our team has left. We are now entering a very exciting time for YWAM Trang as we transition out of our Language and Culture phase and into full-time, active ministry! Please pray for us and our team as we begin pioneering ministries in Trang. We already have some ideas for teaching English, sports ministry, evangelistic preaching, and more but we want them to be from the Lord's heart and not just "good ideas."

Big Steps!

Hudson is now 9 months old! He began walking at 8 and a half months. There’s no stopping him now! Some things he likes: being held, having his teeth brushed, rattles, and going on walks outside. Things he doesn’t like: eggs, the feeling of a hairbrush, laying on his back. (He gets it from his dad who was a wrestler in college.)

Don & Gee

This month we visited Don and Gee (our Muslim friends). We hadn’t seen them in what felt like a while so we decided to stop by. It turns out they have been very busy building a new restaurant right next to their existing one! They showed us the blueprints as they helped design it. Please pray that the building process will go smoothly and that these two will come to know Christ. We believe they’re very close to knowing the Truth.

Visa Run: Success!

Erik and I successfully made a trip to Bangkok with Hudson to have him put under Erik's visa. Erik's visa covers me and any children we may have. However, it's a bit of a hassle to correctly do all the necessary paperwork and make the trip up north. Thankfully we have great friends at EFT (Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand) who help us out and even go with us to Immigration. Here is a picture of P Gawn from EFT helping us get Hudson under the visa. Thank you to everyone who prayed that this time would go smoothly!

Missional Community Dinner

The other night our neighbor and fellow missionary Braden (to the left of me) needed some paperwork from his landlord. While they were here, Erik and I helped with translating the conversation about the documents needed. They fell in love with Hudson and ended up coming back the next day to cook an entire Thai dinner for us all! The wife (not pictured) especially loves Hudson and held him the whole time we ate. We had a wonderful time of fellowship and were able to share a bit about Christianity with them.

P Air, P Bow and Nong Phil

During one of our missional community outings, we went to visit P Air to pray for his knee. He is the person we buy our drinking water from and we’ve been building a friendship with him for the last two years. He is one of the most devout Buddhists we know. He lives across the street from this lady, P Bow, who has three grandsons. Hudson loved hanging out with Phil (about a year and three months old) and we all ate at a restaurant next to P Air’s home. It was fun to get out into our neighborhood and spend quality time building these friendships.

Prayer Requests

Please click the photo to view and download our updated prayer request. Thank you as always for keeping us in your prayers.

Special Message For Our Friends and Family

Hello and สวัสดีค่ะ We pray you're having a wonderful summer and know that we miss you all so much. Reaching our two-year milestone in Thailand would not be possible without your prayers and support. This is an enormous victory for us all, and we hope that you will feel/know that as a certainty. As we now seek out potential ministry opportunities and prepare for the hosting teams/DTS, we will continue to learn language and culture. Your prayers during this time are highly coveted. We look forward to visiting you all soon.

Thank you,

The Gonzalez Family

Financial update

Reoccurring support: $2517.15

Monthly costs: $2,300

One-time donations: $668.33

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